MASTER MODULE IN ART, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (MAST)

Empowerment
Creativity
Authencity
Efficiency / the state or quality of being efficient, or able to accomplish something with the least waste of time and effort; competency in performance.
Holistic
Empathy

- Career development, setting operational objectives, the economy of the project / executive producer, fundraising, positioning, marketing, public relations and training audience - participants had the chance to get deeper during mentoring in the process of developing their own project, in the cycle of concept, research, planning, and then in the organization, implementation and evaluation and presenting it in front of lecturers and all of the other participants at the program.

MAST - Mast module in Art, Science and Technology
WP1 - Curriculum Development
This pivotal work package shall inspire and decision-support the R&D process for the curriculum. It will also feedback into WP2 and WP3, both starting and finishing early. The preparatory research shall build on an in-depth approach to both the target groups‘ needs study as well as a comparative study of existing good practices and an inventory of the curricular legacy among the partners, to assure smooth transfer and reuse of existing open knowledge. Thus the relevant competencies shall be discerned that are to be covered by the module. This shall be mounted on the thorough ex ante research (proven by referential secondary sources, referred to in the numerous justifications above) to provide actual selection of state-of-the art teaching and learning methods that will eventually lead to the curriculum design. The curriculum is to be tested and then validated at relevant national levels and possibly improved in another iteration. A career development guideline handbook will be assembled as a crown result of this workpackage, the other major result being also ―The MAST challenge‖ that shall integrate all key competencies of MAST graduates and interface them with the potential employers. All the outputs will be articulated in a language professionally and academically accessible to all target groups, both primary and secondary.

The Learning Velocity MAST LAB (ULVL) shall be coordinated by P7 (as it is integrated into the Unicult programme, see Activity 2.2 below) and presents an integrated part of the module‘s piloting. It is conceived as an experiential, career development, project based space and an extended ―workbench‖ where students work individually and in teams with mentors and industry leaders, outside of classroom. Together they will apply concepts of innovative thinking and hypothesis-driven startups towards development of their careers and proactive partnerships to reinforce the university-corporate-government- NGO axis of interaction within the European innovation context and career development. Under ULVL faculty and students will develop; a clear career strategy at early stage (iterations of the innovation process through to start-up formation, development and new ventures strategy); ―foundation skills‖ like divergent-thinking, intermedia creativity, problem-solving and cross-cultural empathy, social inclusion should be geared towards the improvement of the quality of life, where cases and challenges will pertain to both private products and public services. Directing the career-management upon mechanisms like work placement, internship/scholarship schemes; residency, incubation and mobility schemes/models will strive to bring about an innovation ecosystem as an approach to corporate innovation, where universities are not only source of people and ideas, but also as a conduit to new start-ups with the establishment of strategic innovative programs for university- industry relations.

UNICULT as INTERFACING ACADEMY


The MAST project develops an applied study module at the intersections of Art, Science and Technology, combining methodologies and practices that intertwine the academic sphere closely with the industry realms of the Culture and Creative Sectors (CCS).

CONSORTIUM 
P1 University of Nova Gorica AU, School of Arts (SLO)
P2 Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute (POR)
P3 Technical University Graz (AUT)
P4 Croatian Cultural Alliance (CRO)
P5 Culture Action Europe (B/EU)
P6 Kitchen Budapest (HUN) 
P7 Kersnikova (SLO)

ASSOCIATE PARTNERS
1. The University of Arts Belgrade, UNESCO Chair MA in Cultural Management and Policy, Belgrade (RS)
2. European Digital Art and Science Network by Ars Electronica (AUT)
3. The European League of Institutes of the Arts ELIA / EQ-Arts (NDL)
4. Institute for Development and International Relations IRMO (CRO)
5. Stromatolite (GB /SE)
6. Hakan Lidbo Audio Industries (SE)

Nurturing a competent perspective on the historical, economical, social and above all cultural relevance of this interdisciplinary blend within the new digital shift, the MAST project will apply innovative, ICT-enhanced teaching and learning methods. The developed model for interdisciplinary and collaborative entrepreneurship as well as career-management will answer the needs of both public (academic intrapreneurship, specialised institutions) and the private sector (companies, NGOs). Therefore it shall rest on a cultural-management savvy approach, combining specific techniques of creative thinking and collaboration for innovation, not least to assure quality, efficiency and equal access on both project and module levels. The developed international study module, shared among three universities and geared toward easy accreditation (transfer), will consist of between 30 and 60 ECTS worth of courses and other academic mechanisms for quality employment.

The developed master study module would comprise of 30 ECTS of MAST-specific courses ranging from 4 to 8 ECTS such as workshops, seminars, tandem mentorships etc., mostly focussing on the practical competencies, trans-disciplinary knowledge and transferable skills. The project would also develop guidelines for career-development to engage employment partners into the final academic work and integrate mechanisms of direct work placement, internship or scholarship schemes, including realm-specific residency, incubation and mobility schemes. The latter would cover another 10 to 30 ECTS (depending on the final thesis or project curriculum) of MAST-related concluding graduate work and mentoring support, such as within a master thesis and/or final project.

The module will be integrated into the existing master programmes not only within the consortium, but be designed in a (flexible and open-learning compatible) way, to easily fit other formal and also non-formal educational frameworks. Supporting life-long-learning, the module would comply with other, also non-academic programmes (Unicult, Kersnikova, associated initiatives with particular focus on cultural heritage and the digital music), but still remain fully Bologna-compatible as well as designed towards international accreditation and academic or professional mobility.

UNICULT as INTERFACING ACADEMY

The stages along which the innovation (of the challenge) would be paced and developed, are to be based on a unique combination of TRLs - combining the best from the above two methods, and both Technology Readiness Levels in the European Commission (EC) and the Technology readiness levels in the United States Department of Defense. This time&space-distributed (partly blended) course would be running along entire of the winter semester with the main concluding joint event in January/February, but the best solutions would be disseminated along the Summer semester, culminating at the UNICULT2020 Summer conference.

Learning Velocity MAST LAB

The Learning Velocity MAST LAB (ULVL) shall be coordinated by P7 (as it is integrated into the Unicult programme) and presents an integrated part of the module‘s piloting. It is conceived as an experiential, career development, project based space and an extended ―workbench‖ where students work individually and in teams with mentors and industry leaders, outside of classroom. Together they will apply concepts of innovative thinking and hypothesis-driven startups towards development of their careers and proactive partnerships to reinforce the university-corporate-government-NGO axis of interaction within the European innovation context and career development. Under ULVL faculty and students will develop; a clear career strategy at early stage (iterations of the innovation process through to start-up formation, development and new ventures strategy); ―foundation skills‖ like divergent-thinking, intermedia creativity, problem-solving and cross-cultural empathy, social inclusion should be geared towards the improvement of the quality of life, where cases and challenges will pertain to both private products and public services. Directing the career-management upon mechanisms like work placement, internship/scholarship schemes; residency, incubation and mobility schemes/models will strive to bring about an innovation ecosystem as an approach to corporate innovation, where universities are not only source of people and ideas, but also as a conduit to new start-ups with the establishment of strategic innovative programs for university-industry relations. A sub programme called ―Role Reversal‖ will offer students to temporarily work in different industry and real-life (job) positions in order to develop a better understanding of occupational strengths and weaknesses, while industry leaders will be trained by MAST mentors and students. Through MAST ―Corporate Campus‖ the project‘s international students from partner universities will continue to work together in virtual teams on business proposals for either a multinational company or bigger public institution of the team‘s choice, with an alternative to incubate a start-up of completely their own.

Unicult's Microlearning on the SPOT (UMS)

The project will develop a methodology that brings the academic paradigm closer towards the entrepreneurial, and vice versa:
The module would be structured around the central "backbone" course in the format of a "challenge". This would become AN INNOVATIVE course format, entitled "The MAST Challenge" , which can be phase-distributed (according to all partner's preferences and capacities) also into smaller, shorter local courses (e.g. "The HCI MAST Challenge" in Madeira, or the "The Public Space Design Challenge" in Graz). The essential idea is that the semester cohort of MAST module students experience the entire process from responding to a challenge with an idea, and eventually presenting an innovation solution, and pitching it to a relevant audience, possibly the investors and/or employers, civic society groups and leaders, etc. Equal attention would be paid to the organizational approach of the innovation, and joining its potential social impacts with european social values.

UMS ―Unicult's Microlearning on the SPOT CHALLENGE‖ is a complementary process to the above, focussing on online learning, receiving of fast, particular answers in 3 to 5 min. sessions. The faculty will provide, during the MAST workshops, seminars and/or the academy, ad-hoc questions to students with options of short answers to any particular question related to the syllabus; in online version this may be by Skype or Messenger, Viber or Whatsapp. UMS will work similar to Uber. P7 will develop guidelines and provide an App environment for that. Through the UMS App. promotion and visibility for MAST program will be additionally achieved.

This time&space-distributed (partly blended) course would be running along entire of the winter semester with the main concluding joint event in January/February, but the best innovations solutions would be disseminated (as showcases, talks, conferences..) along the summer semester, culminating at the "Unicult" summer conference, where its most prominent results are featured (c.f. ―Interfacing academy‖ in the activity above).

The methodology would be based on combining the "LAUNCH" https://www.launch.org/process ( network-centered innovation platform) holistic step-wise approach and the IDEATE http://howto.ideate.me academic - interdisciplinary - entrepreneurship course toolbox (legacy of P1‘s EU project ideate.me); combined into a course course of around 8 ECTS. Around this course then the rest of the module is organized, in a distributed way across all three academic, but also all other contributing partners of the consortium. The stages along which the innovation solution (of the challenge) would be paced and developed, would be based on a unique combination of TRLs -, combining the best from the above two methods, and both the Technology Readiness Levels in the European Commission and the Technology readiness levels in the United States Department of Defense.

MAST challenge‖

The academy event concept is based on the rich and internationally renowned Unicult programme legacy in arts & cultural management discourse and policy development, which it consistently expands with the art+sci+tech (crossover) topics and methodologies:
- In 2018 the "Unicult" programme "hosts" a "pop-up"-like event of MAST, merely to announce the both big events of next two years, and to test some crucial methodologies, feature most prominent art+sci+tech topics and feature prominent names in the field.
- In 2019 the "Interfacing academy" event is hosted by CCA with UNG AU + Kersnikova where most of the methods and results of the first piloting year of the MAST module are being featured and discussed for further development (The first piloting year MAST challenge‖ results are featured!).
 - In 2020 the "Interfacing academy" event is hosted by CCA with TUG + KiBu where all the methods are evaluated and results of the two piloting years of the MAST module run are presented (The second, full piloting year MAST challenge‖ results are featured!).