About the project
Even though international mobility has a long tradition for scientific staff and PhD students, opportunities for Bachelor and master students to gain relevant work experience in other countries and cultures have been absent. The GeoIntern International project will provide an arena for Bachelor and Master students in geoscience to obtain international work life experience during their studies. This will help prepare them for future work in internationally operating companies and agencies working to solve challenges of the Earth being an integrated system that knows no boarders.
The main goals of the project are to:
Establish a systematic approach to facilitate international internships in entities in the geoscience sector abroad and through that:
- Offer geoscience students the possibility to develop and train their skills and competence in international working environments.
- Offer the students international geoscience relevance knowledge.
- Provide students work experience in an international market
- Provide students vital transferable skills.
- Communication and dissemination across cultures
- Networking
- Organizational theory
Expected results of the project:
- An increasing international network experience abroad both for students and Staff/peers involved instudent supervision.
- Competitive students being attractive for more high-stake positions in the national and international job market.
- Increased transferable and scientific skills level.
- Increase career competence level among students and scientists within geoscience.
- Increased internship and relevance knowledge across the learning communities nationally and internationally.The goals, measures and expected results for the GeoIntern International project are relevant for the UTFORSK goals of strengthening international partnerships within areas of mutual and strategic interest, in this case between the departments of geosciences in Norway and the involved partner institutions in partner countries. . Furthermore, the goals and results will enhance the quality and relevance of study programmes at different institutions. The project will develop systematic models to perform international internships within geoscience.
Needs assesment and background:
The labor market for graduates within the geosciences in Norway has changed dramatically, after a dominance of the petroleum sector for multiple decades. Whereas more than 70 % of the graduates were employed in this sector about one decade ago, this sector employs 10-15% at present. Given the dominance of the national petroleum industry on the Norwegian labor marked, creating a systematic awareness of work-related experience in an international context during university studies was unnecessary and had been neglected. In addition to the changesin the labor marked, the Norwegian authorities request from universities to implement a stronger emphasis on internships and work-related experience in the education, and to put these into an international context. In light of these changes and requests, the proposed GeoIntern International project is a timely initiative that will be of great benefit for our students.
Work plan and timeline
The activities in this project include project establishment, exchange agreements, partneronboarding, student participation, exchange of students bilaterally, continuous surveillance and quality control, administrative tasks regarding student mobility, contact routines during exchange, continuous educational research following the didactic evolution of the project. One of the first steps will be to formally establish the network of all partners in form of a digital startup seminar. This seminar is planned 3.May 2023.
Overarching goals, as well as plans for management and performance will be presented and shared to achieve a common understanding of the detailed project progressand deliverables. Given the diversity of cultures involved in this project, we will also ensure a common understanding of relevant matters through a two-way communication and regular meetings with individual partners.
The first exchange will focus on internships of students from Norway abroad. Partner universities and institutions will provide relevant opportunities for internship during Q1 2023.We will announce available positions to our students as soon as possible to ensure that they can perform their internships during the summer of 2023.
We plan to exchange 10 students each of the project years - 5 Norwegian students and 5 international students each year.