Text by: Vanessa Battestin, Marize Lyra Passos

On 6 March 2026, the closing ceremony for the Embrace project took place at IFES, attended by project participants from IFES and Portugal, as well as representatives of the new management team.
The aim of the ceremony was to present the project to the IFES community, outlining the Institute’s role, the results achieved and the next steps. A video of the ceremony is available via this link.

The Embrace project

Running for three years (2023–2026), the Embrace project (Education Modernisation Brazil, Colombia, Europe – the new era of digital higher education cooperation) aimed to modernise higher education through staff development, focusing on pedagogical and digital skills and integration with the world of work. In total, 16 staff members were part of the IFES team on the project.

The Embrace project was organised into five work packages (WPs), each with specific and complementary objectives and institutions responsible for their coordination.

As part of WP2, IFES took on the role of co-coordinator in partnership with the University of Hamk, given its recognised expertise in delivering MOOCs. As an initial action, IFES hosted and organised the Kick-off event in August 2023 at its Centre of Excellence in Training and Distance Education (Cefor) in Vitória, Espírito Santo — the first in-person event involving all participating institutions, officially launching the project. On that occasion, the training of 25 lecturers began — five from each institution in Brazil and Colombia — led by Hamk and IPB universities, with online sessions continuing until December 2023.

Between late 2023 and the first half of 2024, the 25 lecturers were divided into three groups with the aim of developing MOOCs. The development of the MOOCs was coordinated by the Ifes team, based on the ADDIEM institutional model (BATTESTIN & SANTOS, 2022), and the courses were published on the IFES Open Course Platform. The collaborative work between lecturers from seven institutions, with different languages, time zones and methodologies, represented a major challenge, but also an institutional advance. In addition to leading the initiative, IFES adapted its platform to support multilingual courses. Consequently, the three MOOCs are now offered in Portuguese, English and Spanish, with certification in the respective languages. The video of the MOOC trilogy, as well as the launch event, were also organised by the IFES team at Embrace and can be accessed via the Cefor channel on YouTube.

After the internal launch of the MOOCs, each institution in Brazil and Colombia used them as a basis for training their teachers. At Ifes, the training took place between May and December 2024, combining the use of MOOCs with six synchronous sessions, bringing together 43 teachers — although not all of them completed the course.

The Embrace project, through WP4, also enabled IFES to shape its innovation ecosystem, as well as to coordinate initiatives with the world of work.

The Polo–Vale Connection event brought together 15 engineers from Vale, 32 IFES lecturers, 17 students, 3 representatives from AGIFES, 1 from FACTO, as well as 2 vice-chancellors, 3 research directors and participants from 6 campuses. The Polo–Unimed Connection event had 23 participants, including 6 from Unimed, 17 lecturers and 2 students from two campuses.

Results and impacts

The project had several results and impacts, including:

3 trilingual MOOCs developed and launched on the IFES platform (Portuguese, English, Spanish).
41 teachers directly involved in the training activities.
Adaptation of the IFES Open Course Platform to support multilingual delivery.
8 web articles, 2 book chapters, 2 journal articles (in progress), 3 events organised (one in-person and two online).
Clarification of the institutional innovation ecosystem.
Development of an ideas hub for relations with the world of work, applied to two companies through the events: Polo–Vale Connection and Polo–Unimed Connection.
Improvement of the open course platform (MOOC) for multilingualism.
Improved communication in English and Spanish by project participants.
Increased institutional capacity for the management of international projects.
Greater international visibility for Ifes within the Erasmus+ ecosystem.
Cooperation Agreements signed: UTP, IPB, HAMK.

Future prospects

Partnerships and new projects are already beginning to take shape following the completion of Embrace, including:

EduAI – a new project submitted under the Erasmus+ call for proposals, with partner institutions from: Finland: HAMK – coordinator; Belgium: Artesis Plantijn Hogeschool Antwerpen; Brazil: IFES and IFSul; Kazakhstan: Atyrau University and Astana IT University; and Vietnam: University of Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and Education.
Plans to create new multilingual MOOCs on the IFES open course platform – internationalisation of the platform.
COIL between IFES and IPB (Portugal) – joint course offering for the Master’s in Digital Technologies in Education and Training (IPB) and Educimat (IFES) – production of MOOCs.
Training in MOOCs for IPP (Portugal) and working meetings on AI.
Start of joint work with the Open University (United Kingdom).
Start of joint work with UTP (Colombia)

The Embrace project team at IFES:

Marize Passos	Project Coordinator for Embrace at IFES
Vanessa Battestin	Vice-Project Coordinator for Embrace at IFES
Juliana Cristina de Andrade	Project team
Nágila de Fátima Rabelo Moraes	Project team
Aline Pinto Amorim	Project team
HENARA SIMÕES COLA HOLZ	Project team
Elton Vinícius Silva	Project team
Marcus Vinícius Forecchi Acciolly	Project team
Eduardo Moura da Silva	Project team
Rodrigo Varejao Andreao	Teacher
Igor Carlos Pulini	Teacher
Luis Carlos Loss Lopes	Teacher
Mariella Berger Andrade	Teacher
Marcelo Queiroz Schimidt	Teacher
Lodovico Ortlieb Faria	advisory board
André Romero da Silva	advisory board