The project Bridge is co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the Servicio Espanol para la Internacionalizacion de la Educacion (SEPIE). Neither the European Union nor the National Agency SEPIE can be held responsible for them. -- Number: 2025-1-ES01-KA220-HED-000359236 --
The BRIDGE Digital Museum brings together good practices, educational proposals and images that inspire reflection and action
Social Challenges
Analyse social challenges to intercultural dialogue, social inclusion and democratic cohesion
Good Practices
Discover experiences that generate social impact
Educational Space
Access teaching guides, activities and materials for the classroom
Documentary Photography
Explore the social challenges in a visual, reflective and educational way
BRIDGE Main Challenge: A.4. Fragmented management of cultural diversity and weak institutionalisation of intercultural dialogue
Universities formally recognise cultural diversity in their strategic plans, yet intercultural dialogue rarely becomes a cross-cutting practice. It depends on isolated initiatives and individual volunteers, producing a 'parallel coexistence' without genuine institutionalisation. In Germany, federal fragmentation of responsibilities and a persistent discourse-practice gap leave minoritised groups facing structural discrimination.
ROCKET developed a Critical Virtual Exchange (CVE) model in which students, teaching staff and administrative staff rehearse responses to discrimination through role-playing games and conflict-transformation techniques. A Whole-Institution Map makes support structures visible and connects policy with everyday practice. All materials are published as Open Educational Resources for reuse across European higher education.
ROCKET (2022-2025) is a transnational cooperation between the universities of Göttingen, Uppsala and Groningen. It combines Critical Virtual Exchange with transformative role-playing games to train students, teaching staff and administrative staff in conflict transformation and equity. The standard student programme runs 10 hours over 6 weeks with four synchronous sessions and four asynchronous activities. Materials were reviewed by an advisory board, refined in pilot training at the three universities and released as Open Educational Resources on Zenodo.
Diversity in European higher education is managed administratively and in a fragmented way. Intercultural dialogue depends on isolated projects or committed individuals and is not anchored in cross-cutting policy, so minoritised students and staff still encounter structural discrimination. Digital teaching formats, unless critically designed, reproduce these offline imbalances and add new barriers for under-resourced students.
Universities formally commit to equality but often lack the capacity to offset inequalities that exist before entry. Without systematic tools and a shared culture across teaching and administration, inclusion remains declarative, and the growing share of online teaching risks widening the gap further.
ROCKET responds to Challenge A4 by institutionalising intercultural dialogue. It trains all three university groups together and uses Whole-Institution Maps to connect policy with daily practice, replacing 'parallel coexistence' with a shared, reflective approach. It also anticipates Challenge A7 through critical digital design.
Lecturers align goals with the CVE Collaboration Worksheet. Participants then meet over 6 weeks in four online sessions and four asynchronous tasks, rehearsing conflict scenarios through role-play. Techniques include analysing positions, interests, feelings and needs, I-statements, and facilitation tools such as Escalate, Cut and Hot Seat. Learning is consolidated in an individual portfolio.
ROCKET Critical Virtual Exchange (CVE) Handbook
Manual
The central guide to implementing a Critical Virtual Exchange, an online exchange that addresses equity and social justice in digital environments in addition to intercultural encounter. It systematises the ROCKET model (10 hours over 6 weeks, four synchronous sessions and four asynchronous activities), explains the educational rationale of embodied practice and role-play, and describes the conflict-transformation techniques used, from identifying layers of conflict and I-statements to the facilitation meta-techniques Escalate, Cut and Hot Seat. It also covers translanguaging, safety in educational role-playing games and accessibility, and includes an 'Impact Stories' section with experiences of students and lecturers. Available on Zenodo and the project website in graphic and screen-reader-compatible versions.
Teaching staff, Researchers, Professionals
Guideline for Teaching Staff (DEI checklists) and CVE Collaboration Worksheet
Teaching guide
Two planning tools for lecturers. The Guideline for Teaching Staff offers checklists on diversity, equity and inclusion for designing courses, covering gender-sensitive language, intersectional perspectives and inclusive digital course design, so that virtual formats do not reproduce offline imbalances. The CVE Collaboration Worksheet is the instrument partner lecturers use before any exchange begins. It requires them to negotiate and align learning objectives, activities and assessment by consensus and to reflect on power asymmetries between the participating institutions. Together they make it possible to prepare a critically designed exchange with a partner university without prior experience of virtual exchange. Both are part of the six OER packages hosted on Zenodo under an attribution licence.
Teaching staff
RPG Scenario Repositories for students and for administrative staff
Educational resource
Two collections of validated role-playing scenarios: one for students and one for administrative staff. The scenarios stage real dilemmas around diversity and equity in university life, such as microaggressions, institutional discrimination or the tension between caring responsibilities and rigid institutional expectations. Participants co-create their characters with their own names and pronouns and bring in aspects of privilege or marginalisation according to the scenario, while a rule against 'dark tourism' discourages portraying forms of marginalisation one does not share. Played in an environment of acceptable risk, the scenarios allow participants to rehearse responses to conflict and to reflect on power asymmetries afterwards. Scenarios need local adaptation to national legal frameworks and available support services.
Teaching staff, Students, Professionals
Whole-Institution Maps handbook and institutional maps (Göttingen, Groningen, Uppsala)
Manual
The Whole-Institution Map is ROCKET's structural tool against fragmented diversity management. The handbook explains how to map the support structures of a university and how to connect institutional policy with the everyday practice of teaching and administration. Three institution-specific maps for Göttingen, Groningen and Uppsala serve as worked examples. The maps make existing support visible to students and staff, help coordinate institutional responses to discrimination or exclusion, and promote shared responsibility across all university groups. The format is fully exportable, so other institutions can identify and map their own structures; the content itself must be adapted to the services actually available locally and to the national legal framework.
Teaching staff, Professionals, Policy Makers
ROCKET multimedia repository (educational videos and facilitation demonstrations)
Educational videos
A repository of more than 15 educational videos and facilitation demonstrations hosted on YouTube. The videos accompany the written OER and show how the ROCKET approach is facilitated in practice, which makes them a useful entry point for lecturers and student facilitators who want to introduce role-playing games and conflict transformation in their own virtual exchange or classroom. The project website is the starting point for locating the videos. Alongside the videos, ROCKET provides Common Cartridge files that allow the training courses to be imported directly into any university learning management system, so a complete course can be set up without building it from scratch.
Teaching staff, Students, General Public