The project Placement Opportunities With Entrepreneurial Reach (POWER) will facilitate the establishment of a coherent, sustainable and EU-wide placement ecosystem, which is primarily focussed on high impact placements with evident entrepreneurial elements. This will be achieved by the purposeful cooperation of 5 universities and 4 incubators who together will create modern, targeted and user-friendly ICT tools as well as provide comprehensive guidance and support material (via blended trainings, webinars and guidelines) both for the academic and business worlds in order to better equip them to support highly-skilled current and future entrepreneurs.The project POWER intends to develop tools and accompanying resources to build a highly attractive and efficient placement management and facilitation ecosystem, thus ensuring that it is beneficial:- For current MA students and future graduates across the EU to improve their entrepreneurial competences, their business planning and employability skills; - For the start-up community and incubators to ensure access to a pool of local as well as international talents for further growth of their start-up businesses;- For universities to modernise and digitalise placement management tools, therefore increasing the accessibility and visibility of placement opportunities for their students not only locally, but also across the EU.The ICT infrastructure as well as the accompanying material will allow universities, incubators and students to connect at a local and cross-border level, thus considerably increasing the opportunities of powerful entrepreneurial placement experience for students and ensuring the right match of relevant skills and competences of students for further growth of the start-up community.The 10 consortium members have set ambitious goals that will be achieved in close cooperation with over 50 associate partners, including universities, EU-wide networks and incubators.

"<< Background >>In the current social context characterized by a globally aging population, the number of people with disabilities is set to increase. According to the Survey on Health and Social Inclusion in Europe (Eurostat 2016), disabled people over 15 years old are 70 million. According to Istat (2018), there are 3 million and one hundred thousand people with disabilities in Italy. At the European level, one-fifth of the population is expected to have some form of disability by 2020. The EU and all its member states are parties to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). For the EU, this treaty has inspired the content of the European Disability Strategy 2020-2030. All EU laws, existing or future, must be in line with this Convention. The European Parliament also supports the active inclusion and true and full participation of people with disabilities in society. According to MEP Helga Stevens, disability is not limited to one area but touches all areas of society. Education must also be inclusive and this must also concern the accessibility of European programs such as Erasmus+. Within this social framework, it is essential to change the way in which people with disabilities are taken care of, so that they are no longer merely ""assisted"", but oriented towards the development of autonomy, social inclusion and the prevention of forms of marginalization. The DEEP project starts from the assumption that, in order to face these social changes and the challenges arising from them, it is crucial to intervene in the training of professionals who, for various reasons, establish relationships with people with disabilities. Recent studies show that in rehabilitation, educational and professional interventions, the technologies currently available can help rehabilitation, autonomy, school, work and social integration of people with all types of disabilities, age and disabling disease. Specifically, in the world of 3D printing, the potential of technology emerges especially when it is the disabled themselves to be co-designers of their aids: it is therefore crucial to also consider their needs in the realization of such aids through 3D printing, since various studies show that up to one third of aids are not used by disabled people today (Scherer 2002, Federici and Borsci 2014) for various reasons: personal factors (age, gender, performance expectations, change in self-image, type of disability), characteristics of the aid (quality, functions, aesthetics) (Wessels et al. 2003).<< Objectives >>The objective of DEEP is to create a training model that is able to bring together professionals from different professional categories, overcoming the current logic that disability is a topic limited to specific sectors. This training model will have the following specific objectives: - to develop skills in the field of 3D prototyping; - to bring the world of social and health care to the potential of the use of 3D printing in the world of disability; - to make makers acquire and increase in social and health care professionals, relational and pro-social skills essential to work with people with disabilities; - to reach the description of units of learning outcomes assessable and, therefore, usable in the description and evaluation of professional profiles). Taking charge of the person with disabilities, in its entirety, needs a set of skills that make a holistic approach necessary. The direct target of DEEP will be composed of: health professionals (doctors, psychologists, nurses, physiotherapists), occupational therapists and experts in the field of 3D printers (defined as makers). Only with a change in the logic of taking care of the disabled, which is no longer purely ""welfare"" is possible to go in the right and authentic direction of social inclusion (first horizontal priority). Inclusion is a right based on the full participation of people with disabilities in all spheres of life, on the basis of equality in relation to others, without discrimination, respecting dignity and enhancing human diversity, through appropriate interventions and the overcoming of obstacles and prejudices. Inclusion is effective only with the direct participation of excluded and discriminated people (Griffo, 2007).<< Implementation >>DEEP aims to create a training model that, by bringing together knowledge and skills of professionals from formally distant fields, can increasingly encourage the innovative use of 3D printers in the world of disability. To this end, the project includes 3 macro-areas of activity that will contribute to the optimal achievement of objectives and results: 1. Creation of the DEEP training package, also considering the transfer and adaptation of best practices that the different partners involved have effectively experienced within their activities. 2. Training activities of the multi-actor target (health professionals, occupational therapists, makers); this will not only increase the knowledge and skills of professionals, but will support them to implement the model in the field with people with disabilities. 3. Experimentation in the field that will involve in a joint work, based on the logic of project work, people with disabilities and different professionals trained in order to create prototypes through the use of 3D printer. The reasons that underlie the optimal achievement of the objectives and results of DEEP and that have inspired the logic of the project, can be grouped into two types: - the first reflects the choice of the proposing partnership and, within it, of the key figures involved;-the second concerns the choice of important associated partners that complete the proposing partnership with a local network of public and private entities that will join the partnership and will be fundamental in giving a community structure to the model. In addition, the strategy that the DEEP partnership intends to adopt since the start up of the project is the involvement of important and strategic associated partners that, in each participating country, will be able to act: - both on the cooperative level (in particular for the laboratory activities in the field implementation phase), - and as multiplier agents for the dissemination of the proposed model at local level and beyond.<< Results >>The project outcomes can be divided according to the direct and indirect target of DEEP. With respect to the direct target (health professionals, occupational therapists, makers), we expect: - Enhancement of knowledge on the topic of disability, in particular issues related to motor, hearing, visual and cognitive disabilities (evaluation with questionnaires designed in the design of the R1 model, administered pre and post); - Enhancement of knowledge and skills in the field of 3D prototyping (evaluation with questionnaires designed in R1, administered ex-post); - Enhancement of knowledge of the world of aids and regulatory frameworks of reference (evaluation with questionnaires designed in R1, administered pre and post); - Enhancement of pro-social and motivational skills of professionals as a mode of approach in dealing with people with disabilities. With respect to the indirect target (people with disabilities), we expect: - Increased sense of self-efficacy through active participation in the design and creation of aids (assessable through tests found in the reference literature); - Increased motivation in fully adhering to the paths and treatments that best meet their needs (assessable through the self-assessment questionnaire validated in the Trans-theoretical model adapting to DEEP); - Acquisition of basic knowledge and skills with respect to the use of the 3D printer (assessable through a questionnaire created ad hoc within the model).Tangible results of the project will be: - methodological guidelines and educational materials for the training of a multi-actor target composed of health professionals, occupational therapists and makers; - online course available as an Open Educational Resource, through the use of the Moodle platform;- guidelines for implementing the model in the field;- report on the outcome of the training of trainers; - report on the outcomes of field experimentation of the DEEP model."