Itziar Rekalde and Julieta Barrenechea

Ocean i3, a cross-border community committed to the ocean

Academic coordinator of the Ocean i3 Project at the UPV/EHU and Ocean i3 project leader on the Euskampus Bordeaux Campus, respectively

Cathedra

First publication date: 17/06/2021

Julieta Barrenechea and Itziar Rekalde. Photo: Nagore Iraola. UPV/EHU.

Every day we receive more information on pollution in the seas and oceans caused by the invasion of plastics. In fact, nobody can ignore the images of the massive slicks of plastic floating through the seas, which are even more distressing when they show animals surrounded by plastic bottles and other waste. The responsibility we feel towards the environment and the planet’s health as we watch these images can doubtlessly be used to boost commitment, implication and action from the university community.

The Ocean i3 project (Oi3) is an educational innovation initiative developed within the framework of the strategic alliance of the Euskampus Bordeaux cross-border International Campus of Excellence and involves the UPV/EHU and the University of Bordeaux (UB) university communities. It began as a pilot experience in the 2018-2019 academic year and has received funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) since 2020.

Oi3 takes on board the key aspects of the UPV/EHU’s own educational model, known as IKD i3, which combines learning, research and sustainability, incorporating values from the United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda (2015) compiled in the EHUagenda 2030 and in the road map for transitions (environmental and social) that forms part of the UB’s strategic plan for 2030 (U30). Thereby matching up these universities’ work with the major challenges for the planet and people.

Students from both universities, accompanied by their teachers, get an experience in education for sustainability that mainly consists of an inter-university, interdisciplinary, multilingual and multicultural schedule of intensive training. They develop cross-discipline skills for sustainability by getting involved in real challenges set by social actors from the Basque-Aquitaine cross-border coastline, bound to the issue of plastics in the sea.

The students’ work revolves around five workshops where they are put in inter-university groups to work on a challenge set by social actors such as Surfrider, Kutxa Ekogunea, Rivages ProTECH, GAIA, UNSS64, CAPB…

The Oi3 training schedule uses participative learning dynamics so that in their teams, the students: a) jointly define the scope of the challenge/problem they have been assigned, b) design feasible, specific and measurable proposals in a collective and interdisciplinary way, and c) offer results (action plans, studies, prototypes, specific interventions, etc.) agreed with the territorial stakeholders that impact these challenges so as to help reduce plastics along the Basque-Aquitaine cross-border coastline.

The innovation project approach encompasses students on undergraduate and postgraduate courses from both universities through their implication and commitment to Final Year Projects (TFG) and Master’s Degree Projects (TFM), voluntary internships, course projects, doctoral dissertations, etc. involving degrees in Law, Advertising, Psychology, Business Administration and Management, Nursing, Pedagogy, Biology, Chemical Engineering, French, Sports Sciences, Criminology... and master’s degrees such as Multilingualism and Education, and Research into Socio-educational Fields at the UPV/EHU and the PhD in Ecotoxicology at the UB.

This gives the whole Oi3 community (students, teachers and social actors) the chance to work on skills required to tackle the challenges raised by sustainability such as: understanding and solving complex problems, creativity and global and comprehensive vision of problems, communication in cross-cultural and multilingual contexts...

In Oi3, the students, teachers and social actors all benefit from taking part in an extended community of knowledge and intervention where specialists from different areas work together by providing their know-how and experience to support and run actions and outputs from students at UPV/EHU and UB.

Results to date

Over the last three academic years (2018-2019, 2019-2020 and 2020-2021), 98 students have taken part and generated 90 individual academic products (TFG, TFM…) and 34 territorial stakeholders from either side of the border have worked closely together on 14 collective, interdisciplinary and multilingual projects that have fed the proposed challenges. Furthermore, the 27 voluntary internship contracts that have been signed have made their mark on the cross-border entities tied to the blue economy and have extended employability possibilities for the students.

In the 2019-2020 academic year, an interuniversity-international teaching team was also set up for educational innovation with around 30 teachers that is renewed annually, entitled Oi3 Campus Educational Innovation Project (backed by the UPV/EHU Educational Advice Service). It intends for the actual teachers involved to research actions developed in the project, reflect and make decisions to redirect them.

Finally, it should be highlighted that the Dream (multilingualism and interculturality) and IkasGura (higher education) consolidated research groups monitor the use of languages and the cross-discipline skills development processes with the consequent support for their findings to lead change and constant improvement in Oi3.

Oi3 constitutes an authentic and significant learning environment for students because it sets them actions where they must combine their know-how and experience and where their decisions and actions are reflected and make their mark on the well-being of the sea.