According to Eurostat, the foreigner population in Europe in 2008 was about 31 million people, 1/3 of which (about 10 million) coming from other EU countries, and the remaining 2/3 (about 20 million) coming from non-EU countries. Within the non-EU, in 2008, the number of asylum seekers and refugees were about 6 per 1000 of the EU population. Most of the EU member countries saw an increase in the number of asylum and refugee requests (IT +116%, NL and MT +89%). Being e.g. asylum seeker in a foreign country requires the competence to deal with bureaucracy. While migrants need to acquire new terminology and different culturally determined communication practices, also service providers need to acquire awareness of the communication difficulties involved in this bi-directional interaction: "Integration is a dynamic, two way process of mutual accommodation by all immigrants and  residents of Member States" (1st Common Basic Principle, http://ec.europa.eu/ewsi/en/ index.cfm).

Preparatory work and needs analysis are, among others, from EU projects of the partners (SPICES, winner of a “Quality in Mobility” Silver Award, UNEC winner of a “Quality in Mobility” Bronze Award, CCT-I; Klein G.B. & Caruana S., eds.: Intercultural communication in bureaucratic and institutional contexts - Proceedings of the Final Conference of the European Project SPICES. Perugia: Guerra 2008).

The partnership intends to work out a solution through the creation of learner-centred e-learning modules (in English, German, Italian, Dutch, Polish, and Turkish) through an Open-Source (DOKEOS), adaptive and conducive learning environment which provides both AMs and ACMs with the necessary spoken and written communication and relational skills to manage bureaucratic-institutional interactions. Furthermore a training course for e-tutors will be delivered.