The Heart Project

The Irish Centre for Human Rights is an associate partner of the Heart (Higher Education Action for Human Rights Teaching) project. The HEART project seeks to develop service learning at higher education in the Western Balkans. 
  
The main goal for the entire project is ’the creation of inter-disciplinary/trans-disciplinary human rights undergraduate and postgraduate degrees and cross curricula courses at universities in the Western Balkans that respond to the concerns and needs expressed at national and regional levels for curriculum reform and modernisation at degree level in law and good government including human rights, and that meet EU education standards and requirements’. 
  
Over three years, the project aims to develop interdisciplinary university curricula in human rights and citizenship in 5 western Balkan countries – Albania, Bosnia – Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia. The project is also utilising the specialist expertise of each of the participating EU universities (the universities of Roehampton, Mannheim, Gothenburg and NUI Galway) in a 'mutually enriching collaboration designed to support and enhance the existing expertise and experience of universities in the Western Balkans’. 
  
Further, through training and educating, staff, students and administrators in human rights will be provided with: 'ongoing curriculum development skills that can be applied to future programmes and courses'. In addition, the project intends to involve students in the development of programmes and courses and teaching and learning pedagogy so as to ensure that programmes and courses meet their learning needs. 
  
It is a three years Tempus project funded by the European Commission. It has just entered its 2nd year.