Background The project Blueprint for the Construction Industry gathers 3 EU umbrella sectorial organizations, along with 9 national sectorial representatives and 12 Vocational and Education Training providers (24 partners in total) from 12 EU countries with the aim of working together towards the development of a new sectorial strategic approach to cooperate on skills in the sector, and support a better matching between skill needs of companies and skills provided to workers by training centres.ObjectivesThe Skills Blueprint for the Construction Industry project aims at setting up a sustainable sectorial Alliance between key stakeholders in order to reduce skill gaps between the industry requirements and sectorial training provision, and also to contribute to support growth, innovation and competitiveness in the construction industry developing a sectoral skills strategy that will allow to better anticipate skill needs, addressing the current and future labour market shortages in the sector.ImplementationThe Construction Blueprint Project has a duration of 4 years, and is structured in different phases (denominated Work Packages -WPs-). Although these WPs are independent and have their own tasks and objectives, however, all of them are closely interconnected and co-exist at the same time. At this stage only WP2 has been finalised, since the other are initiated but whose finalisation is foreseen in the second half of the project, or are transversal WPs, ie. are implemented during the 4 years timeResultsAt this stage, the main results are: PESTLE Analysis, StatusQuo Report on Sectoral Skills, Strategic Roadmap and Action Plan, Interactive Map of good practices, SSA portal and website, LinkedIn group, all of them publicly available at https://constructionblueprint.eu/results/ (in English language)

In recent years Machine Learning (ML) qualifications have gained importance in the workplace market. Increasingly companies seek to hire employees with a grasp of the fundamental principles of working with (big) data and applying machine learning methods to design and train intelligent systems for deployment. This need goes beyond traditional employers of skilled information technology (IT) labor, i.e. tech companies, as more and more fields are affected by the power of artificial intelligence (AI). For example, law offices see an increasing trend of the use of AI for the efficient analysis of court documents and their efficient summary, medical professionals have been outperformed by AI in the analysis of medical images and tumour detection, telecom operators generate large quantities of data that needs to be mined and analysed, banks and supermarkets use ML to track their customers and adapt their services, etc. In fact, almost all companies can benefit from a firm grasp of machine learning principles by their employees. On the other hand, there is a persistent and worsening lack of higher-skilled labor in the tech industry at a European level, an issue that has been reflected in the Innovation Union research and innovation policy.The goal of the VALENCE project is to enhance the capabilities of students and shape them to be the future leaders in the ML industry employment market. To achieve this goal the project leverages the expertise of the higher education partners and the training experience by the vocational education partners towards advancing the penetration and coverage of machine learning in the classroom, targeting both technical high school students and adults seeking career advancement or change. At the core of the project is the design, development, and deployment of an online machine learning education platform and fine-tuned to the educational needs of the target groups. The platform will be based on free software in line with the current main European policies on open innovation, open science, and open to the world. The platform will be: 1. rich in that it will cover different aspects of ML including data mining, signal processing and recognition, and artificial intelligence in robotics, 2. customizable in that it will allow educators to set the involvement level of students, e.g. using graphical blockchains for juniors, and writing code for seniors, 3. collaborative in that it will be built around team collaboration both within and between the educational partner institutions, and 4. extensible in that by being free software, a community would be able to enhance and maintain it further.Through this, the deployment of the platform in the education process will increase the value, or valence if you will, of the target groups of students.The final impact of the VALENCE project is in the enhancement of the career perspectives of the next and future generations of highly skilled ML-enabled employees that will strengthen Europe’s perspectives as a global leader in technology.

BackgroundTalentjourney partners from Italy, Germany, Finland, Estonia and Slovenia aim to narrow and close skills’ gap in IOT in smart manufacturing, to innovate and improve the responsiveness of VET system to the needs of industry 4.0 and new era society. We also want to bring VET stakeholder collaboration to the excellence in content and ways of VET provision. All developed Talentjourney services focuses on user-oriented, user-friendly and eco-friendly solutions.Objectives To achieve the aims of the project the partners have defined the two following main objectives: establish the Talentjourney Platform of VET excellence in the field of IIOT that will provide user oriented, user- and eco-friendly solutions; and develop trans-national curricula and life-long trainings in the selected field.ImplementationThe two-year project was launched in November 2019. To get the necessary data on skills needs and gaps in the IIoT field and to get directions for the development of Talentjourney services we have performed interviews in companies and made global desktop research. Obtained information allowed us to start establishing fundamentals of a joint curriculum, lifelong training, trainings for professional development, ecosystem mapping.Results The developed deliverables are: IIOT skills data collection; joint curricula ideation; 8 training and 4 masterclass training for the professional development of trainers; starting points for the EQF 4 and EQF 5 modules of joint curriculum and life-long training in the IIOT field which connects holistically: AI, cybersecurity, data science, robotics and production process development; regional ecosystems mapping, personas and user journeys; project website, media channels for Talentjourney.

<< Background >>The Pandemic from COVID19 has shown us that digitalization is at very low level and since all the schooling has moved to online mode, we have evidenced that the digital content is crucial for the learning process of schools. In the last decade great efforts have been made to integrate ICT in the educational process. But it has not been carried out with the desired dynamics. The most important reasons for that include: lack of digital learning content, insufficient training of teachers and lack of desire and motivation to follow and use the latest technologies and methodologies for e-learning. Besides these, the lack of time for preparation and application of these technologies in the classroom has been pointed out.<< Objectives >>The aim of the project is to increase the human capacity in high schools that will work on the digitalization but also in integration of ICT in teaching through the application of technologies for e-learning and through creation of digital content for education in the form of online OERs.<< Implementation >>This project will be carried out by 10 partner organizations of which 5 are universities that possess substantial expertise in the fields of ICT and E-Learning utilization it the educational process. The other 5 partners are Highs Schools in 3 different countries and have some experiences in e-learning but lack the resources and the knowledge to advance to higher levels and cope with the fast change.The project will provide training for the creation of digital content and the integration of ICT in teaching that is designed for a critical number of teachers from each partner organization. Creation of a critical number of digital content (OER) for teaching that will be used by all partner organizations and the wider community of teachers is also foreseen with the project. There are four (4 ) trainings – workshops planed. These trainings will help teacher to improve skills and competences for usage of ICT in the educational process and will also help them learn to develop digital educational content in form of OERs. These training will be helped and enforced by the planed Intellectual Outputs of the project that include: analyses, recommendations, tutorials for eLearning and OER creation and also developed several OERs.<< Results >>The expected main outcomes of this project refer to the increase of digitalization process and development of the digital skills and competences of the teaching staff to design and manage with OER. We also expect increasing and expanding of the cooperation with the schools in the region and Europe through creation of an OER exchange net. We expect at least 30 teachers to undergo the training and to develop OERs to deliver at least three common subjects. Besides teachers, students who will use these OERs will benefit from the project.Having in mind the accumulated experience and expertise in the participating partners, their previous collaboration, the systematic approach and the vigorous project methodology we believe that the successful implementation of this project will have adequate and long term impact: teachers will receive increased competencies and skills through training; schools will receive advanced teaching methodology and students will be able to use directly lessons that will be more contemporary and easier to use. And yet this project would just be a solid base for further growth of the interactive, modern and transnational knowledge base in form of OERs available worldwide.

The Challenger project aims to foster innovation through VET applied research (AR) to build stronger innovation capacity and impact at the EU and regional level to address global challenges and opportunities and contribute to creating value for people, the economy and the environment through new or improved solutions.Project objectives: Design and establish an innovative, sustainable and efficient structure to promote innovation through the use of AR in VET. Strengthen and improve the integration of innovative VET teaching methods to foster an innovative and entrepreneurial mindset. Map, design and set up Innovation&Entrepreneurship Resources, guided by tutors and mentors with role models.Key actions and results: Identify best practice cases of AR in VET, existing systemic barriers and solutions for integration of the new structure of AR into VET system and VET curriculla at EQF 4,5 and 6. Based on the findings we will develop: the framework and all required systemic and operational background elements of the structure, called Next-Generation community makerspace; the innovation journey for the users; the framework for the teacher/mentor role model to foster innovation culture and their professional development. We will design self-guided courses for learners and role models included in the new structure and the resources that will support them. We will pilot the parts of the new structure and the role model professional development, in the frame of establishing six open community spaces as research gates in partners regions. The makerspaces will shape and prepare the targets to be able to design, develop and deploy innovative solutions for our regional communities to achieve meaningful impact and benefit for all.The main target groups and stakeholders are learners, VET teachers and tutors, industry experts, entrepreneurs, researchers, policymakers, regional authorities, other interested creative people. The focus among targets will be put on gender balance.