Background of the project

InterLinks10.Net is a successor of the Nordic-Baltic Network initiated by the Danish School of Journalism in 1990 and formalised in 1993 with the support of the Nordic Council of Ministers. In 2005-2007 the Network was substantially supported by the Nordplus Neighbour Programme, and since 2008 the Network has been supported by the Norpdlus Higher Education Programme, which enabled a continuous and mutually
rewarding cooperation among the partner schools. Since 2005, four new schools have joined the Network.

InterLinks 10.Net: Nordplus Network of Journalism Schools is one of few regional initiatives in the field of journalism, which has been very active in promoting regional cooperation, curriculum and professional development among the Nordic and Baltic universities. The Network schools are also cooperating within the EU Erasmus programme, European Journalism Training Association (EJTA), COST and other initiatives.

Global and local changes in media and academia, including commercialization and popularization of journalism, as well as internationalization and marketisation of higher education, are challenging journalism education and demanding new curricula content and forms to be implemented.

Following the Bologna Declaration, InterLinks 10.Net places particular emphasis on the hands-on learning and practice oriented training of future journalists, as well as learning in the intercultural environment. This, of course, necessitates to merge best practices and available resources of the partner institutions. The network has outstanding capabilities for achieving its objectives. Member schools possess high-quality academic resources, professional knowledge and experience in practical journalism training and they have demonstrated all this during the past years of the network cooperation. They also co-operate with media organisations both nationally and internationally.

InterLinks 10.Net is aimed at further development of cross-cultural cooperation among the participating schools, focusing on journalism education and research at both the university and the college level. One of the main objectives of the Network is to strengthen journalism education training at the Master’s degree level, developed and provided by all participants in the network.

The Exchange Courses Programme has already been developed on the basis of multicultural European experience. Each school has developed courses for international students that are taught in English. They have used European standards for journalism education as their guidelines (see the “Tartu Declaration”, http://www.ejta.eu/index.php/website/projects). This means that there is intrinsic potential in InterLinks 10.Net to harmonize curricula at the master’s degree level (ca 30%) to enable and ensure active student and teacher mobility. Promotion of such exchanges between the Nordic and the Baltic countries will also allow students and instructors to develop a comparative perspective of journalism and media culture in different regions and countries. By combining theory and practice during the courses across the schools, students receive a unique opportunity of deep hands-on learning.