Introducing the ”Pan-European soft skills curriculum for undergraduate
veterinary education – SOFTVETS” project

Recent research and surveys among veterinarians show an increasing need for enabling veterinarians with skills to cope with challenges imposed on them by the ever changing world and the enormous strain the profession puts on them. Skill acquisition and development are essential for the performance and modernization of the profession in order to provide new forms of flexibility and security for veterinary professionals. Therefore, the target group of this project are students of veterinary medicine that need to be better prepared for real-life challenges in their future working environment.

The goal of this project (http://www.softvets.eu/) is to create a framework, and produce an ideal version of the new soft skills curriculum that would be applicable in veterinary higher education throughout Europe. As it should cover a wide range of life skills to cover all aspects of modern day challenges it will be organized in three sections: interpersonal communication, entrepreneurship and digital skills. The project team will firstly develop a set of recommendations for learning outcomes in life skills, a training concept for education of teachers involved in soft skill teaching and carry out a pilot implementation project of selected modules at implementation partners’ institutions.

The project started in 2018 and got founded for 24 months. Due to the corona pandemic in March 2020 we applied for an extension and it was grated , so the project will end on the 30th of September 2021.

The intellectual outcomes will be developed in coordination with students’ association, professional association of veterinarians and an accreditation authority for veterinary education establishments within Europe to make sure it responds correctly to the needs of both students and labour market.

More details about the project are available at the Erasmus+ Project Results Platform:

https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/projects/eplus-project-details/#project/2018-1-HR01-KA203-047494

Coordinator:

University of Zagreb-faculty of veterinary medicine

Partners:

University of Veterinary Medicine, Budapest

EAEVE

Stiftung Tieraerztliche Hochschule Hannover

Univerza v Ljubljani

Veterinaermedizinische Universitaet Wien

Wirtschaftsuniversitat Wien