VocFlo responded to current developments in VET policy in the European Union. These in turn are a response to the economic policy objectives of Agenda 2020. The EU wants to ensure that by the year 2020 75% of the people in working age are in employment. The currently extremely high levels of youth unemployment in many regions of Europe make clear what efforts are needed to achieve this goal. One of the causes of youth unemployment is seen in the lack of employability of vocational training graduates. It is criticized that many VET systems are too remote from the economy and offer insufficient opportunities to acquire the professional and personal skills required by the labor market. The EU therefore calls on its members to reform VET. VET and the economy have to cooperate with each other to compensate for the existing deficits.At this point the project VocFlo starts. Educational institutions at various levels and professional associations of floristry, together with experienced project coordinators, agreed on conceptual foundations for economic and European cross-border vocational training in this sector. They described units of learning outcomes and assigned learning outcomes to them. In order to facilitate the transfer of these units of learning outcomes into educational practice, methodological-didactic guidelines were designed for teachers. The results of the project were examined during its runtime in a Methodology Workshop for teachers as well as a Student Camp for their practicality and compatibility with the different vocational training systems. A training program has been developed and tested, which will enable further teachers and multipliers in floristry to implement the learning outcomes approach in their institutions.To ensure sustainability and to support the transfer of results into VET practice, a network, the European Mobility Network for Vocational Training in Floristry, has been established and cooperation with new network partners has been initiated. In the future, this network will offer cross-border mobilities where participants can complete selected units of learning outcomes. The project's products therefore include a organizational handbook for mobilities. The course of the project is documented in a field report, which is also used to disseminate the project results.The project contributes to improving the quality of training in floristry (strengthening the economic relevance of training), contributes to improving the transparency between European vocational qualifications and opens up possibilities for strengthening cross-border training cooperation (mobilities).

<< Objectives >>FLER Project aspires at equipping low financial literate adults from rural areas with a digital learning process -the Virtual Escape Room- focused on Financial Literacy, purposed at enabling them to make sound financial decisions in their everyday life and/or their businesses, thus eventually improving their individual financial wellbeing. The Virtual Escape Room will embed real-life scenarios, giving rise to a motivating and emotionally engaging, thus foster knowledge acquisition and retention.<< Implementation >>FLER activities will mainly consist in field research via Focus Groups and collection of good practices for an appropriate development of a Scenario-Based Learning course on Financial Literacy. The selection of topics and Learning Outcomes will lead to its definition. On the other hand, the concrete design and technical development of the Virtual Escape Room will be implemented, and then Alpha, Beta and Pilot tested by relevant stakeholders to gain a high-quality product.<< Results >>FLER Project is mainly expected to produce a Scenario-Based Learning (SBL) course on Financial Literacy, addressed to low skilled adults from rural areas and tailored to the specific learning needs of the target group. The SBL course will include real-life scenarios about 7 different Financial Literacy topics and defined by specific Learning Outcomes. Moreover, FLER will create a digital pedagogical tool, consisting in a Virtual Escape Room, which will embed the scenarios previously developed.

The EU aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by at least 55% by 2030. This ambition requires fast mitigation measures within all sectors. Paludiculture is the productive land use of wet and rewetted peatlands and can reduce GHG emissions by up to 70-80%. It thus has a large potential to support the EU’s climate targets and biodiversity strategy and still provide farmers and landowners with income, but only if the practice is scaled up. Currently, there are too few large-scale sites involving local actors that demonstrate industrial scale paludiculture farming models. PaluWise's 4 large-scale paludiculture sites in Finland, the Netherlands, Poland, and the United Kingdom will showcase best practices and solutions for converting degraded organic soils to paludiculture. They develop field-scale operations and their associated five value chains (crops: Downy Birch, Reed, Sedges, Typha, Reed Canary Grass). By having two established (NL, UK) and two new sites (FI, PL), PaluWise can demonstrate different stages of paludiculture and associated value chains, emphasising replicability and scalability. Network sites (e.g., PaludiZentrale, Germany) will provide lessons learnt guidance and engage actors in innovating improvements (e.g. maintaining high water levels, adapting machinery, choosing suitable crop species). A multi-actor approach is applied to co-innovate and improve cost-effective, climate smart value chains. Activities cover the full sequence from deciding where to set up a site (WP1 decision support tool for rewettability), what works well in a site (WP2 demos), what are the benefits/impacts in emission reduction, carbon sequestration potential, biodiversity and other ecosystem services at landscape scale (WP3, WP4), and how to upscale and get support (WP5). We will identify barriers and provide recommendations to boost improved policy and legislation for large-scale deployment of paludiculture in Europe.