Who are we
We are a consortium, composed by 5 Universities (Luxembourg, Roma Tre, Brescia, Palackeho V Olomouci, Romano-Americana) that have granted the Erasmus Plus Programme (the European Commission's Programme for education, training, youth and sport), which aims to develop innovation in higher education, especially regarding to the innovative teaching methods (i.e. legal clinics).
Our project (which lasts 36 months, from 1-09-2017 to 31-08-2020), named "Skills Transfers In Academia : A Renewed Strategy Enhancing legal clinics in the European Union (STARS) aims to achieve relevant and high quality of students' knowledge, skills and competences, draw up a set of formalized criteria to evaluate legal clinics quality, promote transnational learning, teaching and training activities in the field of consumer law.
The target groups of dissemination activities outside the partnership:
Civil society: Future employers (local), consumers (local), pro bono organizations (local, regional, European), legislatures (local and European).
Legal clinics provide "community service" which is an extension of university expertise to the world outside the university, the community, in the service of improving the quality of life of the community and which is effected through a university model in which community service is integral to all aspects of the university: mission, structure and organization, hiring and promotion, curriculum and teaching, research and publications (the so called third mission of universities).
Our project, bringing together Universities from all over the EU -which already run legal clinics and are willing to reflect on their structure, organisation and methods- has the ambition to develop the presence of legal clinics in most European law schools by providing scientific material on this issue, notably through the creation of a online platform accessible to the public and by disseminating this information as well as the outcomes of the project through other digital canals.
The project will provide newsletters, platforms and database (the database on clinical case outcomes is an innovative product) through which students, researchers and teaching staff may transfer their knowledge and skills for the benefit of their community, while at the same time ensuring their learning, teaching and research activities benefit from real-life cases and interactions in a digital context. In fact, by twinning with partner institutions, universities will share knowledge, innovation and best practices with each other with the goal of teaching law students how to apply knowledge learned in the classroom to real life problems of consumers and partners within civil society.
The STARS project brings together Universities, which already have legal clinics and are willing to reflect on their structure, organisation and methods.
The choices were made on the ground of quality criteria as well as on pre –existing formal and informal partnership (the involved legal clinics are members of the European Network on Clinical Legal Education – ENCLE, the universities of Luxembourg and Rome 3 have already entered a formal partnership to allow exchange of students and best practices). The Romanian American University of Bucharest has expressed its interest in establishing a consumer law clinic, which led it to join the project in order to directly benefit from the outcomes and to participate in the formalization of the methods already existing as the outsider's standpoint is a very efficient way to improve a project. All STARS partners are already running legal clinics (the Romanian American University of Bucharest has already an experience in the field of clinics, but not a consumer clinic.