The 4th industrial revolution is coming at a worldwide scale, opening up new horizons driven by new-generation digital technologies. This change of paradigm has a profound impact in our economy and society, transforming products, processes and business models in every industry.The Feet IN 4.0 project takes this pillar as its backbone for the development of skills among the future and current workers of the footwear industry. And why is the Feet IN 4.0 project focused on the footwear industry?- The footwear industry is characterized as one of the most handcrafted industries in Europe. In 2016, the European Footwear Sector was represented by 20.300 companies and 286.651 direct employees, with exports to third countries having increased by 40% in quantity and 90% in value from 2009 until 2016.- However, the workforce in the footwear industry is still characterized by people with low-qualifications and even none or severe lack of ICT competences and knowledge. Despite of all efforts, there still are a remarkable number of footwear workers who are infoexcluded. To bring this target group to the digital era is essential to the success of the footwear sector but also to achieve a positive impact in cultural and economical terms and also to assure their social inclusion.The Feet IN 4.0 project intends to incorporate the industry 4.0 in the footwear sector, having as specific targets employees, managers and other key people who have direct connection to the sector and are excluded from or have limited access to the centres of knowledge. The Feet IN 4.0 project was oriented to create new and innovative learning contents that can help trainees to overcome the future challenges arising from the uptake of industry 4.0 in the footwear industry. At the time of the project application and still to this day, Industry 4.0 it is not only a reality in the footwear industry but in all business activities. Nevertheless, the specific characteristics of this sector of activity (namely low skilled workers, info-excluded and high demanding handcrafted jobs), makes this industry the ideal group to test innovative solutions that supports workers in the process of improvement of their digital skills. That way, by creating a training tool kit that combines a more traditional teaching materials (theoretical and practical content) with virtual and augmented reality that replicates the future tasks that workers will need to be engaged, those same workers become more prepared to keep up with the technological innovation linked to their functions. As result, Feet IN 4.0’s results helps them retain their jobs with high productivity. As so, this project provides open access, innovative and free training materials that enables workers in in the new digital era.The main target groups of the project are:(1) Footwear Workforce;(2) VET teachers, trainers, coaches and other stakeholders directed connected and working in the footwear industry;(3) Potential training providers;(4) Employers and HR managers in Footwear companies;(5) Employment services and social parties;The activities of the project directly involved more than 250 participants. In terms of results with relevance for the public we highlight:-Study on Industry 4.0 applied to the footwear industry in Europe-Methodology for applying Industry 4.0 in future profiles for Footwear Industry -The FEET IN 4.0 Training Tool KitOne of the project main expectation was to support continuous training and lifelong learning namely in the digital area. In addiction to developing innovative theoretical and practical training resources, the partners of this project are still working to obtain credit validation (ECVET) of the skills acquired in the training given, as well as making evaluation of learning outcomes in order to ensure the quality of the training provided (EQAVET).

Europe represents now 4% of the worldwide footwear production (2017 data) but has the highest average price worldwide. Europe maintains a tradition of footwear production, and a capital of knowledge throughout its institutions, schools, universities, which allows it to produce the highest quality footwear in the world. Thus, when it comes to the Top 10 most important footwear exporters, 5 European countries are well represented, summing more than 10% of world share exportations. The future of European footwear production is undoubtedly centred in the highest segments of the market, in terms of quality, functionality, design and more and more differentiation.Footwear and leather goods include a variety of product categories: from commodities to specialised products (sports, technical, professional, safety) and finally to luxury products, exclusive and unique, being much more than high quality goods, respond to the most distinctive and capricious niches of market all over the world. In the same way that bespoke exclusive and high-end products such as Rolls Royce and Bentley’s cars, or some of the most traditional Swiss watches are completely handmade rather than assembled in line, high quality, luxury and exclusive footwear is also totally handmade. Consumers from around the world recognise Europe as the reference of luxury footwear manufacturing, which is represented by a limited number of SMEs and micro companies and successful designers with innate entrepreneurship skills (running their own atelier and commercialising their shoes on-line) that both develop and manufacture complete handmade footwear, where every single component is thoroughly studied and becomes special, exclusive, and which average price of 800 Euros/pair is later clearly justified. Such high-end companies have the “savoir faire”, but they cannot find really youngsters or newcomers to whom to transmit their knowledge and skills and who could continue their businesses. They face not only the problem of attracting the young generations to the footwear manufacturing, but also finding candidates with the right skills and competences to produce exclusive and innovative footwear. There is a hidden potential in an increasingly “generation” of new talented designers who have completed VET in the field of Footwear Design in many European countries with footwear industry tradition, very creative and skilled in terms of design but finds a lot of difficulties to materialize their ideas and creations, because they lack the manufacturing skills and means to turn their own ideas into luxury tradable products. Therefore, if Europe wants to maintain, and spread around the continent, its first ranking position in the production of high-end footwear, the industry needs to work on a complementary strategy focused in the differentiation, details, sophistication, exclusivity, and image, which includes a B2C attentive model of marketing and commercialization targeted to such group of consumers. The success of this strategy includes different factors like high quality materials and components, innovative design, but the most important relies on the development of a very target-oriented skills and competences capacity of the manufacturers. A consortium of 6 partners from the most representative countries in terms of Footwear tradition and positioning in the rankings, meeting all necessary competences in the field, assigned this challenge.The whole project was dedicated to maintain and strengthen the high-end footwear production across Europe taking into consideration the specificities of this product category, while promoting the entrepreneurship of new talent designers and the development of a new generation of high-skilled manufacturers, oriented to high-end products in footwear. The project was focused on the creation and development of innovative vocational training ICT and practical based, targeted to a wide range of groups – VET students, new talented designers, footwear workers/technicians, new entrepreneurs in the field of Footwear as a mean to cope with the lack of skills/competences in the field of high-end (luxury) footwear manufacturing in Europe. A wide range of outputs were delivered for the success of the upgrading skills/competences, starting by a deep study on the luxury aspects and the real evidence based training need in this field, evolving to a new profile on technician toward high-end/luxury segment, a programme and a compilation of training contents, a B-learning course which was tested and piloted, as well as diligences for the recognition and validation of the professional certification.All the outputs are available in English and in all languages of the consortium: Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and Czech.

<< Objectives >>The project main goal is to prepare EU footwear sector to embrace the challenge of transition to sustainable, human-centric and resilient industry, transcending efficiency and productivity objectives, in line with the sectorial pact for skills (EU Pact for Skills), allying benefits for industry, workers and society. With the outcomes of the project, it is expected to ensure that workers will acquire the needed skills to support green and digital transition in footwear factories across Europe.<< Implementation >>The work programme roles out in 5 WP (including Management), including short training pilot actions outreach Events for a 36m implementation. During each WP implementation it is expected to create relevant results in a combined and comprehensive manner, which will be used within project duration but also after the project lifetime to support the upskill and reskill of workers and managers towards a smoother implementation of I5.0. All partners will be involved in all the WP implementation.<< Results >>The project proposes to develop a multilevel tailor-made upskilling and reskilling scheme and correspondent innovative contents and tools, to implement the presuppositions of Industry 5.0 towards a green and digital transition, making footwear factories a place where creative and talented people can come and work and live a human, multicultural and personalized experience. With this project we will contribute to reshape and bring new competencies to European managers and workers.

Europe employs more than 278.000 people in more than 21.000 companies, mainly SMEs, adopting a development strategy based on higher quality of products and services, flexibility, short time to market, product differentiation and added value producing 3,2% of the 24.3 billion pairs worldwide (figures 2019 www.worldfootwear.com ). It is a very manufacturing intensive sector with more than 35% of the employees over 50, which highlights strong need of attracting motivated and qualified young talent to replace the future retirements. The Pact for Skills in TCLF (S4TCLF https://www.s4tclfblueprint.eu/ ) as a consequence of the European Skills Agenda, outstands the need of addressing innovative ways of delivering IVET and CVET to capture and maintain a younger generation of employees inside the sector and calls the attention to the urgent need of a digital transformation at the level of training/education.All these factors are currently further amplified by the impact of COVID-19.A survey performed by S4TCLF project to VET providers and High-Education institutions providing VET on the impact of COVID-19 in the training/learning activities resulted in the following findings:- Urgent need of changing the ways of delivering training, opting preferentially by “at distance” approaches- Difficulties in “delivering practical training”- Difficulties from trainers and teachers in adapting their own practices to the new “normal” due to the lack of digital literacy and materials adapted to the new approaches. difficulty in keeping trainees and student within the courses, calling the attention to the need of creating attractive pedagogical resources and environment.- VET providers surveyed also confirmed that after COVID-19 the training approach will change definitely compared to the past and nothing will be as it was, highlighting the priority of developing robust Digital teaching and learning approaches. Therefore, CTCP Portugal, CTCR Spain, POLICALZ Italy, TUIASI Romania, IPS Poland, together with CEC, the umbrella association, and a specialist on digital education, joined efforts to face up this European challenge, for the development of a Footwear virtual “learning by doing” approach targeted to:1st- Trainers/teacher/coaches in footwear sector willing to promote, develop, accompany and assess innovative digital training2nd- Students/trainees in footwear related IVET and CVET or others willing to go for a career in footwear sector and to know more about footwear manufacturing operations,And the expected contributes are at 4 levels:1-Preparation of VET Providers and HE providing VET and their correspondent staff, including trainers, teachers and coaches, for the implementation of comprehensive digital strategies for the learning By Doing in Footwear Manufacturing, including approaches, methodologies and autonomation in contents development.2-EU network of VET providers and HE providing VET to excel in the digital delivering of practical training, toward the development of the practical skills, in footwear manufacturing, including IT educational experts and Umbrella Association.3-Creation of a free complete digitally environment for training/teaching/leaning of practical skills in Augmented reality and correspondent contents.4-Creation of a joint international digital course certified at National level and recognized at EU level for the development of practical skills in Footwear manufacturing.The expected results will be in 3 groups and will be released in English plus the 5 languages versions of the partnership: Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Romanian.1- Joint International course for digital “Learning by Doing” on Footwear manufacturing for the practical learning on Footwear manufacturing, integrally anchored in digital strategies. 2- Joint virtual Shoe Fab Lab and correspondent contents in Augmented Reality (AR) This also includes a course for trainers, teachers and coaches on how to use authoring tools (for the development of innovative and attractive contents in AR. 3-Common methodology on training/teaching/coaching for training itineraries based on augmented reality (AR) which includes manuals for trainers/teachers, coaches and trainees and training opportunity for end users (students and trainees in IVET and CVET).