ContextEuropean labour markets and societies face various challenges and transitions such as the refugee crises, demographic change and future jobs, having a big priority e.g. in the EU Horizon 2020. Guidance practitioners play a key role in adressing these challenges successfully. Their tasks comprise individual career guidance and client counselling for unemployed as well as employed persons who want or need to reorient themselves, profiling, skills assessment and training delivery. Furthermore, they match people to job profiles, and offer services to employers, as well as care catering for those furthest removed from the labour market. To perform this range of tasks competently, a high-level qualification and transnational training as well as state-of-the-art information on effective concepts and approaches and networking of practitioners on a Europe-wide level is essential.ObjectivesOn this basis, the Academia+ project supported the exchange of experiences and transnational trainings of counsellors in Europe. To do so, the project partners developed, piloted and evaluated 3 research-based online Counsellors Study and Training Exchange Programs (C-STEPs) for qualified career counsellors that reflect a transnational, European perspective and meet the needs of the target groups.Each of the C-STEPs focused on a current key challenge, and combined theory, research and practice of guidance: Counselling migrants and refugees, Future jobs, Demographic change.Through the trainings and a learning environment, the project supported provision of better services and guidance on competencies and qualifications and helped to raise the profile of international cooperation within guidance.Undertaken activitiesThe topics of the C-STEPs and their units built on literature and resources reviews from all partner countries, a transnational synthesis with recommendations, online questionnaires answered by counsellors, practitioners and experts regarding the topic from several European countries as well as reviews of the unit structure plans. All C-STEPs were transnational online trainings integrating the knowledge and experiences from a variety of experts and speakers, coming from different European countries with different personal and professional background, providing specific knowledge about several approaches, perspectives and innovation on career guidance.The project developed an innovative and detailed media centre and learning environment based on course units containing all presentations, videorecordings, group work tasks and results, discussion protocols and further material. The project also created a website in four different languages for course participants and trainers including different outputs from the C-STEPs.To promote and disseminate the project and to support international networking the projectteam connected to several networks with the focus on counselling/guidance, published information in frequent newsletters, on websites and in journals, hosted a LinkedIn-group for discussion throughout the project timeline and organized a multiplier event at the end of the project timeline.ParticipantsIn total 257 persons from 22 different European countries (Belgium, Czech, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, Netherland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain) and 13 Non-European countries (Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijani, Australia, Egypt, Georgia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia, Russia, Uganda, UK) participated in the trainings. The project partners acquired 47 participants for C-STEP1 (EU-countries: 11; Non-EU: 3), 89 participants for C-STEP2 (EU-countries: 16, Non-EU: 10) and 70 participants for C-STEP3 (EU-countries: 12, Non-EU: 5).The participants had a wide variety of professional backgrounds e.g. professional career guides from local, governmental and non-govermental organisations, local private businesses or freelancers, psychological institutions, universities and higher education departments, refugee organisations and small NGO’s, but also students and some unemployed persons with a professional background rooted in Career Guidance.Results/benefitsThe C-STEPs reached 257 participants and involved over 40 speakers. The learning environment and media centre functions as a stand-alone resource for non-participants and trainers who like to multiply the event. Email, newsletter, website information and articles in journals addressed more than 10.000 persons.Professionals directly participating in the training or recreating it from the learning environment benefit from the training, so they can better advise and integrate the workforce, unemployed and jobseekers. This enables their counselling organisations to focus strongly on the problems of the respective countries.This has a positive effect on the national labor market, which strengthens the EU.

"Background Success in higher education is vital for jobs, social justice and economic growth and therefore highly qualified professionals are indispensable for each society. As one of its headline targets, the European Union proposes to lead at least 40% of the younger generation to a third level education. Additionally, it claims to reduce the number of dropouts in higher education. Despite various efforts in recent years, the reality in most European countries is a different one. Still too many students in the EU drop out before they complete their higher education degree. Dropping out can be a positive decision when students realise that the time, place or degree is not right for them. However, even though most of those who drop out from an initial course of study want to transfer to another course or to return to study at a later date, currently most countries do not help them sufficiently with flexible arrangements. Students, who leave university without a degree, are usually well-trained persons. However, their potential for the labour market is still underestimated and not used adequately.In order to tackle the problem of early dropout in higher education throughout the European Union, experts amongst others proposed the development of an ""early warning systems"" in order to identify persons at risk. It is also proposed to offer counselling and personal support to students at risk as early as possible in order to be able to offer them adequate assistance.Objectives and target groupsBeing located both at the sectors “Higher Education” and “Vocational Education and Training” of the Erasmus+ Programme, the PrevDrop project targets the situation outlined above. The project targeted two groups of students that face dropout risks: a) students for whom a successful continuation of their studies appears to be probable and b) students for whom a successful continuation of their studies is highly improbable. PrevDrop equipped student counsellors at Universities, careers counsellors at employment agencies as well as students themselves with tools, knowledge and resources that help to detect dropout risks and to provide or find adequate support. Outcomes and productsThe main outcomes of the PrevDrop project included:National and transnational reports that provide an overview about the latest state of research on student drop out from Higher Education in the partner countries as well as the target groups’ needs. A Student Self-Reflection Tool (SRT) that helps students as well as student advisers to detect dropout risk. The SRT comprises four modules (“My studies and I”, “My university and I”, “Don’t worry”, “My feedback”) that include the following scales: Self efficacy, motivation to study, study expectations and satisfaction, University conditions and support, social and methodological competence, coping skills and problem solving Scale selection, development and adaption. A training manual that consists of four modules:- Module 1: Understanding and Preventing Drop out from Higher Education- Module 2: The PrevDrop self-assessment-tool- Module 3: Counselling concepts- Module 4: The successful integration of students who dropped out from higher education into VETA comprehensive resource package for student advisors as well as multipliers that includes e-books, sets of PowerPoint slides for each module and trainer guides that are available at the learning platform section of the PrevDrop web portal. Face-to-face training courses that aimed at implementing the PrevDrop concept and resources and that promoted the networking of student advisors from Universities and employment agencies. The PrevDrop web portal that is the gateway through which the project’s target groups can access the project’s main outputs: The Student Self-Reflection Tool, the learning platform that includes the resource packages for student advisors and multipliers and the project web site. All products are available in English, German and Italian.ImpactAmongst others the PrevDrop project promoted the networking between student counsellors at universities, counsellors at employment agencies and counsellors at other country-specific institutions regarding (potential) dropouts. For other institutions and the labour market there is a greater availability of usually well-trained persons. Companies will profit by getting the opportunity to recruit staff earlier. To sum up, the key factors for the support of students at drop out risks are the early detection of these risks, low-threshold counselling offers and networking. The PrevDrop partnersPrevDrop has been a cooperation of partners from five countries: the University of Applied Labour Studies of the Federal Employment Agency of Germany (coordinator), the Universities of Plymouth (United Kingdom) and Macerata (Italy), Applied Vocational Psychology and Policy (AVOPP) (Luxembourg), ZAB Consult GmbH, the Nürtingen-Geislingen University (both Germany) and Infoart (Bulgaria)"

Europe's future depends on its youth. However, due to crises in many European countries, young people in particular are struggling with unemployment and lack of prospects. At the same time, according to an online-survey of EURES guidance counsellors in 2013, there is an increasing demand concerning qualified vocational, educational and professional guidance counsellors with regard to the areas of aptitude procedures, the classification of certificates into categories and evaluation of placement opportunities in the field of incoming and outgoing. Our project focuses on a practice-oriented European guidance counselling concept (eGuidance Concept), tailored to the international circular mobility of young people, who emigrate from their home country abroad as well as those who remigrate back to their country of origin, bringing along specific skills and intercultural competences. This concept imparted the basic methods of international career counselling and the essentials of the specific area knowledge as to how the international mobility processes of young people can be guided. It is also tailored to the advanced training of European guidance counsellors to answer the demand already mentioned and thus provides a best-practice model for European guidance counselling. Regarding the increasing demand for qualified guidance, the concept provides a best-practice manual of both guidance methods and content. It has been developed by universities with degree programmes in career counselling in close collaboration with experienced European guidance counsellors. The concept has been published and made available through an interactive e-Learning internet portal including a virtual classroom and e-Counselling facility. The manual has been conceptualized as a self-learning modular training programme, which allowed European guidance counsellors to gather and adopt basic methods and the essentials of the area knowledge needed in the field of international guidance of young people. Simultaneously, this interactive self-learning programme has been a concept for the sustainable implementation of advanced training methods for European guidance counsellors through a virtual e-Teaching classroom and served as a training unit for virtual e-Counselling dialogues. The concept and its components served as an advanced training programme for academically qualified guidance counsellors within the framework of a post-secondary and tertiary qualification.The project focused on 3 main outputs: 1. European Guidance Counselling Concept: It contains 7 modules, divided into basic methods and essentials of the area knowledge of guidance counselling. They are put into a manual, which is available not only in form of an interactive E-Learning internet training programme but also in form of documents available on the internet portal. The counselling concept, developed by the Federal Employment agency in 2010 and the handbooks of the projects BD-BG and Distance Counselling were used as a basis, which have been adapted to the specific needs of European guidance counsellors in the partner countries.2. Interactive E-Learning Internet Portal: The open source portal is primarily focused on the interactive process of counselling interviews containing basic guidance methods and the essentials of the specific area knowledge of the international mobility processes of young people, offering a practical training how to guide them up to exemplary dialogue sequences. The essentials of the area knowledge deal with different areas of international youth mobility.3. Advanced training through e-Teaching and e-Counselling: The European guidance concept has been the basis for advanced training measures for European guidance counsellors. These measures have been implemented in form of virtual e-Teaching trainings, which have been set up as an internet-based, modular application, allowing the training concept to be implemented in an open source virtual room. These trainings enabled guidance counsellors to conduct web-conferences and online meetings and carry out the advanced training methods of the European guidance concept. Furthermore the virtual classroom was used as a platform for virtual e-Counselling dialogues between counsellors and consultants.All three achievements have been made available in several languages, for mobile devices as well as for mobile applications. The first milestone was a draft of the eGuidance Concept. The second milestone was the open source interactive e-Learning internet portal. The third milestone was the implementation into advanced training methods through the use of an open source virtual e-Teaching classroom and the implementation of virtual e-Counselling dialogues. Some aspects of the previous EU-funded projects so far (e.g. EMAT, NICE, MEVOC, BD-BG, Distance Counselling and BeKo) have been integrated into our project and served as fundamental tools to be built on.

"<< Background >>Although many companies are currently in the process of digital transformation, many managers do not feel sufficiently prepared for the upcoming changes. Studies show that the necessary digitalisation skills are not available in many companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) (IUBH Internationale Hochschule 2020; KFW Research Fokus Volkswirtschaft 2020). Digital competence is the ability to deal constructively with the challenges posed by digitalisation. Digital competence is one of the most important asset for companies and their employees in the coming years. Digital competences (Stifterverband 2020) include, among others:•Technological competences such as in the areas of data analysis, intelligent hardware-software systems, cloud technologies, AI.•Basic digital skills such as digital literacy (basic digital skills such as use of common software), digital interaction, digital collaboration, digital learning and digital ethics.•Classic skills such as creativity, initiative, adaptability (""getting involved in technological"" developments), perseverance, modern methods for corporate planning and development of products, customer-centred thinking, agile working.The digitalisation not only demands the acquisition of digital skills, it also involves new work and learning models as well as innovative approaches to problem-solving and decision-making in companies, which play a role at all management levels. DIGIGEN focuses on this challenges as well as the professional career guidance counselling in this field by HR practitioners and career counsellors. The necessity of the project and the concentration on women in management positions is partly due to the demand of the European Parliament in 2016, which has urged the Commission and the Member States to use the full potential of digitalisation to promote the empowerment of women (cp. European Parliament, 04/2016). Due to its nature, women in management positions have varied needs. DIGIGEN will identify the digital needs of this target group. The required high level of digital competence must be able to adapt flexibly to organisational challenges as well as to individual leadership styles and personality variables. Very important is the professional career guidance of women in management positions in the field of digital competences by HR practitioners and career counsellors. There are many calls for up-skilling programmes for managers, but also a large number of programmes available. In essence, these programmes ‘fail’ because it does not approach from clearly defined competences, experience, abilities, values and strengths of future-fit female leaders. Furthermore, there is not enough professional counselling for managers and companies, especially in qualification counselling and competence development.For this reason, DIGIGEN will develop, test and evaluate a holistic and scientifically up-skilling programme for HR practitioners and career counsellors, that will include the didactic basis, modules and materials to conduct trainings via different channels (face-to-face and ICT based). The direct target group of the project are HR practitioners and career counsellors. The indirect target group are women in management positions who need and ask special digital skills. They are the most beneficiary group of DIGIGEN. The project results can be integrated into HRM in companies, career and coaching services, PES or institutions for further training. Here, the requirements of the companies have to be taken into account (e.g. by theory of work adjustment). To achieve this, however, conventional hierarchically oriented career models must be questioned (Fischer, Häusling 2018). DIGIGEN follows this systemic approach by critically evaluating digitalisation requirements in terms of their responsiveness to the individual conditions of female leaders in their respective corporate and private environments and integrating them into counselling concepts.<< Objectives >>1. Target group and topic-related professional career guidance:Our many years of experience in national and international projects show that such counselling approaches for women in management positions in the field of digital competence do not yet exist in career guidance. For this reason, the main objective of DIGIGEN is developing, piloting and evaluating an up-skilling programme for guidance professionals. All project partners have also clearly confirmed the need to develop an up-skilling programme for HR practitioners and career counsellors. Based on career development and counselling theories, counselling approaches for women in management positions are to be integrated into the programme, which make it possible to offer professional counselling. Here, the counsellors must be able to recognize the individual life plans and personality traits of this target group with a view to digital competences and to include them in the counselling process.2. Improving the personal career chances of women in management positions through professional counselling and satisfying the strong need for professional counselling:Women in management positions would benefit from knowing which competencies and capabilities are required to navigate the future world of work. The professional counselling will be available to aid these individuals to develop and grow the competencies required to be effective managers in the current and future world of work. In this way, career mobility between institutions and industries would be more easily possible for female leaders. With respect to the stated diversity, DIGIGEN will aid in constructing a talent management strategy for women. 3. Cooperation between Higher Education Institutions (HEI) and companies (resp. representatives of companies):Seven project partners from four countries – HEI and companies (resp. representatives of companies) from Germany, the Netherlands and Hungary as well as an IT and eLearning specialist from Lithuania – are involved. The project will establish a new partnership between HEIs and companies. As an increasing number of HEI and further training institutions offer special services for counsellors, and companies need concepts to promote digital skills of women in management positions, both sides can profit from each other.4. Transnational exchange and cooperation between partners:The European Parliament underlined that the Member States should inform each other about and exchange best practices in order to promote women's participation in digital developments and their career prospects on a Europe-wide basis (cf. European Parliament, 04/2016). The partnership DIGIGEN promotes an active exchange of experiences and good practices between universities and companies on an European level. The participating organizations can lead to find a solution based on the similarities and differences in partner countries. The professional experience of partners could contribute to high quality level outputs. Especially the combination of the competences and standards, elaborated in previous European Projects in career guidance (i.e. BrainDrain-BrainGain (LdV), InCounselling50+ (ERASMUS)), and internationally used HR approaches and tools generates innovation and enables the transfer of previous outcomes of EU-funded projects into a new innovative context.<< Implementation >>DIGIGEN has a project duration of three years and includes five overaching work packages (WP) to achieve the project objectives. The individual WP build on each other.WP1: Competence profiling.In a first step, the project will carry out comprehensive national literature reviews as well as an analysis of the target groups’ needs, requirements, wishes and preferences. The aim is to design profiles for digital skills for women in management positions, which will form the starting point for the development of an up-skilling programme for HR practitioners and career counsellors. WP2: Up-skilling programme (concept, curriculum, resource package).Based on the outcomes of the literature review and analysis (competence profiling), this WP aims to develop an overarching concept that provides the didactical framework and the basis for the construction of the curriculum and the resource package that includes a trainer guide, PPT slides and material for participants. The curriculum contains five modules in particular: Career development theories and digitalisation, digital skills for women in management positions, qualification offers and skills acquisition, work and learning models, target group-oriented counselling approaches (operative theories).WP3: Piloting and face-to-face trainings.This WP focuses on piloting and implementing face-to-face-trainings on a national level. Based on the WP2 (concept, curriculum and especially resource package), the partners will hold each one pilot course in Germany, Hungary and the Netherlands. Each pilot training will be evaluated. Evaluation outcomes will contribute to optimise the concept and material. Finally, in each partner country two face-to-face-trainings will be held.WP4: Web portal and self-directed online course.WP 4 will develop, test and implement a user-friendly web portal for presenting the project and for using online platform for trainers/teachers. Furthermore, HR practitioners and career counsellors working with women in management positions who need digital competences can use a self-directed online course (SDC). The resource package will be made available online in a trainers section of the project’s web portal. The online course aims to provide additional resources that can be used by participants of the face-to-face courses. At the same time HR practitioners and career counsellors who have not participated at the course can use it as a stand-alone resource.WP5: Project Management.This WP includes the programme and finance management as well as the sustainability management. As a part of the project’s sustainability strategy, the partners will provide recommendations on how to adapt the outcomes and reports on work in progress of DIGIGEN to other contexts. To support the country-specific adaption of the project’s results recommendations will be provided on the project’s elements, which are adaptable. As customizable elements can be seen the basic features of the counselling concept (modules, trainings, manual, self-directed online course). DIGIGEN also promotes extensive dissemination measures at local, regional, national and EU-level. This also includes multiplier events that are organised and carried out in all partner countries.<< Results >>DIGIGEN will provide the following important results in particular with regard to the project objectives and outcomes:•An scientific based, accreditable, field-tested and adaptable up-skilling programme for HR practitioners and career counsellors based on current international standards. Accreditation of the programme is not planned during the project; however, this can be applied for by the using organisations in the respective countries.•Expanding specific counselling competences of HR practitioners and career counsellors in the topic ""digital competences and career development of women in management positions"".•Free available and high-quality materials (training materials, trainers' guides, participants' manuals, online platforms for trainers).•Free available and high-quality self-direct online course for HR practitioners and career counsellors to deepen and review existing knowledge.•Creating the basis for offering counselling services related to the target group of women in management positions. This results in professional counselling for this target group with regard to digital competences and professional career development. It is an important contribution, to promote the gender equality and equal opportunities issue and to support this target group in learning digital skills. This is an elementary demand of the EU commission.•Recommendations for use the project results in other countries and future projects (sustainability strategy). Within the framework of DIGIGEN it is imaginable that its products (such as the programme concept, the modules of the curriculum, the resource package and the innovative conception of SDC) will be transferred to new contexts for instance other countries, companies and associations.•Extensive dissemination of the project results at local, regional, national and EU level to inform many organisations and networks about the project and to point out the benefits of training HR practitioners and career counsellors (e.g. publications, lectures, social media, networks, website, flyers, brochures, multiplier events, trainings, integration of results into existing qualification programmes)•Promoting transnational professional cooperation between the project partners and intensifying relations, also with a view to joint follow-up projects."

The STRENGTh project will focus on increasing Social and Emotional competence in career counsellors. Due to the ongoing deep economic crisis with sharply rising unemployment, the European labour markets are expected to change profoundly and in this respect, lifelong guidance is increasingly considered as pivotal in assisting individuals to shape and manage their careers throughout their lives. Therefore the preparation of career guidance practitioners for dealing sufficiently with highly demanding labour market issues is considered vital for providing quality and effective services in career guidance and counselling. As career counselling, is the interaction between a career/guidance counsellor and a person, and is mostly based on understanding clients’ requests, communicating effectively and empathizing easily with others, showing sensitivity to their moods, feelings, temperaments, motivations, understanding and managing other people and developing healthy personal relationships, it’s absolutely necessary for the counselor to have improved social and interpersonal skills, Social Intelligence Skills, in order to establish a successful professional relationship with the clients and be effective professionals.The STRENGTh project will examine, analyse and measure the factors that define and form Social Intelligence, with a special focus in the field of career guidance professionals, who face enormous current and future challenges in converting knowledge and ideas into products and tailor made services according to their client’s diverse needs, for social and economic benefit. The aim of the project is to propose concrete solutions to train a new generation of socially aware career guidance professionals, able to develop and use interpersonal and social intelligence skills, in order to successfully build professional relationships and navigate diverse social environments. So the specific aims include the development of innovative methods and tools that enable career guidance practitioners in being more effective and improving their competences. The participants of the project are mainly guidance practitioners and their supervisors (700 persons) and other 200 experts and stakeholders in Career Guidance.The STRENGTh project will foresee the development of 5 Intellectual Outputs.The first intellectual output is a toolkit for developing Social and Emotional Intelligence skills, which will be developed according to a revision of the state of the art in International scientific literature and especially focusing in the research produced in partner countries regarding Social and Emotional Skills, and on other hand, presenting the most effective methods used for the improvement of those skills. The second intellectual output is a Report on Training Needs of Career Counselors, which will conclude on the main Social and Emotional skills that the practitioners need to develop so as to improve their efficacy as professionals. Based on the findings and conclusions reached by the Intellectual Output 1 ( Toolkit for developing S.E.I.skills) and Intellectual Output 2 (Handbook on needs), a program with specific techniques focusing on communication, persuasion, networking and several other skills that will evoke from the IO2 will be developed and later tested to Career guidance practitioners. The fourth IO will include an online program based on several strategies, exercises for improving 3 main social intelligence skills and additional information for counsellors. Lastly, the partnership will produce as IO5 a useful guide for career counsellors and trainers to improve their Social Intelligence Skills and to use it with the persons to whom they offer their services. The guide will be a practical, “how-to-do” guide for guidance practitioners so that they can implement the developed methodology and train themselves how to evaluate the level of Social and Emotional Skills and how to improve those skills so as to increase their efficacy as counsellors. The Project Coordinator will adopt a methodology based on participatory management approach in order to empower each partner and to comply with the commitments on which partners agreed during the project design phase and at the following check points. Each Intellectual Output will foresee a coordinator of the IO and the involvement of all partners.The STRENGTh project results will lead at improving competences and skills of guidance practitioners, so as to further assist their clients in better career decisions and career planning. Through the results of the project, the impact will be double : on the one hand the improvement of the competences and efficacy of professional practitioners and on the other hand the improvement of the employability and decision making of their clients.Regarding the general results, the project's expected results are in line with the strategic framework for education and training (Education & Training 2020 - ET2020) and with reference to othe