30 June 2025

New online toolkit for joint courses

Unite! launches a practical toolkit to support collaborative teaching across partner universities, helping staff create joint courses, share resources, and connect across borders.

Unite! universities aim to foster the internationalisation of education through teaching collaboration. By working together, universities can pool resources, share expertise, explore innovative pedagogical approaches, and build meaningful connections with students and colleagues across borders. 

To support this mission, Unite! has launched the Joint Educational Offering Online Toolkit—a practical resource designed for academic and administrative staff involved in developing and running joint educational activities. The Toolkit offers essential tools, guidelines, best practices and local points of contact, collected from all nine Unite! partner universities*. 

“Creating collaborative courses requires consideration of multiple aspects. The online toolkit introduces various building blocks for collaborative education in Unite!, including pedagogical, multicultural and multilingual, Metacampus, online learning and Erasmus+ funding guidelines, as well as administrative processes across Unite universities. Our toolkit provides a wide range of resources to give teachers a broad perspective on the topic and outlines the three levels of teaching cooperation within Unite: joint programs, collaborative courses, and virtual courses"

Three main types of collaboration

• Joint Programmes – Degree-awarding master’s programmes offered jointly by two or more universities. 

• Collaborative Courses – Single courses or modules co-taught by multiple universities. 

• Virtual Exchanges – Courses offered by one university that are made available to students across other Unite! universities. 

Joint Programmes

Unite! seeks to strengthen educational collaboration, particularly through international joint programmes (JPs) that lead to double, multiple, or joint degrees. The Online Toolkit covers a range of topics—from EU education policy instruments to practical advice for designing, launching, or updating JPs. Key supporting documents, such as a consortium agreement template and process maps for setting up JPs, are included. 

To help navigate varying institutional requirements, the Toolkit includes the Joint Programme Design Filtering Tool, which allows users to compare rules and regulations across partner universities. 

"The Toolkit is the result of a transversal collaboration between Communities 4 and 5 that aims to provide resources to address the pedagogical and administrative challenges involved in creating joint educational offerings"

Collaborative Courses

The Toolkit also supports two main formats of collaborative teaching: Blended Intensive Programmes (BIPs) and Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL). It provides guidance on administrative processes, roles and responsibilities, funding, and other practical considerations. 

One example of a successful BIP is the Unite! U!Train course. In 2024, 30 students from all partner universities participated in this unique programme, travelling together by train between two Unite! universities while engaging in joint academic activities. The course was delivered collaboratively by several teachers across institutions and was widely regarded as a success. The online toolkit has teachers covered in case they want to collaborate and design together.  

Virtual Exchanges

The Unite! Virtual Exchange Credit Programme (VECP) enables students to enrich their studies by taking online courses from other universities within the alliance. VECP in Multicultural and Multilingualism and VECP in Energy are among Unite!’s longest-running initiatives, with established processes and framework agreements already in place. 

The number of participating Unite! partners in a VECP may vary based on subject area and agreement scope. The Toolkit includes step-by-step guidelines for academic staff interested in opening their courses to students across the network.