Current projects
Part of the work of the CHES is cooperation on projects with international, national and regional partners. We have long-term experience in preparing, leading and managing projects. If you are looking for a partner for projects in the field of higher education, please contact us.
The ACME project (Start 2025)
CHES together with other European partners is involved in the preparation of a new international project called ACME (EGCompetency), which is aimed at developing and testing a tool for measuring the competences of HEIs‘ graduates. ACME responds to the need for better and, where possible, internationally comparable measurement of graduate competences. In doing so, it would contribute to the development of the forthcoming European Eurograduate 2026 survey with a more reliable tool for measuring graduate competences.
Objectives and benefits of the project
The main objective of the ACME (European Graduate Competency) project is to develop and pilot an innovative instrument that will allow the reliable measurement of the level of selected competences of recent graduates. This tool should become part of the forthcoming Eurograduate survey in 2026 and future years and improve the existing data collection by providing more reliable information on what competences graduates take away from their studies. The outputs of the project will inform the development of a methodology to ensure that graduate competences are captured in a consistent and comparable way across countries in the Eurograduate survey.
Main partners
The project brings together four higher education and research institutions. It is coordinated by the Portuguese CIPES (Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies). The other partners are the CHES, the French Céreq (Centre d’études et de recherches sur les qualifications) and the German DZHW (Deutsches Zentrum für Hochschul- und Wissenschaftsforschung). The combined expertise of these institutions provides a strong background for the successful implementation of the project.
The importance of the topic of competences and how to measure them
Competences acquired during higher education – be it professional knowledge or transferable skills such as the ability to solve problems, communicate, work in a team or adapt to change – have a major impact on the professional careers and further development of graduates. In the context of a rapidly changing economy and society, there is therefore a growing emphasis on equipping graduates with the practical competences needed for practice and lifelong learning. The issue of graduate competences is thus at the forefront of the minds of both education policy and employers. The measurement of competences, especially soft competences, is a separate chapter. Existing ways of measuring transferable competences are proving to be of limited reliability and practically inapplicable for international comparisons. The ACME project responds to this need and wishes to provide valuable insights on how to measure graduate competences more effectively across countries.
The role of CHES
The CHES team has been working on the issue of competences in higher education for a long time and has already applied its experience in the preparation of the ACME project. In the forthcoming project, CHES will participate in the development of the methodology. Participation in this consortium builds on previous activities. The results obtained will help to better understand how European HEIs prepare their graduates in terms of competences and will thus contribute to improving the quality of higher education in the country as well as in Europe.
Digital Innovations for Alternative Dispute Resolution in V4 Countries and Ukraine (DIGARD V4U) (2024-2026)
Consortium:
Ukraine: Project coordinator: Science Entrepreneurship Technology University (SET)
Slovakia: European Information Society Institute, o. z. (EISI)
Poland: European Centre for Alternative Dispute Resolutions (ECADR)
Czech Republic: Center for Higher Education Studies (CHES)
Hungary: Corvinus University of Budapest
Project context:
Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), as mediation, arbitration, and negotiation, has significantly progressed in V4 with technological advancements. ICT, big data, or AI brings opportunities, while the conditions in each country and sector on adoption, diffusion and advancement of digital innovation significantly vary. The ADR professionals need advancement of digital capabilities, e.g. skilled operation and exploitation of the digitized knowledge to ease/support their entrepreneurship, networking, and services for clients. Innovative formats of communication between the arbitration institution and the parties, cybersecurity, speeding up and simplification of procedural rules, use of online platforms do not come into use easily. Professionals face digital literacy, privacy concerns, and the digital divide.
The project aims to develop a ready-to-apply awareness on digital innovations of the V4 and Ukrainian actors of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) via analysis of the existing practices, benchmarking necessary competencies and designing and pilot-testing of the online course in English and Ukrainian. It will support Ukraine in its judicial transformations, will share and enrich V4 experience via developing a set of research-based educational tools and materials and their wide promotion. It is a cross-sectoral effort of ADR, digital innovations and educational professionals towards the unique and up-to-date topic relevant for each partner country. The lack of understanding of best practices and availability of suitable technology impacts the scope of collaboration between ADR and IT sectors.
Project target groups:
- ADR organisations (organisation operating ADR), organisations wanting to establish their own ADR in V4 and Ukraine; ADR professionals as individuals interested in their professional advancement and future-to-be ADR professionals.
- Legal practitioners and students in the target countries.
- Digital sector professionals and organisations working in innovations who would like to cooperate with the ADR sector or already provide their digital services/solutions.
- (indirect beneficiaries) National and local justice bodies engaged in dispute, legal matters on the ADR, both of public and non-governmental nature/
- (indirect beneficiaries) Potential consumers of the ADR providers services.
The project is co-financed by the governments of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from the International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe.
More about the project: https://academ.setuniversity.edu.ua/en/international-activities/current-projects/digital-innovations-for-alternative-dispute-resolution-in-v4-cou/
Donor Website: https://www.visegradfund.org/
UASiMAP (2020–2023)
The aim of the Erasmus+ UASiMAP (Mapping Regional Eengagement of Universities of Applied Sciences) project is to develop a self-reflection tool for universities of applied sciences (UAS) in the field of regional engagement that will measure the local engagement of UAS and the development of their further strategies. The project maps UAS activities and aims to collect examples of good practice in this field. It will also draw on the experiences and conclusions of other similar initiatives and projects (e.g. HEInnovate, U-Multirank, TEFCE).
EURASHE is the principal investigator of the project. Partners are Augentis (Italy), Flemish Council of Universities of Applied Sciences and Arts (VLHORA), Hungarian Rectors’ Conference, Technological Higher Education Association (THEA, Ireland), The Portuguese Polytechnics Coordinating Council, TTK University of Applied Sciences (TTK UAS, Estonia) and Centre for higher education studies, Prague (CHES, CZ).
The results achieved so far in each WP can be found on the UASiMAP website. Other two available publications are Selected Chapters of Contemporary Topics in Vocational Education (information on Czech and Slovak vocational education in Czech), and Mapping the Role of European Universities of Applied Sciences as Entrepreneurial Hubs of Regional Development.
Personal learning environment of undergraduate medical students (2020–2023)
The project is led by the Higher education institution of Health Sciences Prague, and involves the Technical University of Liberec and the Association of Professional Tertiary Education.
The aim of the project is to create a Personal Learning Environment (PLE) for medical students of general nurse and paramedic, which are highly regulated in higher education institutions. The project examines, for example, the low level of student concentration and motivation and proposes improvements. It is aimed at teachers and students of these disciplines, who will be offered personalised flexible learning pathways using modern 21st century teaching methods and technologies, within the highly regulated framework of the medical fields.
The output of the project will be a comprehensive research report including a methodology for introducing PLE in medical fields, a didactic method and textbook showing also concrete examples of good practice, 2 research articles, 4 workshops and a final conference. Further information can be found on the SPTV website (in Czech).
EUROGRADUATE 2018–2019 and 2022-2024
The EUROGRADUATE project, co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union, was set up as a pilot survey in 2018-2020 and involved 8 Member States, including the Czech Republic. In 2022, it is followed by a second phase of the pilot survey, lasting a total of 30 months until June 2024. 17 EU countries are already participating in this phase. The aim of this phase of the pilot survey is not only to increase the number of participating countries, but also to increase the quality of the data and to test the use of administrative data in a part of the participating countries.
In the Czech Republic, the project is coordinated by the team of the Centre for Higher Education Studies. The European EUROGRADUATE survey in the Czech Republic will merge with the national survey, thus reducing the burden on higher education institutions and respondents. Data collection will take place from November 2022 to mid-January 2023.
The aim of the first phase of the 2018-2019 pilot survey was primarily to test the feasibility of a Europe-wide graduate survey, identify potential barriers and find solutions. Thus, the Czech Republic, through the Centre for Higher Education Studies, participated in the planning, design and implementation of the survey. The second objective of the project in the first period was to obtain comparable data on higher education institutions graduates in Europe to help policy makers monitor their labour market participation, skills development and also trends in social inequalities. The field phase of the first round of the pilot survey took place between October 2018 and February 2019 and covered higher education institutions graduates in the academic years 2012/2013 and 2016/2017.
Eurograduate 2022 is particularly interested in the experiences of university graduates during their studies and the impact on their professional and civic life. The main topics of the survey are the characteristics of graduates‘ study programme, skills acquired, educational pathways and modes of learning, international mobility, labour market outcomes, followed by political attitudes and political participation. Questions on some personal characteristics of the graduates, such as their personal and social background and health status, are then asked in order to better understand the different groups of graduates.
If you want to know more about the project, please see https://www.csvs.cz/en/current-projects/eurograduate/, furter, you can find more details, including the final reports from the initial phase of the pilot survey (national country reports, the report evaluating the implementation of the survey and the project summary report) and a number of other documents on the EUROGRADUATE website.
Strengthening Women's Entrepreneurial Capacity (2023)
The project led by CHES and supported by V4 and Ukrainian partner organizations, aims to build on and develop the entrepreneurial mindset of temporarily displaced Ukrainian women via an online training programme on starting their own business in V4 countries. Relevant knowledge and developed skills will result in participants’ business ideas ready to be implemented locally at places of temporary residence.
This project is financed by Visegrad fund and these subjects are included in the project:
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