In today's globalized and hyper connected world, the job market demands skilled professionals with cross-cultural competencies. In order to meet the expectations, the response shall be developed across educational institutions, which have embraced innovative pedagogical approaches. Higher education environment is the base where is possibile to enhance those requirements. For this reason, courses shall be aimed to promote international collaboration, transversal skills and knowledge exchange among students from diverse backgrounds.

To support the educational sphere, the digital evolution is an important factor to bear in mind at the moment of innovative courses design. The use of digital environments, the broadcast of online lessons and innovative student-center perspectives in the sphere of learning and teaching are outcomes that online and blended courses might achieve, because of educational models that combine face-to-face and online learning. Thus, there is an opportunity to offer and carry out short, intense learning courses and recognised mobility experiences. This new form of learning and mobility makes it possible to strengthen the collaboration and internationalisation processes within Universities at anytime and wherever there would be the possibility. To design a new innovative course there are strategies and principles to follow and redirect to face new challenges. One of these is the ADDIE model, which is design tool that can help teachers and training professionals create, organize, and streamline effective learning and development programs in their organization. Although developed in the 1970s, the ADDIE training model remains the most commonly used model for instructional design because it’s simple yet highly effective to engage in culturally enriching experiences that go beyond the confines of traditional teaching settings.

In this research we analysed the impact of new strategies, as well as the old ones but matched with the new technologies, principles and challenges for innovative courses design. The course design tries to absorb the new experiences and provide add value to the students in terms of difficulties and opportunities. This paper will also try to provide a sample of a short blended course in the field of international relations. Indeed, through the ADDIE phases, the paper tries to depict the structure and the development process of a course for students, who are studying an introductive course on the European Union. For this course the use of a digital learning environment is important both for the distance phase and for the face-to-face phase which facilitates the carrying out the activities and the data collection.

At the end of the paper, there will be the section about considerations and future steps, wherein the lesson learned will be applied to the design process in order to contribute to fundamental tools for those who are going to broaden cultural horizons and knowledge in various fields and curricula.

It has been noted that a great need has emerged to increase activities that promote collaboration among students, overcome linguistic barriers, promote accessibility and that break traditional learning patterns and facilitate the co-creation of knowledge and the development of soft skills.

Keywords: Blended learning, Course design, new learning strategies, simulation and role play.