AIM: Communities for Sciences (C4S) will be developed in 9 European cities (Milan -Italy-, Brussels -Belgium-, Manresa -Spain-, Vic – Spain-, Vienna -Austria-, Budapest -Hungary-, Sofia -Bulgaria-, Lund -Sweden- and Berlin -Germany) and their areas of influence. The activities that will be implemented will be coordinated by a local Hub in 6 cities with the leadership of one of these local partners of the Consortium. Each Hub will focus on a specific vulnerable community (immigrants, Roma community and disabled citizens) working with and for children and youth aged from 0-16 years old and their families. C4S will study the relationships between science and society by focusing upon vulnerable communities due to the fact that they are often not visible as active social agents. It is necessary not only to create activities for them, but also to include them as co-participants of these activities in order to ensure a more coherent approach towards inclusive education and to promote anticipatory policy-making. This will be done through science education activities, through formal and non-formal educational institutions, from an inclusive standpoint, to provide them with better science awareness and capacities and to make them progressively aware of exclusionary practices that at times may occur in science. Special emphasis will be put on engaging them in an intersectional approach to fight against the gender discrimination suffered by women and girls on multiple levels. In addition to this, each HUB will engage with policy-makers, educators and institutional representatives to promote their role in supporting and promoting an inclusive science education approach and to consolidate such inclusive practices on more solid grounds.

REFUGE-ED will create the Brokering Knowledge Platform of Effective Practices (BKP), which will host and promote innovative high-quality solutions tailored for the dynamic integration of migrant and refugee children in schools and more broadly in society. In so doing, REFUGE-ED will identify, implement, and evaluate existing evidence-based practices in education and mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) that have shown to promote the educational success, well-being and sense of belonging of children (0 to 18 years old - ISCED 0-3) from recent migration cohorts, including refugees and asylum seekers, and unaccompanied minors. The ground breaking nature of the BKP is two-folded: on the one hand, it will rely jointly on education and MHPSS; on the other, it will feature dialogic co-creation with children, families, teachers, policy-makers, practitioners working on the ground and other relevant stakeholders. REFUGE-ED will capitalise on the social impacts of prior EU research in the field of MHPSS and education, using the Supportive Process for the Inclusion of Children’s Experience (SPICE) under the communicative methodology of research for the co-creation of knowledge and implementation of results. The REFUGE-ED project will carry out 3 multisite pilot actions across 6 countries (Sweden, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Greece and Bulgaria), in a total of 33 Communities of Learning and Practice, that is, hot spots/reception identification centres, inclusive school environments and non-formal and informal social and learning environments, and institutional care (including unaccompanied minors). Informed by these pilots, the final co-created BKP will provide tools, solutions and recommendations, including guidelines and criteria on capacity building training, solution adaptation and community engagement in easy to use off-line package, in different formats, to support the implementation, reuse and scalability of the piloted actions, and of other practices identified as successful.

Nowadays there is no doubt that social and emotional skills (SES) are the key elements of human development. Research findings and official reports provide enough evidence that if children are not attaining minimal SES at around six years of age, they are likely to be at risk in the next stages of their development. Well-developed SES in children contribute to academic success, improve learning conditions, are a powerful tool for empowering children for a better future, for a happier and more productive life, but also they are an irreplaceable tool for prevention of social exclusion, aggression and bulling, school dropout, different types of risk behaviours, psychopathology, unemployment, etc. Deficits in SES lead to poor academic results, may lead to problems with social adaptation or serious psychopathology, substance abuse problems, challenges finding employment, etc. Supporting SES development in early years not only increases children’s chances of success in school, work, and life but it has a great indirect impact on their families, teachers, and the society as whole.The EU-SELF project team is committed to contribute to the key EU priorities: (prevention of ESL (Europe2020), Recommendation 23/4/2008 (European Parliament and Council, C(2008)/C111/01); Communication COM (EC, COM(2011- 66def) ECEC: Providing All Children with the Best Start); EC Communication on Europe 2020 Strategy (COM(2010) 2020); EC’s Proposal for key principles of a Quality Framework for ECEC (EU ECEC QF) (COM(2018) 271 final); EC Recommendation for Quality in ECEC (2018); ERF on Key Competences (2018/C 189/01), Health 2020, etc.), by creating an innovative approach that integrates the academic knowledge in the field of SES with the early childhood educational practises.The team will suggest and plan the new approach by relying on the knowledge alliance between HEIs and ECEC providers and will produce the following results: -an innovative and Europe-wide digital platform, containing reliable, professional and up-to-date, interactive content regarding the state of SES assessment, development and interventions of early and preschool children. It will serve simultaneously as SES information and resource hub, and as well as a tool for communication and exchange of information between ECEC providers, educators, researchers, stakeholders, experts from different countries supporting the achievement of key priorities in the EU. This tool will have sustainable long-term impact. It will boost the field of development of key competences for early and preschool children, children’s social inclusion, redaction of early school dropout, which is in line with the new challenges of the today’s Europe. The platform will be open assess and it will be available after the project ends.-a thorough, sophisticated, scientific literature analysis of the state of SES assessment, development and interventions of early and preschool children for most of the European countries (47) and oversees. The information will be uploaded in the platform and published in 2-volume book.-qualitative study findings regarding teachers and parents’ understanding and attitudes on children’s SES in each partner country. General and national reports will be published.-publications of good practices in European countries and oversees,-analysis of the educational context in the partner countries,-case studies of the practices in the partner countries,-a glossary of main concepts regarding SES.-overviews of key topics regarding SES.The project will reach out various target groups, whose feedback will contribute to its impact and sustainability. Those will be: researchers, teachers, educators, ECEC providers, kindergarten principals, parents, professionals, experts, stakeholders, decision-making bodies, local authorities, EU bodies, etc.EU-SELF project outputs will have enormous long-term impact and sustainability through the following:-digital platform-it will last after the project life cycle and will be assessable worldwide-research study–the findings will contribute to other research and applied projects in other countries, it’s a strong continuation to the findings of OECD studies (2015, 2018), its methodology can be applied in other countries-publications -collection of key findings, topics and analysis, free use-publications of lessons learned by linking knowledge and real practice.The team expects that the above contributions will boost the field of development of key competences for early and preschool children, their social inclusion, reduce the children’s dropout from school, increase the quality of ECEC providers, etc., which respond to the new challenges of the today’s European Union. We view EU-SELF project as a solid foundation and our first step towards a more ambitious aim-development of a programme for SES development in early and preschool children in Europe.EU-SELF project is financed by Erasmus+ programme (KA201), 2019.

The skills required to achieve technological innovation are crucial in developing Europe’s competitiveness and innovative capacity. The modern economy depends on individuals with the ability to design new business models and to seize opportunities making best use of new technologies. High-tech talent is scarce and the number of vacancies for high-tech leaders or e-leaders is increasing drastically. Open Educational Resources (OER) and online learning have the potential to reduce the “time to market” for e-leadership education and training, allowing also for greater accessibility by different user segments, such as adults at work.The COVID-19 crisis has accelerated the digital transformation of education that raised the major need to enhance the digital readiness of institutions and imposed some immediate responses to be given. On one hand, the crisis emphasised the potential of online teaching and learning, but it also revealed huge gaps in the delivery capacities of educational institutions as well as gaps in the capacity of individuals to actively participate and take up what is being offered. The e-Leadership Trainer Accelerator project (acronym eLead Speed) upskilled educators to improve their ability to exploit innovative teaching methods and design e-leadership curricula based on digital learning materials and tools, including OER, collaborative online learning and the e-CF. eLead Speed applied the e-leadership concept itself to speed up the spread of innovative educational practices on e-leadership in the era of the e-leaders – the digital era. The project built on the results of several EU initiatives and projects such as Le@d3.0 Academy knowledge alliance and the family of EU initiatives on e-leadership skills. The consortium was composed of three Bulgarian institutions, being respectively a HEI (NBU), an Excellence Centre for ICT industry competitiveness (ESI CEE) and the National Coalition for Digital Jobs in Bulgaria (DNA), plus two HEIs from Croatia (Algebra) and Germany (MUAS), a business school (ISTUD) and an SME specialised in digital learning (Gruppo Pragma) from Italy. As such, the partners represent both the Higher Education (NBU, MUAS and Algebra) and the tertiary Vocational Education and Training (ESI CEE, ISTUD and Gruppo Pragma) sectors. This ensured synergies between the different fields of education and training (HE and VET) and complemented expertise with the ultimate goal of upskilling educators, so they can better help learners to acquire e-leadership skills. The primary target group was educators from both HE and tertiary VET institutions teaching those technology and business related disciplines particularly included in e-leadership programmes (i.e. Strategic Management, Project Management, Digital Transformation, Technology & Innovation, etc.). The secondary target groups, which benefited indirectly were: HEIs and tertiary VET providers of e-leadership programmes, learners (both students and professional trainees) willing to acquire e-leadership skills, associations of educational institutions, businesses, their HR managers and in-company trainers and professional associations. The eLead Speed project provided a set of highly usable and directly applicable outputs. A set of 15 short e-leadership courses, modules or course outlines and other practical and reusable resources (IO5) were developed by the educators based on the e-Leadership Observatory data (IO1) and the e-Leadership Competences Framework (IO2) and facilitated by the Community of Practice (IO3) and the Trainers’ Toolkit: How to Design, Deliver and Evaluate e-Leadership Curricula (IO4). The trainers worked collaboratively online to design the teaching materials making use of OER and e-tivities. The courses are stored and rendered available inside the OER repository (IO3) for free use by all trainers who are registered to the Community. The implemented methodology covered the entire cycle from industry requirements through occupational profiles to innovative educational content that provides relevant skills and competences and this way creates new opportunities for the industry but also creates new industry requirements for new training and courses. It followed the principles of incremental development and continuous improvement. The selected transdisciplinary, holistic approach guaranteed transferability and scalability of the results and secured high levels of sustainability. The areas of impact of eLead Speed can be summed up as: • Increased knowledge on e-leadership skill needs and occupational profiles • Increased availability of OER and content for e-leadership teaching • Increased capacity of educators to develop training programmes in consistency with market needs and occupational standards • Increased skills of educators to use and develop open learning materials and digital tools • Increased access to e-leadership education and training • Improved quality and relevance of education.

"The European Commission has identified technology and open educational resources (OER) as opportunities to reshape EU education. EU education is failing to keep pace with the digital society and economy and risks lagging behind other regions of the world. The Bulgarian educational system falls within the continental European tradition. Bulgaria’s results in the 2018 OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) are close to the EU average. In line with Europe 2020 goals for smart growth in the EU, the National Development Programme: Bulgaria 2020 targets modernization of the educational system with a view of providing accessible and high-quality education. The National Reform Programme targets for reducing early school leaving by improving the access to education and by enhancing its quality. The Ministry of Education and Science leads the reforms and secures regular rigorous evaluation of the activities funded by the Government and the European Structural and Investment Funds. The short-term activities for modernization of the educational system focus on improving the technical infrastructure and equipment at schools, as well as on training the teachers to utilize it. Moreover, on September 30, 2015, the Bulgarian Parliament adopted conclusively an entirely new Pre-School and School Education Act. The law regulates the adoption of innovations in pre-school and school education, promulgates the continuous professional development of the pedagogical personnel, and involves a wide range of stakeholders in the decision making concerning the educational process. The new legal framework creates beneficiary conditions for enhancing access to, and use and quality of, information and communication technologies in education and for training and lifelong learning of teachers. The training in foreign languages at VET as a final stage of education, especially in the small municipalities, has been overlooked. Consequently, the significant part of East-European young adults are facing unsurmountable language barriers in Europe. Lack of communication between young people in the EU risks to result in an Euro-skeptic attitude in VET students and misunderstanding of the concept of European citizenship. The EU Youth Power project is targeted on spreading the understanding of VET students of European citizenship by providing innovative digital tools for social inclusion through edutainment for acquiring new language competences. The project targets VET students and young adults from all over Europe - innovative digital technologies break geographical boundaries. The educational game (edutainment tool) developed under the EU Youth Power project includes VET students in an effort to tear down the language walls in front of the youth of Europe. EU Youth Power comes from shared values and shared experiences. The project builds on innovative methodologies combining innovative digital solutions, design thinking, neuro-science, semi-automated language processing, didactic approach to gamified learning, and game theory, in order to engage VET students in an exciting adventure around virtual Europe, in which they can explore new places, cooperate and communicate with young people from different countries, in different languages. The EU Youth Power game complements the Erasmus+ Mobility concept. It encourages ""youth travel"" in virtual Europe, the use of different languages to solve puzzles and answer quiz questions related to the current location of the player in the game, as well as social inclusion by providing strong incentives for cooperation and communication between young people of Europe. The project included a series of Multiplier Events aimed at engaging VET teachers, trainers, and students in the process of building support for the learning of foreign languages in VET institutions and in promotion of the EU Youth Power game as a tool to facilitate this process. In the development of the game, the goal of the project team was to create a state-of-the-art edutainment tool to be used by all project partners and external stakeholders as part of their mission to contribute to social inclusion, promote European citizenship, and utilize innovative digital tools in the process. In the long-term, the project has the capacity to impact VET and secondary school students at a European scale."