About Mastermind Europe
Mastermind Europe was set up to respond to the need for a better way to decide which students are suitable for which Master’s programme. Fewer and fewer Master’s programmes have one specific Bachelor’s programme to which they ‘belong’. More and more Master’s programmes actively seek to build their classroom with students from diverse background: in terms of their national and cultural background, their disciplinary background, and their prior experience in education and in practice. This growing diversity requires new and better ways to answer the key question: “Which students are (most) suitable for admission to my Master’s programme – and how do I know if they are?” The Mastermind Europe helps Master’s programmes to improve their admission practice, to be more transparent to prospective students and to create better feedback loops between admission and the Master’s programme itself. It helps to respond to the growing demand for more competency-oriented education, preparing graduates for life and work in which they will have to go on learning and adapting to a changing environment. Mastermind Europe started as a Strategic Partnership project, with support from the ERASMUS+ programme. In the project, we developing a Toolkit with Guiding Tools and other resources resources that can support academic directors of Master’s programmes with an interest to improve their admission system. These tools were tested first in eight broad Focus Groups and then in seven pilots and individual Master’s level.
The Mastermind Europe tools are multiple: = Three Research reports looking into – perceived and real – current practice in Master’s level admissions in Europe as well as in – perceived and real – legal obstacles to improve admission; = A total of six Guiding tools helping Master’s coordinators answer critical questions for their programme –Which admission criteria are relevant? Which level must students meet on that criterion? How can we assess if they do? How can we ensure transparency for applicants? How do we monitor predictive value? – and providing potential solutions; = A pool of Experts, with trained and motivated individuals who can assist Master’s programmes and universities seeking outside support in their improvement process; = A repository providing access to the relevant literature on various aspects of Master’s admission. You can read more about each of these outputs on the various parts of the website. While Mastermind Europe supports the transition to more competency-based admissions, it is not advocating a total split with past efforts. The project’s outputs are complementary to existing “recognition” instruments e.g. in the context of the Lisbon Convention, the NARIC network, the EAR, the Tuning process and the Pathfinders’ work. Mastermind Europe aims to offer an alternative option for those Master’s programmes with a greater need for innovation, while adding value and quality to the existing recognition process.
About the consortium
The consortium consists of a balanced mix of universities, universities’ associations, and specialised organisations from various regions within the European Union. The Consortium is built to be able to function at three levels: at the institutional level, at the national level, and at the European level, because the instruments need to be developed with input at programme level, but need to have an impact at both national and European level. With the transition from the Erasmus+ project, there were also some changes in the Consortium: three of the eleven original partners decided not to continue. We want to express our sincere gratitude to the colleagues from Ziggurat, from the Karl Franzens Universität Graz and from the University of Ljubljana for their priceless contribution to the success of Mastermind Europe. And we have welcomed NOKUT (the Norwegian National Academic Recognition Centre) and the Catalan Interuniversity Council as new members.
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