In higher education, teachers rely on their professionalism, experience and guidelines. Besides, a teacher is motivated to thoughtfully develop and enhance the curriculum to ensure that it meets educational standards and addresses the diverse and evolving needs of their students. Typically, this is an independent effort on the part of the teacher. However, in the case of a joint education such as the Blended Intensive Program (BIP), the situation is different: teachers collaborate and unify their efforts, and harness synergies to provide a coherent new curriculum.

The purpose of this paper is to share the experiences of first timers executing a BIP. While #BIPsters are any actors involved in a BIP, this paper focuses on the teachers. We provide experimental evidence and discuss the challenges and opportunities of organizing intercultural education for the first time. This paper builds on the interdisciplinary perspective of the BIP curriculum as a value proposition. The BIP was a co-creation experiment for the participating universities, which had collaborated before, but the teachers were new to each other.

The debut adventure relies on a culture of experimentation to navigate the journey. We present an exploratory case study of four European universities, who were delivering a BIP for the first time. All the teachers were also first-time implementers of a BIP. The main aim of this article is to propose a conceptual framework for a BIP.

The engagement of diverse stakeholders is essential. Our journey identifies several stages that may help other teachers in their efforts to develop a BIP. For example, the start-up phase allows stakeholders to share a common vision of the BIP. The co-creation phase provides teachers with knowledge to gain a comprehensive understanding of each other's competences, pedagogical approaches, and multidisciplinary association. The virtual teaching period brings together different stakeholders. And the reflective period enables this team to work together to enhance the experience.

The findings suggest that BIPs are relatively time-consuming, as first-time participants need to have recurring online meetings to prepare, negotiate a wide range of issues, design and set up the program. Moreover, a BIP is a surprisingly laborious program to organize, as the seemingly diverse resources are not evenly distributed throughout the program. The excessive workload is related to the learning management system and physical mobility. Despite the challenges, BIPs offer exciting opportunities for teachers to adapt and integrate teaching with other European universities, to provide compelling learning experiences and cross-cultural teamwork for stakeholders, and to inspire participants for further collaborative efforts. Our experiment shows that approaching a BIP as a long-term commitment, the collaborative engagement ensures a lasting source of joy for all participants.

Keywords: Blended Intensive Program (BIP), Erasmus+, BIPsters, intercultural education, joint curriculum development, experiences.