Entrepreneurship is proven to drive innovation, competitiveness, job creation and growth. It allows ideas and innovative concepts to be turned into successful ventures, and furthermore unlock the personal potential of creative individuals. Youth entrepreneurship in the creative sector is vital to ensure the continued development of societies, and is at the heart of the wider creative economy. At least Until 2020, the creative sector represented growth and created jobs across the board, particularly for young adults, whilst also strengthening social cohesion. The sector drove innovation, acting as a catalyst for change and stimulating invention and progress across a diverse cultural and economic landscape. Further to being essential drivers for cultural diversity in Europe, the creative sector comprises highly innovative companies and was deemed to be one of Europe's most dynamic sectors. A 2018 study - Boosting the Competitiveness of cultural and creative Industries for jobs and growth shows that cultural and creative industries employed more than 12 million people in the EU, which is 7.5% of all persons employed in the total economy. Cultural and creative industries (CCIs) are an important contributor to the economy with 5.3% of the total EU GVA and a further 4% of nominal EU GDP generated by these, often high-end industries. Where an economy is facing decline, CCIs can contribute to the emergence of grassroots economic activities, creating sustainable jobs and enhancing the attractiveness of European regions and cities, and EU cohesion policy has recognised the multi-faceted contribution of creativity to its strategic objectives of convergence, competitiveness and employment.SMEs are the engine room of the EU economy, and the critical role played by fledgling businesses in driving economic development and job creation is just being recognised. Across the OECD area SMEs account for approximately 99% of all enterprises and two-thirds of employment. SMEs account for 57% of GDP in Europe and 95% of all SMEs are in fact micro enterprises, traditionally the entry point for new entrepreneurs, and this is increasingly so in the CCI sector, where most new businesses employ on average 2 or 3 people. The cultural and creative sectors are important in their own right in terms of their economic footprint. Cultural and creative sectors are largely composed of micro-firms or non-profit organisations often operating on the margins of financial sustainability. Large public and private cultural institutions depend on this dynamic cultural ecosystem for the provision of creative goods and services. However, and arguably more importantly, they are critical to a shared sense of European identity, culture and common values. The labour landscape, where ‘jobs and skills for life’ were once predominant, has given way to a precarious job market, where entrepreneurial options should be, but often aren't posited as a viable alternative for some young people over dependent labour (OECD, 2018). In the EU-27 (exempting the UK) since October 2019 to July 2020 unemployment has risen from 6.6% to 7.2%. over 15 million people were unemployed as of July 2020. This incorporates a rise of 336,000 since June 2020. In the EU-27 in July 2020 average youth unemployment stood at 17%. The COVID-19 outbreak and the measures applied to combat it have triggered a sharp increase in the number of claims for unemployment benefits across the EU (Eurostat). This has disproportionately hit youth with unemployment (-25 years) by country as follows: TR 23.7%, BG 9.4%, IE 14.8%, ES 41.7%, IT 31.1%, LT 20.3% UK 12.5% Along with tourism, it is the cultural and creative sectors who have been the most badly affected by the Covid-19 crisis. Venue-based sectors such as performing arts, live music, festivals, cinema, etc. were hardest hit by social distancing measures. The abrupt drop in revenues has put their financial sustainability at risk and has resulted in lay-offs with repercussions for the value chain of their suppliers, from creative and non-creative sectors alike. The Ace Youth project will serve a crucial sector at risk, by building and sharing measures and materials to offer entrepreneurial competencies and resilience training for the young people most affected. Addressing poor in-school careers services, the narrow curriculum and industry misrepresentation in low socio-economic communities and cuts to arts education. People from lower socio-economic backgrounds all too often are not fully represented in the creative workforce, and to this end mentoring can play its part supporting budding, young entrepreneurs, and we propose to incorporate an inter-generational approach. It is also widely accepted that target group specific, coherent entrepreneurship education initiatives are in short supply throughout Europe, and now is the ideal time to blend entrepreneurial training with resilience training for young people in the creative sector.

Countless educational institutions across Europe are enduring a period of rapid pedagogical transformation as teachers, trainers and other academic staff are increasingly having to rely on technology to deliver blended or online learning to their learning cohort. The same is also true of learners who have also had to make seismic shifts as a response to the Covid 19 pandemic, contact limitations and physical distancing measures. The crucial issues we now face are; are teachers appropriately equipped to deal with the shift in pedagogical or technical terms? And have education managers considered the end users' needs and perspectives? To switch effectively to online learning, three overarching requirements need to be fulfilled; access to the internet, the right technology, skills to use the technology. We have seen a rapid transition to online learning across the board, where professionals who might have been previously 'resistant' to using technology to support their teaching and learning, or lacked confidence to make the transition, have now been forced at pace to gain experience and expertise with a wide array of digital tools. To ensure that learning was disrupted as little as possible, educators had to quickly install, adopt and become experts with digital tools — Online learning management systems, video conferencing tools and messaging platforms etc — just to make sure students could access course materials and communicate with teachers. In many ways the pandemic and necessary safety measures have, and still are, forcing educators to 'flatten the learning curve' to the point where staff and learners should be more comfortable engaging with learning tools and online technologies. By managing the learning curve effectively we could see a shift in educational culture, and the ability or willingness for educators to collaborate, becoming agile agents of the technological change. But is this the case across the sector?The use of digital content in all levels of education was relatively uncommon before the Covid crisis. Only 20% of countries had digital learning resources in teaching, and only in some schools. Worldwide, a mere 10% of countries had robust digital learning capabilities offering some of the educational materials available outside of school. According to the World Bank, no country had a universal digital curriculum for teaching and learning. These numbers paint a picture of the efforts that governments and schools had to take to rapidly move to distance learning to ensure continuity of learning. (europeandataportal.eu/)Pre-pandemic, in 2019, only 8% of people aged 16 to 74 in the EU reported that they did an online course in the 3 months prior to the survey, a minor increase compared with 7% in 2017. Compared with 2010, the share of people doing an online course doubled from 4%. Young people, aged 16 to 24, were generally doing online courses more frequently than the average adult population. In 2019, 13% of young people reported doing an online course in the last 3 months, compared to 9% among adults aged 25 to 64. Among older people (aged 65 to 74), only 1% did an online course. Even larger differences between the age groups are observed in one further aspect of online learning activities: communication with instructors or students via educational websites or portals. In 2019, 28% of young people aged 16 to 24 reported to have communicated with instructors and students online in the last 3 months, while only 7% of those aged 25 to 64 were doing this. (ec.europa.eu/eurostat)Widespread and affordable broadband access is certainly one of the means of promoting a knowledge-based and informed society, in 2019, the share of EU households with efficient internet access had risen to 90% from 50% a decade before, while 73% of the most commonly connected mobile devices were smart phones, laptops and tablet computers. However, across all of the Learning Curve partner countries there is still a digital divide, although it varies significantly country to country. Given the existing digital divide, new shifts in education approaches and expectations might even risk widening inequality even further. In preparatory research, all partner countries reported less than satisfactory access to the internet with devices 'dedicated solely for learning'. The quality of online education doesn't simply depend on access to internet, it also requires the right technology, and the requisite skills to use and deploy them for learning. The digital divide could deepen if the effectiveness of education is directly linked to access to the latest technologies, and without special attention to the pedagogical theories and demands that underpin their use in the classroom. Learning Curve proposes a 'one stop shop' for educators to match theory with the new found technical demands and expectations, and take their next steps into delivering effective online learning and assessment that is critical in this uncertain time.

The context analysis shows that, in every partner country, the COVID-19 pandemic has not only limited the way people can relate to each other and perform their most basic every-day-tasks, but has also had a significant impact on the regular delivery of education, training and youth policies. At such a critical time for our societies, access to education is proving, more than ever, to be essential to ensuring a swift recovery, while promoting equal opportunities among people of all backgrounds. In light of these exceptional circumstances, the SIE project takes up the challenge to confirm the role of education and training as the main instrument supporting youth social innovation, education and training as well as providing opportunities for personal, socio-educational and professional development of youth people in Europe and beyond, with the aim of leaving no-one behind. This instruments are definded in the following two IOs:* IO1- Storytelling Mentorship Guideline for Youth : How to mentor young people to start their own businessThis Intellectual Output is a support tool for youth workers to Mentor and Stimulate Youth Social Entrepreneurship in their youth organisations and communities. Its main aim is to strengthen mentoring skills of youth workers, to be able to fully follow a Youth Entrepreneurship Process, from idea development to realization and provide the necessary support for the idea to be realized.* IO2- Storytelling Training kit on Entrepreneurship for Youth :This is a youth support video tool, to show that social entrepreneurship is possible in the context of COVID-19. It introduces Entrepreneurship (Social) training related to Entrepreneurship in her lifelong learning. It is divided into two parts.- The first part is a training curriculum for young people to conduct training and learning activities on the topic of youth entrepreneurship.- The second part is composed of the methods and practices from youth work and non-formal education, that youth people can use to develop and stimulate entrepreneurship on local, national or international level.The intellectual results of the projects round out the projects aim to motivate youth organizations to support youth entrepreneurship and further broaden this topic, develop the capacities of young workers, reflect on the necessary competencies of young workers, act as motivators of young people for entrepreneurship and to motivate their lifelong learning skills to improve in this area.Additionally, the SIE project will be also benefit from the involvement of stakeholders. These organisations will contribute indirectly to the implementation of specific tasks/activities and support the dissemination and sustainability of the project. This partnership ensures a relevant dissemination network with great potential to meet the project objectives.In order to ensure that SIE Project achieves its objectives, the following activities will be carried out:- 4Transnational Projetc Meetings to manage, develop and control de activities of the project.- 6Multiplier Events, one per country participating in SIE Project.- 1 Learning activity, “Short-term joint staff training event”, in Romania. This activity will be essential to ensure that the SIE products and results are adjusted to the current reality of Europe, and to the needs of young people when developing a social entrepreneurship project with a cultural background.The Dissemination Plan will be developed by Asociatia D.G.T., as Dissemination responsible; due its huge experience and network. The Dissemination Plan will be subject to compliance with the project objectives and specific dissemination objectives, reaching each detailed target audiences, taking into account their profile, needs and preferences. Its activities will ensure: - Dissemination of the project, its outputs, results and synergies. - Transparency in implementation. - Accessibility of people involved and non-participants. - Transfer and capitalization of expected results.Creative entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship are elements with an immense versatile application capacity in multiple environments. For this reason, sustainability characterizes the SIE dissemination since the first moment, assuming the following facts:1) Characteristics of the outputs, outcomes, and associated materials. It will be designed allowing its application by target people, but also as a present or future application tool in multiple contexts; offering a flexibility in its contents and structure that enables its use, application or processing in multiple environments.2) Dissemination and scope configuration. SIE project establishes an ambitious Dissemination Plan with collaboration of the important networks of stakeholders, associated partners and regular collaborators of the partners involved.3) SIE project will promote free access to all the materials produced, as a way of increasing its scope and sustainability.

As Europeans we all know that culture and creativity are essential elements of the European identity, but perhaps few of us are aware of just how important they are to the overall growth and prosperity of the European economy. This knowledge gap, or general ‘misbelief’ has deep roots in our histories, as politicians as well as professionals have long overlooked the importance and economic potential of the cultural and creative industries, as well as creativity more generally in everyday civic life. In more challenging times such as during the Covid crisis, we have all relied on creative and cultural works to get us through the toughest days, whether literature, radio, music, films or TV they have been our solace and our comforter. They stand as a 'beacon of hope' to overcome the despair for many people and communities; but do governments or local policy makers give the creative sectors the credit they deserve for their civic service? After all, the creative and cultural sectors are the second most impacted after tourism in the ongoing Covid crisis. Across Europe, entrepreneurship drives innovation, competitiveness, job creation and growth. It allows new innovative ideas and concepts to be turned into successful ventures and furthermore can unlock the personal potential of individuals. Entrepreneurship in the creative sector is important to ensure the continued development of societies and is at the heart of wellbeing of the wider economy. Aside from entrepreneurship, encouraging creative and cultural dialogue can be developed as key components of local economic development. Cultural and creative industries are often strongly dependent on location, they feed on local traditions, and therefore they are especially suitable channels to, not only share the energies of place, but also further serve communities and contribute to community cohesion. Making Space 365 partners believe that by employing creative methods in community contexts by bringing different decisions makers together can benefit wider society by creating shared creative spaces and projects that explore the common needs of society in a 'bottom-up' development process. Just as creative and cultural industries act as a catalyst and an innovation engine, employing their approaches and methods can bring benefits that strengthen the human economy. Local councils and municipalities, as the most local forms of the government have a key role to bring together the disparate elements of entrepreneurship, culture and creativity with young people and decisions makers at all levels to explore the potential of implementing shared creative activities and the diverse units of economic and social activity contained in the civic space. Making Space 365 partners propose 4 intellectual outputs:Making Space 365 Framework for Social, Civic & Community Education and EngagementMaking Space 365 Creative Skills & Entrepreneurship Youth Training CurriculumMaking Space 365 Civic Action and Creative Youth Event GuidebookMaking Space 365 Creative CalendarAn international training event will be hosted with participation of front-line youth leaders and workers and a Making Space 365 Festival & Showcase Event will be held in each partner country to celebrate the project results.Making Space 365 resources will be the tools with which young people, youth leaders, community organisations and local stakeholders can create grass roots movements and momentum to ensure the communal voice is heard. The project will develop a new working model and methods for devolved decisions that involves shifting the burden of decision making from municipal leaders to include a spectrum of local voices; e.g. community members, local businesses, youth and community organisations in a creative space where different perspectives are valued. This is a two way methodology and we want to support whole communities to engage in more meaningful, locally relevant discussion, that not only increases community engagement with the cultural and creative sectors, but that traditional civic and community roles also become invested in creative approaches and share the methods within their civic and community structures.Making Space 365 will develop tools, training and approaches that can help communities, youth and community organisations celebrate a pride and ownership of something that is ‘of’ and ‘with’ the community rather than just ‘for’ the community. The impact of engaging with the Making Space 365 model will be long lasting and create a model for long term engagement that can be sustainable and transferable to new settings. The Making Space 365 materials will be designed for face to face or online delivery, essential in such uncertain times; and it is intended that by targeting young people we can make a difference that will be transferred to new settings as those involved embark on their working journey, taking up employment within the community or starting their own creative businesses.