The current Covid-19 pandemic has forced HEI across the whole word to re-think, in a very short time, their learning strategy. The related acceleration in the integration of online tools into teaching activity and the increasing request for upskilling of the work force has tested heavily the resilience of the related educational systems in terms of: (1) availability and use of resources as well as (2) capability to ensure accessibility for the students. In parallel, the domain of engineering has seen an acceleration of the futuristic trends connected with the Industry 4.0 vision and in detail the use of some key technologies enabling fast manufacturing and remote working. HEI in the domain of engineering have thus a twofold challenge in front of them: on the one hand the alignment of the pedagogical approach and on the other hand the renewal of the curricula´s content. This requires a deep reflection on the HEI current operating model and desirable future. A number of HEIs are struggling with this transition due to inadequate technological infrastructure and limited expertise for online teaching and learning method. From the students’ side the availability of resources for this transition might sharpen the socio-economic faulty lines and decrease their learning experience. Blended learning (BL), also known as hybrid learning, has been emerging since long before the Covid-19 pandemic as a powerful tool to address exactly the challenges identified above. BL, in short, is an approach to education that combines the best of online education and traditional face-to-face interaction with teaching staff. The development of this area has followed a generally negative financial outlook for HEIs in Europe: the base funding in the last years has not matched the increasing need for resources to provide quality higher education. In this context, Covid-19 has highlighted the much needed shift towards hybrid learning approaches by giving a decisive push to an already established trend. One challenge to the implementation of BL is that it is a very broadly defined pedagogical approach: the fragmented available literature shows many different ways of implementing it, that are often connected with the specific learning outcomes in target and not readily transferable to generic cases. The BLISS initiative (Blended Learning Implementation for reSilient, acceSsible and efficient higher education) is set to address the challenges emerged during the pandemic by proposing a BL based set of ready to use educational units and a related methodological framework to create such learning material. This activity will be based on a novel and structured understanding of the state-of-art in this field and leverage the experience of the participating institutions during the Covid-19 initial phase. This has, in fact, provided an ideal global experiment for the implementation of blended learning strategies. It is important to remark that the joining institutions will bring different inputs as they are distributed geographically in places that means a wide spectrum of experience in term of both the intensity of the virus spread and the related government response . In short the BLISS initiative will address the described needs by:
● impacting positively the efficiency and resilience of the HEI educational system
● improving the flexibility in ways of learning and the accessibility for the learners
● providing a structured and usable view on the BL related body of knowledge