The project A Comparative and Transferable Approach to Education for Democratic Citizenship (ACTA) is promoted by the University of Craiova (Romania) with the partnership of Bifröst University (Iceland) and University of Iceland. It is supported by an EEA grant (a grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway), has a total budget of 78,658 EUR and is developed between September 1, 2018 and April 30, 2020.

This project provides an innovative perspective on Education for Democratic Citizenship (EDC) that results from the comparative approach that brings together two countries that are fundamentally different in terms of state of democracy and educational policies and practices: Romania and Iceland. Its transdisciplinary focus reinforces the role of different school subjects, such as native language and foreign language, for the development of EDC and integrates ICT in problem-based teaching/learning for these subjects.

The project complements the two previous projects led by the University of Craiova and supported by the EEA Financial Mechanism 2009-2014: New Tools for the Integration of Transversal Skills in Modern Teaching Practice – TransMod (partners: Bifröst University, Nesna University College, 01.07.2014-30.06.2015); Learning to Live Together: Modern Perspectives on Transversal Skills in Education for Sustainable and Solidary Development – ElitMod (partner: Bifröst University, 01.07.2016-31.01.2017). The present project benefits from the experience acquired by its team in the aforementioned projects and capitalizes the results obtained in the field of competency-based education in general and, more specifically, in terms of transversal competences. Moreover, the project draws upon the work carried out by the University of Craiova in the Erasmus+ KA2 project Acteurs du territoire pour une éducation à la citoyenneté mondiale (project promoter: Académie de Lyon, 01.09.2015-31.08.2018).

The results of this project will help inform the definition and description of competences and the use of problem-based teaching/learning for the development of transversal competences.