UM receives EU funding to further enhance student employability

The University of Malta has received funding from the EU with the aim of further developing the technical and transferable skills needed for linguistics and language students to conduct industry and academic research, and hence become more employable.

As the Lead Partner of project UPSKILLS, or UPgrading the SKills of Linguistics and Language Students, the University of Malta’s Institute of Linguistics and Language Technology, is working towards a new curriculum component aimed at developing these needed skills, through a mixture of online and blended learning and reliance on the use of innovative pedagogies, primarily online educational games.

Partnering up in this effort, the Department of Artificial Intelligence and the Institute of Digital Games are also offering their expertise in the area. 

The project, which kicked off in September 2020, combines the elements of research with training and targets relevant students, academics and industrial stakeholders through a number of dedicated multiplier and training events.

The development of this component relies on the production of four intellectual outputs, namely:

1. An in-depth needs analysis that’ll give rise to a detailed professional profile description for the relevant graduates and corresponding learning objectives, tasks and responsibilities
2. An identification of best practices and guidelines for integrating research into teaching
3. An adaptation of existing and creation of new learning content to develop such skills
4. An integration of educational games into the learning content in the interest of enhancing student engagement

The first multiplier event, which will see the participants share the results of the needs analysis in the project with a larger audience, will be held on 25 June 2021.

UPSKILLS will eventually culminate in a summer school to be held in Serbia in July 2023.

More information is accessible via the project website. Project Leader, Dr Stavros Assimakopoulos can also be contacted via email.