Welcome to DIVE4PMP:

Democratic and Inclusive Values in Education for Project Management and Projects

Project Reference: 2026-1-DE01-HED-000456401

The way people live and work in Europe is changing due to various trends: increasing globalisation, growing diversity resulting from the migration and related social, economic, financial and other factors. These trends are transforming communities, educational systems, workspaces and related environments. Societies become more multicultural, and therefore the need for integration, equal participation and civil engagement becomes more urgent. Projects have proven to be an effective and efficient instrument for dealing with complex problems as such. Projects work brings people together across cultures, background and experience, it creates opportunities and shared values, it can help individuals to learn about the equal and respectful collaboration and as a result to generate innovative solutions and better serve needs of different stakeholders. Projects are a tool for participation, e.g. of citizens for changing their cities, or disabled people for designing their living environment. Participation in projects is going beyond being asked to vote. It engages people with each other and with the societal challenges. It is a tool for building and rebuilding societies. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) are therefore a long-standing topic in project management research and standardization.

However, project management (PM) methodology and PjBL need to be extended to bring together diverse participants and assure an equal engagement. The goal of the project DIVE4PMP is to prepare the students (mainly from engineering, IT and business, where these topics are not an explicit part of the curricula yet) for this globalised and diverse working environment by developing competences for equality, diversity and democracy through improved and extended PjBL and PM methodology. Such competences can be developed in an indirect (implicit) way through PjBL, with case studies where equality, diversity and common values are relevant. HEI teachers must be trained to apply the methods and cases in teaching.

DIVE4PMP will serve these needs by building a virtual, cross-country and cross-university community which delivers 4 main outcomes:

A novel Framework for DEI-sensitive and Participative Projects & Project Management
A portfolio of eLearning modules and project case studies
A Train-the-Trainer programme for teachers
The annual Society-Science Dialog on DEI and Democratic Values in Projects & Project Management

DIVE4PMP has also an inclusive concept for students with fewer opportunities, especially people in remote and rural areas, people with disabilities or financial and family constraints, and people who cannot easily travel. An advantage is that it is easy to multiply it to other HEIs, including the partners from Ukraine, also under wartime conditions. To include the diversity of viewpoints, the project makes sense only in an international setup. It requires an experienced project consortium where a certain alignment has already happened.

Project Information

What you should know about the project?

Project period:

01.12.2026 – 30.11.2029

Project type:
Cooperation partnerships in higher education (KA220-HED)

Grant holder:
Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts (FH Dortmund)

Project coordinator:
Carsten Wolff

Contact:
Ekaterina Hermann

What is our scope, goals, and outcomes?

Project goal:

The goal of DIVE4PMP is to provide students (first on Master’s level) with the competences for DEI-sensitive and participative work in innovative, diverse, agile projects. The lecturers and scientific staff need the competences and tools to deliver such PjBL. The HEIs need to build the competence to integrate projects and formats into the curricula, specifically with a focus on real-world scenarios.

The core objectives of DIVE4PMP:

develop the transversal competence, DEI sensitivity, and democratic values of graduates in IT, technology and business (as part of inclusive leadership, diversity management, and EU values orientation competence categories) by doing joint, trans- and interdisciplinary projects and by supporting them with relevant real- world cases/problems
develop the project competence and project management competence of graduates in IT, technology and business (as part of inclusive leadership and participative PM competence categories) with a specific focus on participative approaches, inclusion and the societal impact
develop the competence of the HEI lecturers (as part of inclusive leadership and diversity management competence categories) with respect to diverse, inclusive, international, agile and virtual projects as a tool in PjBL, their relevant digital literacy and their integration into European competence networks like EuroPIM

Additional, indirectly contributing objectives are:

efficient and effective project execution using an agile, iterative management approach
high quality deliverables, ensured by evaluation, improvement, review and release processes
disseminate the results by broad information within the community, provision of outcomes to HEIs and beyond, scientific validation of the effect and usefulness

To achieve the objectives, the following Outcomes/Deliverables are produced:

Open Community of Practice (OpenCoP) on “DEI-sensitive and Participative Projects & Project Management Education”
Framework for DEI-sensitive and Participative Projects & Project Management with methods, tools, guidelines, tutorials etc.
4 x eLearning courses (24 ECTS in total) on diversity and inclusion, teamwork, collaboration and management of such projects
6 (digital case) studies (videos, documents, tools) derived from real-world cases

Train-the-Trainer (TtT) programme for teachers (9 ECTS)
Society-Science-Dialogues on DEI and Democratic Values in Projects & Project Management

This will improve the quality of higher education in the EU and Ukraine and enhance its relevance for the labour market and society, especially with respect to the diversity, inclusion, and common EU values. The teaching and assessment methods of the HEIs will be enhanced by PjBL and CBL with reviews and stakeholder dialogs as assessment methods. The goals are perfectly in line with the European Skills Agenda and the European Strategy for Universities in terms of content and competences

Who is working on the project?