University of West Attica

(formerly Technological Educational Institute of Athens - TEIA)

Athens, 23 September 2016 | Published in Research

The University of West Attica has been the first academic institute to join Housing Europe as a partner.

The Technological Educational Institute of Athens (T.E.I. of Athens) was established in 1983 according to Law No. 1404/1983 as a tertiary higher academic institute at the technological level supervised by the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs. It is a self-governed, multi-disciplinary, technology-oriented legal body of public law assimilated to public universities.

It is the largest of all Technological Educational Institutes in Greece, based at Aigaleo, a suburb 15 min. outside Athens. It is committed to disciplinary excellence – across the health; physical and life sciences; the social sciences, and engineering professions – and interdisciplinary research that will benefit society on a national and global scale. There is extensive collaboration with leading university networks, public agencies and business – in Greece and internationally.

T.E.I. of Athens includes 5 Faculties (Faculty of Technological Applications, Faculty of Management & Finance, Faculty of Health & Social Care, Faculty of Food Technology & Nutrition, Faculty of Fine Arts & Design), 27 Academic Departments, 18 Research Labs and one central library. There are over 36.000 students in 2015 at the T.E.I. of Athens, including 33.000 undergraduates and 3.000 graduate students.

The Business Administration Department is the largest Department within the Faculty of Management, comprised of three Units: Marketing and Finance, Hospitality and Tourism, Health and Social Welfare. It has developed since 1990 multi-disciplinary research agendas on critical social issues, including:

institutional and policy analysis/evaluation of Health, Social Security, Social Welfare / Assistance, Employment, Education, Housing, Social Entrepreneurship and Migration;
integration strategies for groups at high risk of exclusion (elderly, asylum seekers, homeless, single parent families)
NGOs / Social economy organizations capacity building and development.

The Unit of Health and Social Welfare Management is the successor of theDepartment of Health and Social Welfare Management, established in 1979 in the Technological Educational Institute of Athens (T.E.I. of Athens)as the first relevant Department in the Greek academic framework. It wasincorporated in 2013 into the new Business Administration Department, as one of its three academic Units, and it is certified to ISO 9001:2008.

Around one hundred students are admitted to the Unit each year, to read for the four years Bachelor in Health and Social Welfare Management Studies, which includes courses on health, social security and social welfare from different disciplines (law, public management, human resources, social policy and administration, welfare economics, etc.). Students are an important part of our academic community and come from all over Greece and from a variety of backgrounds. Some study to develop academic research and skills for use in practice and policy settings, but we also have experienced practitioners (for example in social intervention and social care, psychology, health care, education, mental health) wanting to become more skilled in the use of high quality research methods to inform decisions about practice, policy and funding.

In 2015 the first 45 students were admitted to read for a newly established Masters Degree in Health and Social Care Management, which includes courses on national, international and comparative agendas of health and social welfare management. In the academic year 2016-2017 70 students were enrolled in the Unit reading for the Masters Degree.

Research has also expanded steadily since the 1990s. During 1990-2015 there were30 or so separate funded research projects, with more than 45 research staff involved. Funds come from government departments, local authorities, charitable foundations, and increasingly from overseas governments or EU institutions.

Since the late 2000s research and policy advice have included some major national and international studies that have made a very substantial impact on national and local resource allocation, policy formation, policy implementation and evaluation.

The Unit has established important networks with other academic institutions and research centres in Greece and abroad, while it represents the T.E.I. of Athens in HOUSING EUROPE.

The Research Laboratory on Social Innovation was established in 2015 as a research cluster in the Unit of Health and Social Welfare Management, drawing together scholarly and policy-relevant social policy research. The Laboratory is a centre of excellence for research on social innovation, social inclusion, social housing, social economy and social entrepreneurship. It has a multi-disciplinary outlook and employs a wide range of research methodologies and theoretical perspectives.

Thirty seven years after the foundationof the Department of Health and Social Welfare Management, the Unit of Health and Social Welfare Managementcontinues to uphold the tradition of providing high quality graduate and research training, closely linked with the importance of social enquiry and social evaluation, driven by a concern for better informed social policy, social innovation and social reform.

In 2018 the institute was merged with TEI of Piraeus and in 2019 with the National School of Public Health, thus creating the University of West Attica.