The Leonardo Guitar Reserach Project aimed to increase the cooperation between Vocational Education and Training (VET) and the labour market within the field of guitar lutherie, by challenging luthiers and schools to join their forces in common development work. The project created an increased focus on environmental sustainability and use of non-tropical woods. Furthermore, this project aimed to develop the field of guitar making in a more sustainable direction, creating a European network on non-tropical woods in guitar building as well as a sustainable supply base of non-tropical woods for lutherie.The Leonardo Guitar Research (LGR) Project was a partnership project involving three renowned guitar lutherie schools (CVO Rivierenland, Belgium; Ikata, Finland; Lincoln College, England), one knowledge centre for lutherie (Cmb Belgium) and four highly regarded entrepreneurial luthiers (Rémi Petiteau, France; Chris Larkin, Ireland; Thomas Holt Andreasen, Spain; Lorenzo Frignani, Italy), together representing seven different EU-countries. The Leonardo Guitar Research Project aimed to make the educational curriculum for lutherie students more relevant to the future needs of luthiers/employers by introducing new teaching methods (where luthiers act as mentors for individual students, in combination with individual work placements) and integrating new study material into the curriculum (e.g. a handbook on the characteristics of non-tropical woods, a methodology for evaluating acoustic guitars and a teacher guide on environment and sustainability considerations). In order to produce this new study material, teachers, students and staff members of the partner organizations, together with the participating professional luthiers, did a lot of research on different aspects of guitar building with non-tropical woods. A part of this research was carried out by students and teachers of the three participating schools during three international workshops (in Finland, England and Belgium). In their own schools, students produced in total 44 project guitars, in order to define the differences (if any) between tropical and non-tropical woods in guitar building.The LGR project partners introduced lutherie students to use a wider range of woods in guitar making, specifically non-tropical woods. They did so in order to improve their skills and knowledge, increasing their chances on the labour market, and to provide them with a better appreciation of the environmental impacts of lutherie and the importance of sustainability in wood use. In addition to the VET benefits for the participating schools, the project itself is having a major impact on the future of guitar building in Europe. Many people believed that the very best high-end acoustic guitars can only be made with exotic tropical woods. But these woods are highly endangered. And they are becoming increasingly scarce as their supply becomes restricted through the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). When they are available a high percentage (est. >70%) has been illegally harvested. The LGR project has clearly shown that local sustainable non-tropical woods can be used to make guitars fully equal in sound acceptance to those made with traditional exotic tropical woods. This result has been accepted and promoted by the European Guitar Builders association to the extent that we are already seeing a mindset change and increasing use of local sustainable woods in guitar making across Europe. The activities and achievements of the Leonardo Guitar Research Project are fully consistent with EU2020 policy on education, climate change, innovation and employment.

"Lots of countries in Europe are suffering from a high rate of youth unemployment. This leads – combined with the freedom of settlement guaranteed by the EU – to lots of well-educated young people searching a job in another country than their home. After some time lots of these young people come back frustrated to their home country because they cannot find a job or they cannot tackle the different cultural attitudes towards work and getting dismissed.Aim of the projectFor a successful job application in a European country the students need to have knowledge about specific differences e.g. in the application process, the documents required (application, CV), the procedures of a job interview or assessment centres or the structure of the respective labour market. If successfully hired, the new employees will experience specifics of working culture of the new working country as well. Every future employee should be aware of having to tackle another language as well as significant differences in the organisation and results of working processes etc., differences which can be intransparent and therefore potentially problematic for the employee. The curriculum of business studies gives the students basic knowledge about topics like the EU countries and globalisation in general. This Erasmus+ project also took intercultural aspects into view. Intercultural knowledge is a key competence which is neccessary to acknowledge, think, feel and act with other cultures and so come to a basic understanding about ""the others"".The students learned from peers from other European countries about cultural differences in their respective countries.The aim of the project was to raise the competences of the students for the Europe-wide labor market, which includes:• applying for a job in a foreign country • being successful in a job interview in a foreign country• being aware of differences in labor law between the countries• being able to tackle with different cultural attitudes towards work• gaining an entrepreneurial view on human ressources management Project structureThe project was done according to the guidelines of ERASMUS+ KA2. Done on a two year basis the actual project work is done on three campus meetings in Italy, UK and Germany. Each participating vocational college sent a group of six students to the campus meetings. We simulated the competition on the market both of the employees and the companies (as simulated for selling-purchasing processes in the previous project Virtual trade, real savings). Each of the participating countries was simulating two virtual companies which want to hire people. Each participating student applied for a job in the companies of the other countries. There were three campus meetings abroad which include a virtual job fair, presentations about the participating countries, labor law, country specific attitudes towards work, work on applications of the students, job interviews, assessment centres, ect. (Complete plan is in the application field G.1)Project resultsDrafts for the individual application in another language, handbooks for job interviews, presentations and handbooks about the labor law of the different countries, presentations and handbooks about cultural attitudes towards work in the different countries, material for assessment center training."