Context/background of the project. There are currently 14 million young people not in employment, education or training (NEETs) in Europe, costing an a huge amount in economic loss to society, and increasingly threatening the future of an entire generation. The GLEAN project addresses NEETs and disadvantaged people through a training programme in agriculture. Agricultural sector in facts has a huge potential for employability, and previous experiences highlight the added value of agriculture work for disadvantaged people, particularly through social farming. GLEAN therefore has designed, developed and implemented, a training programme based on learning on the job in agricultural field, addressed to disadvantaged young people, such as NEETs and long-term unemployed young people.Objectives. Identification and analysis of the most innovative social practices in agriculture in the Mediterranean and EU countries. Definition and implementation of a training program improving the skills of unemployed former agricultural students and of NEET in severe discomfort (by immigration, socio-economic situations, and / or with disabilities). Definition of the learning materials and the architecture of learning related to social and technical skills in agriculture combining the latter with territorial needs in agriculture. Realization of a training course to about 50 people (minimum 15 per Country) with innovative teaching methods providing direct work experience and implementing social skills and mutual support. Through the realization of the above objectives. Identification of the methodological guidelines for the transferability and exploitment of the educational program at a EU level. Set up of a website for detecting the innovative practices identified and downloading teaching materials.Number and profile of participating organisations. The six partners from 3 European Countries, Spain, Italy and Greece, have worked in a complementary way in order to achieve the project results. In fact, three partners, one per Country, are deeply involved in training and agriculture, one – the lead partner – is experienced in disadvantaged people inclusion, another – Militos – is specialized in communication and online tools and the last one, Melius, has got a wide experience in guidance and in EU projects. This has allowed to keep high the quality of all products, also through a mutual review and support.Description of undertaken main activities. As planned in the proposal, the consortium has first analysed the existing practices at a EU level, and created an online database. The IO1 results have allowed the partners to structure the NEEP frame (IO2) in an innovative way, including all the relevant topics and customizing the programme for each trainees group. The draft NEEP has been validated through focus groups at a national level, then presented in workshops to all the involved stakeholders. Materials have been developed in each partner Country, shared and validated (IO3); as already told during the monitoring visit held by the Italian NA, the delay in the first months has been afforded and recovered by parallelizing some activities. This is the reason why IO3 activities have gone on also during IO4 ones. IO4 has started with the creation and validation of selection criteria and of the training agreement; after a period devoted to the selection, the courses have started (Nov-Dec 2015) in the three Countries and have continued till the end of August 2016. In the meanwhile, from July the draft of the IO5 Guidelines has been done, and enriched during the two project last months of activities, till the final version of end of August. The IO6 has started at the very beginning of the project and is still working, as the website, database and NEEP course will be made available to the public for the next years.Results and impact attained. An update state of play of the available programmes, learning units or practices fostering employability and entrepreneurship skills of NEET and disadvantaged young people; the NEET Programme (NEEP), a transversal learning programme aimed at fostering acquisition of technical and soft skills in an European perspective; 3 learning pathways activated in 3 countries in Europe; guidelines and recommendations for the adoption of the programme by further Institutions; activation of employment opportunities for the trainees; this is not available yet, as the three months planned after the end of the project exceed the reporting deadline; at the moment, about 30% have got a job opportunity.Longer-term benefits. The relevant results achieved through the project can be transferred both in other sectors and Countries. I. E. what has been made with agriculture could be made also for crafts or arts, which arefurther sectors with inclusion opportunities and personal development characteristics. Identified soft skills and related materials are transversal and can be used in many inclusive training programmes.

Demographic ageing in the EU leads more and more people to engage in informal care giving. It is indeed the backbone of care provision in Europe: around 100 million of family carers across the EU provide over 80% of all care, from which 2/3 are women, mainly daughters (in law) and wives/partners. In addition, the number of people affected by degenerative diseases is also increasing, among which Alzheimer represents about 10 million. At the same time, key social changes, such as the massive access of women to education and to the labour market, have greatly impacted care provision. A shortage of labour supply in caring services is expected to reach 20 million by 2025.In this context, TRACK project (TRAining and recognition of informal Carers’ sKills) addressed socially disadvantaged informal carers dealing with people affected by Alzheimer, to support them during their caring experience and beyond, by reinforcing their well-being, skills, and employability. This multifaceted goal required a complementary consortium, composed by 6 partners from 5 member states: • IPERIA, a VET provider and certification body for care workers, • Diputación Provincial de Jaén, a provincial government, • WBS Training, a VET provider,• La Compagnie des Aidants, an association of informal carers• WIAB, a research institution on labour market and education research• EUROCARERS, a European organisation representing carers at EU level.To reach this main project goal, 2 main objectives were fixed:1. to design, develop and test (in France, Germany and Spain) a tailored blended training programme, and2. to develop a roadmap for the recognition and certification of the skills acquired by informal carers thanks to TRACK training and their caring experience, enabling to valorise hem and to identify professionalising perspectives for those wishing so.To do so, a study to define the learning needs and the training offer available for carers in the EU was conducted. It involved 58 experts consulted, 26 publications, 8 initiatives and 10 EU projects reviewed. Its conclusions were validated by 3 focus groups gathering a total of more than 40 stakeholders, among which informal carers, care and health professionals and representatives of local communities: the need of adapted training, the obstacles (lack of time, replacement for caring during training), the preference for blended learning (face-to-face and online) and the most relevant issues (information about Alzheimer, stress management, self-care, communication and daily activities).Based on these results, a training programme was designed in 4 languages (EN/FR/ES/DE) and tested by around 60 participants. A short (about 20h), blended, and micro-learning-based training, including:• The Training kit: user’s guide and face-to-face,• Online resources: eLearning contents, quiz and info sheets.According to the evaluation, 90% of the informal carers were satisfied and 84% considered the training as operational, helping them to be aware of the skills developed (care planning, resources finding, communication and stress management, etc.). In parallel, a feasibility study was conducted to explore further development of the training and certification perspectives, on the basis of interviews with 6 national and 2 international certification experts, as well as the analysis of 25 good practice projects at national and EU level, 8 initiatives and 10 EU projects. The conclusions highlighted the importance of using existing tools and mechanisms (available professional certifications and available processes for the validation of experience on care sector), as well as ensuring online free open access to the training programme to guarantee long-term impact.These conclusions were validated as well by 3 focus groups that gathered more than 60 stakeholders and experts (informal carers, professional caregivers and health professionals, policy representatives, decision makers, validation experts, VET professionals and information providers for the elderly and public employment services, recruitment agencies and enterprises) who considered TRACK training as a facilitation tool for empowerment, professional positioning and employability for informal carers. All these results enabled to draft the roadmap for the recognition and certification of the skills of informal carers, validated as well during the final conference of the project in Brussels. Around 80 participants, stakeholders and experts in the field of informal care and training, as well as representatives of the European Parliament and the European Commission, who made possible to attain a reinforced dissemination and sustainability.

Pharaon’s overall objective is to make a reality smart and active living for Europe’s ageing population by creating a set of integrated and highly customizable interoperable open platforms with advanced services, devices, and tools including IoT, artificial intelligence, robotics, cloud computing, smart wearables, big data, and intelligent analytics. Platform interoperability will be implemented within Pharaon ecosystems and platforms, as well as other standardised platforms within health and other domains (energy, transport and smart cities). Pharaon will consider relevant standards and will contribute to them with the help of the two standardisation bodies of the consortium. Data privacy, cybersecurity, interoperability and openness will be key design principles to pursue through the requirements generated by Pharaon experts. Pharaon will be built upon mature existing state-of-the-art open platforms and technologies/tools provided by the partners, which will be customised and will implement cloud technologies, AI techniques and traditional algorithms for big data intelligent analytics. A user-centric approach will be followed. Pharaon will evolve based on the user feedback and the results from a MAFEIP framework that will be implemented for impact assessment. Both inputs will be used to find innovative solutions through two “open calls”: (1) single solutions, and (2) solutions to be demonstrated in small-scale pilots. Pharaon’s integrated platforms will be validated in two stages: pre-validation and large-scale pilots (LSPs), in six different pilot sites: Murcia and Andalusia (Spain), Portugal, The Netherlands, Slovenia and Italy. A team of partners in each pilot will ensure its right development. A set of development tools will be created and made publicly available to simplify the customisation and integration. These tools and the results of dissemination will spread the generated knowledge to promote the development of new solutions similar to Pharaon.