The COVID-19 pandemic has had a great impact on the way HEIs deliver their education plans. According to the first IAU Global Survey on the impact of COVID-19 on HE, 85% of the EU HEIs that participated in the survey had to replace their classroom teaching by distance education, while a whole 12% had to suspend their teaching while developing solutions. On a global scale, 7% of the HEIs had to completely cancel their teaching during Spring 2020. Most of the institutions have been confronted with a sudden and unprepared shift to online teaching to respond to the need to continue teaching and learning activities and to engage and motivate students when social distancing measures are in place.

The V4U project (Project Number: 2020-1-DK01-KA226-HE-094188) aims at addressing the challenges that impact the feasibility and quality of distance learning in Architecture and Fine Arts by developing:

• an innovative e-learning platform to accommodate a pedagogical approach for distance learning and to facilitate the training process of students in virtual technologies.
• a training plan and material for the development of skills in virtual technologies

V4U brings together 4 HEIs, 1 research center and 1 SME with the aim to link the three main pillars of education, research, and innovation, and assure a multidisciplinary cooperation. The involvement of the business sector in all stages of the training (initial skills’ gap research, design, delivery and evaluation) ensures a collaborative approach based on partnership, while inter- and trans-disciplinarity is guaranteed by the diversity of study fields provided by partner HEIs and partnership composition. The project thus addresses the need to enhance the quality and relevance of human capital development in HEI and foster employability by involving employers in the design and delivery of programs, supporting teaching staff joint training and including practical experience in courses.