The first working session began on January 3rd, early in the morning. First, Prof. Miguel de Simón Martín (ULe) welcomed all the members and made an individual presentation of each one of them. Then, Prof. Olfa Bel Hadj Brahim (Uso), coordinator of the AIRES project, began to review deliverables D1.1, D1.2 and D1.3.  

In the first of the deliverables, Prof. Miguel de Simón Martín (ULe) proposes slight changes in the composition of the different working committees affecting only members of ULe, which were accepted by all members, resulting in the composition as shown in Table 1:  

Table 1. Final approved composition of all committees of the project.

Then, it was revised deliverable D1.2, and after an exchange of opinions, the meeting schedule was modified at the request of Prof. Sara Balderas (UCA). After an exchange of opinions, the schedule shown in Table 2 is unanimously decided:

Table 2. Final meeting schedule.

Finally,  it was agreed to strengthen the project’s dissemination strategy by preparing a web page, thus approving deliverable D1.3 .

In the second session, Prof. Miguel de Simón Martín (ULe) took the floor to present the draft report on the hardware and software resources available for the project (deliverable D1.4), sent to the partners the previous week. The report lists the different infrastructures and resources available at each university in the consortium for carrying out the project. A classification is made between general and specific resources, where the latter are divided into laboratories, specific equipment, software and external resources.

According to this classification, the consortium accounts for 9 specific laboratories, 10 specific equipment and 19 software resources, totalling 38 specific resources and infrastructures. Within the available resources, it is proposed to ensure that all the universities in the consortium have the necessary resources to guarantee universal access to them, with support for students with disabilities and with consideration of the gender perspective.

The University of Sousse proposes distinguishing its laboratories between research and teaching and will send this information to ULe (task leaders) in the following weeks to complete the report.

The University of León, on the other hand, stresses the importance of showing collaboration agreements with external organisations and companies in the project’s scope and commits to completing the report in the coming weeks by consulting the consortium partners in this regard.

Although the possibility of including available human resources was mentioned, it was reminded that this report only covers hardware and software resources. Therefore, it is agreed to consider human resources in the design of the curriculum by each university. 

All project partners approved the draft presented with the agreed modifications, and its final approval is proposed for the next consortium meeting.

In the third session, the design of the competency framework of the degree prepared by the University of Trnava was presented (deliverable D1.5). The general framework was designed around the Engineer 5.0 and Entrepreneur 5.0, information completed by the University of Sousse.

Within this context, competencies have been divided into essential, functional and specific competencies. The partners agree with the general outline of the essential and functional competencies and agree to review the specific ones according to the development of the syllabus.

Prof. Sara Balderas (UCA) suggested expanding the references in the document, while Prof. Olfa Bel Hadj Brahim (USO) suggested summarising the document to make it more concrete. The University of León, for its part, provided the partners with a set of references from other existing Erasmus Mundus study programs to complete the general framework of competencies:

• Erasmus Mundus Master in Law, Data and AI (EMILDAY) [ULE].
• Erasmus Mundus Master In Decentralised Smart Energy Systems (DENSYS).
• Erasmus Mundus Master in Renewable Energy in the Marine Environment (REM).
• Master in Renewable Energy in Power Systems (UC3M) [Not ERASMUS MUNDUS].

The University of Trnava undertook to revise the document in full according to the indications given by the partners, and all members agreed to approve the final version at the next consortium meeting.

In the early afternoon, the last working meeting of the day was started to which they were invited by the ULe, Prof. Nuria González Álvarez, Vice-Rector for Academic Activity and Mr Rafael de Paz Urueña, Director of the Internationalization Service, to advise the working group in this task.

Figure  SEQ Figura \* ARABIC 4. Work session num. 4.

First, Prof. Sara Balderas (UCA) took the floor to explain the conditions to apply for the Erasmus Mundus recognition, highlighting that the duration of the Master’s degree must be 120 ECTS, distributed in 4 semesters and that students must pass through two countries different from their country of origin to be eligible for the scholarship.

Regarding the accreditation process, the Spanish university system (which includes UCA and ULe) is fully aligned with ESG. In contrast, the Italian (UAQ) and the Slovak (UT) ones are only partially aligned. On the other hand, Tunisia (USO) does not to have currently a recognised quality assurance system. 

According to Professors Carlo Cecati and Concettina Bruccella (UAQ), who took the floor, the University of L’Aquila is fully accredited, so the accreditation of the degree through this university would be valid and recognised for all EU member countries. For its part, the USO would have to accredit the degree nationally. 

In this context, Prof. Nuria González Álvarez and Mr Rafael de Paz Urueña (ULe) took the floor. They explained the difficulties of access to an Erasmus Mundus designation and its accreditation, stating that they suggest starting with the master’s degree without funding and once it is up and running, apply for the Erasmus Mundus recognition. However, Prof. Gabriel Guerrero (UCA) stated that it is possible to request the Erasmus Mundus without being in operation since, according to the regulations of this process, nowhere expresses that it is easier this way. 

After a brief discussion among the partners, it is agreed to take up again the focus of the degree and the accreditation strategy in Session 6.

After the previous work sessions, a visit is made to the Royal Pantheon of the Collegiate Church (Colegiata) of San Isidoro, the historical heritage of León.

Figure 5. Visit the Royal Pantheon at the Collegiate Church of San Isidoro.