Best Practice Guide for Designing and Delivering EPICUR courses
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EPICUR International Learning Competences
EPICUR International Learning Competences
Why EPICUR International Learning Competences?
The prioritisation of teaching and learning intercultural competences and providing spaces for intercultural dialogue at international level (Council of Europe, 2008, White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue) is fundamental to the aims of EU Alliances.
Intercultural competences facilitate our awareness of our own cultural lenses and norms, which may influence our perceptions of intercultural situations and behaviours, and they provide us with a toolkit for adapting our behaviour and responses to accommodate differences.
EPICUR courses provide opportunities for intercultural communication and collaboration between students and teachers. To support the integration of intercultural learning competences into EPICUR courses, there is a list of EPICUR International Learning Competences:
When planning an EPICUR course it can help to identify which of the EPICUR International Learning Competences the students will have the opportunity to develop as they study the module. This information is then available to the students when they are reviewing course offers and by making the competences explicit, the teacher and the students are reminded about the possibilities the course offers.
The EPICUR International Learning Competences are organised in four categories:
- Methods & Approaches
- Communication & Collaboration
- Knowledge & Expertise
- Transfer & Application
Each category includes five discrete competences. When planning an EPICUR course, we recommend incorporating at least two competences in the course, these can be from any of the four categories. You can of course include more, as long as the students have meaningful opportunities to develop all the competences associated with the course.
4 key points about enabling the development of international Competences in in-person or online classes
- The Methods & Approaches category
includes pedagogically related competence development opportunities, e.g.
M.1. Interactivity: Engage with interactive approaches to learn about complex and evolving issues or
M.2. Innovativeness: Engage with innovative pedagogies and methodologies. - The Communication & Collaboration category
refers to inter-personal oral, written and digital communication, e.g.
C.2. Cultural Sensitivity: Engage sensitively with others, drawing on an understanding of cultural influences on yourself and others and
C.5. Digital Literacy: Demonstrate informed and ethical digital literacy when researching and disseminating ideas and information. - The Knowledge & Expertise category
addresses competences related to learning and disseminating the course’s subject content, e.g.
K.1. Scientific Knowledge: Pursue knowledge and/or expertise in one or more EPICUR Priority Areas and
K.5. Impact: Critically reflect on research outcomes and their impact on stakeholders and environments. - The Transfer & Application category
focuses on how the learner can apply their international learning competences in social, civic and sustainability contexts, e.g.
T.3. Environmental Agency: Demonstrate agency for environmental justice in local to global contexts, and their own commitment to their lifelong learning
T.4. Futures: Recognise the need to understand, evaluate, and/or navigate multiple futures including the possible, probable and desirable.
EPICUR International Learning Competences in practice
When identifying which EPICUR international learning competences an EPICUR course will address, you could start with the course learning outcomes and see how they best align with the EPICUR learning competences. If the course learning outcomes already include competences, identify any which are like those in the EPICUR list.
If you have time to review course learning outcomes or you are designing a new course, you could start by identifying which EPICUR competences will be incorporated into the students’ learning and use these as course learning outcomes.
If the course learning outcomes do not explicitly align with the relevant EPICUR learning competences, you can unpack the existing course learning outcomes with the students and identify how these include specific EPICUR learning competences.
If you choose to assess the EPICUR learning competences, then consider how the students could best demonstrate these competences. It is generally recommended to provide opportunities to apply competences as well as opportunities for self-reflection on developing competences (Arasaratnam-Smith & Deardorff, 2023; Deardorff, 2006).
Links to resources for EPICUR International Learning Competences
UNESCO (2013) Intercultural Competences: Conceptual and Operational Framework. Available from https://www.unesco.org/interculturaldialogue/en/interculturaldialogue/good-practices/intercultural-competences-conceptual-and-operational-framework
The Higher Education Academy (2014) Intercultural Competencies. Available at https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets.creode.advancehe-document-manager/documents/hea/private/resources/intercultural_competencies_1568037225.pdf
References
Deardorff, Darla. K. (2006). Identification and Assessment of Intercultural Competence as a Student Outcome of Internationalization. Journal of Studies in International Education, 10(3), 241–266. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315306287002
Arasaratnam-Smith, Lily. A., & Deardorff, Darla. K. (2023). Using Self-Reflection to Develop Intercultural Competence. In Developing Intercultural Competence in Higher Education (1st ed., Vol. 1, pp. 91–115). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003229551-7
Intercultural Classroom
Author(s)
This resource sheet has been written by
- Donna Hurford (SDU)
Related Resource Sheets
Other related pages
Next steps
If you need further support with developing your course, please contact your local teaching support unit.
If you need further information on offering your course for EPICUR, please contact your EPICUR institutional coordinator.
EPICUR Institutional Coordinators
Adam Mickiewicz University
Karolina Choczaj
karmench@amu.edu.pl
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Nikos Kouloussis
nikoul@agro.auth.gr
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Michael Zacherle
zacherle@kit.edu
University of Amsterdam
Tiffany Boersma
t.a.boersma@uva.nl
Universität Freiburg
Charlotte Langowski
charlotte.langowski@zv.uni-freiburg.de
Université de Haute-Alsace
Léa Ziri
lea.ziri@uha.fr
Universität für Bodenkultur Wien
Nicolas Fries
nicolas.fries@boku.ac.at
University of Southern Denmark
Ida Thøstesen
ilt@sdu.dk
University of Strasbourg
Pascale Nachez
pnachez@unistra.fr
Further use as OER explicitly permitted:
This Resource Sheet within the Best Practice Guide for Designing and Delivering EPICUR Courses was created by Donna Hurford, University of Southern Denmark.
Please attribute according to TASLL rule as follows: EPICUR International Learning Competences (Best Practice Guide for Designing and Delivering EPICUR Courses), by Donna Hurford, University of Southern Denmark. Any icons included are protected by copyright, © The Noun Project, used with permission.
License: This work and its contents are – unless otherwise stated – licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 .
Last edited: 15. Jan 2026, 15:12, Hutz-Nierhoff, Dorthe [dh1076@rz.uni-freiburg.de]