"<< Background >>Rapidly advancing digitization and globalization as well as the disruptive change in values in Europe and around the world are changing the way we look at work and the skills required for it, skills which will be needed in the future for a wide variety of jobs and work settings. The OECD Skills Outlook 2021 (https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/0ae365b4-en/index.html?itemId=%2Fcontent%2Fpublication%2F0ae365b4-en) shows the growing importance of transversal competences in comparance to professional competences for future success on the labour market. It highlights especially communication, teamwork and organisational skills, analysing and solving problems, digital, leadership and presentation skills. One key recommandation is: “Skills for a lifetime: Lifelong learning rests on strong foundation skills, the willingness to learn and a habit of learning, all of which are vital if individuals are to acquire the skills and knowledge to navigate changing labour-market needs and life circumstances. Policies should harness the power of technology, but doing so considering the effects technology can have on existing skills inequalities and the creation of new ones.” Therefore, a new ""mindset"" is needed and thus skilled employees who can couple their professional knowledge with a high level of social, personal and methodological competencies in order to make the best use of the newly created work structures, methods and processes. Based on this fact, the European Skills Agenda (https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1223) includes the goal of +32% participation of adults in learning until 2025. This source highlights the significance of New Skills for workers’ change of industry sectors and for the entry of young people to the labour market. With reference to these sources, we and our project partners would therefore like to develop an online tool that helps young professionals throughout Europe to acquire important and promising skills for an optimal positioning in the constantly evolving world of work and, at the same time, to reduce the discrepancy between acquired and demanded qualifications on the European labor market.<< Objectives >>The development and implementation of the Future Skills Cockpit (FSC) tool on a European level aims to create a target group-oriented instrument that is tailored to the future labor market and offers European career starters the opportunity to reflect on their own competencies and to find out which interdisciplinary skills they still need for their future career. This enables them to design their personal learning journey and to visualize and implement it with the help of the tool. The tool thus offers an innovative form of orientation and further training, and subsequently increases the employability of the users. In addition, the use of the tool increases both the digital competence and the ability of self-determined learning. The development of the tool together with the target group and the trainers allows a target group-oriented access. For this purpose, recurring feedback and test loops are included in the development phase. On the project level, the objectives were developed and agreed upon together in the project consortium and adapted for each project partner, according to its focus and adapted to national circumstances. On impact / overall objective level, FSC primarily pursues the adaptation of vocational education and training to the needs of the labor market. Thus, the project contributes to innovation in vocational education and training and makes the possibilities in vocational education and training planning more flexible. With our project we want to achieve the following overarching effects: + The improvement of the professional qualification of young professionals and thereby promoting their professional and career opportunities in the modern European labor market through an innovative, modern and dynamic approach. + Longer-term effects will be achieved by:+ Using participative approaches and digital methods + Adapting to the holistic skills profile of the modern labor market + Being open to the use of synergies with organizations working in different fields or in other socio-economic sectors. This is done by developing a tool for career orientation, which promotes the ability of career starters to create their personal Learn Journey by examining their own competencies in a targeted manner. The Learn Journey forms the basis for orientation, security, motivation and a self-directed approach in connection with personal professional training and further education. In this way, FSC increases competitiveness, creates a ""bridge to working life"" for our users and thus contributes to the European Skills Agenda.<< Implementation >>On the activity level, we have designed the following concrete actions to achieve the outputs and outcomes and ultimately the impact: +STARTPHASE: Project management and implementation by PL and the PP, set-up of project structure, project internal accounting and digital project control; Transnational project meeting: Project meeting kick-off in Austria with all PP, implementation of the results of the kick-off by PL. +Project phase 1: Organization and implementation of a transnational workshop for the creation of a future skills portfolio as a basis for the definition of the future skills in the tool by PL (Austria), PP1 (Hungary) and PP3 (Lithuania), development of a target group-specific requirements profile for the basic concept of the product by all PP. +Project phase 2: Tool design and planning: creation of the basic concept for the tool, pedagogical rough design, scripts etc., creation of the database for the tool, finalize content prototypes by PL and 1st interim report for the Value Strategy concept (PP1), rough draft competence grid. +Project phase 3: All PP agree on a content prototype, content design and programming of the tool by PL, translation of the tool into the project languages (DE, EN, LIT, IT and HUN) by all PP, test of the tool prototype by all PP: evaluation and revision loop, start policy paper, define requirements for the application guide. +Project phase 4: Create application guide (tool du train the trainer), organize and conduct train the trainer workshop incl. tool test, evaluation and improvement draft. +Project phase 5:Organization and implementation of the prototype test in the target group in all partner countries by all PP, evaluation, improvement draft and revision loop. +Project phase 6: Revision of the tool, final acceptance, final Value report, finalization of competence grid, guidelines and policy paper +Project phase 7: Roll-out and multiplier events +Project phase 8: Project completion and writing of the final report<< Results >>Our project outputs are focused on the direct benefits for European vocational and further education and the added value for the target group. The following tools are envisaged as Intellectual Outputs within this project: + FSC as a target group oriented tool (online tool) - AUSTRIA: the definition of the Future Skills and the active use and dissemination of the Future Skills Tool by the project partners. The tool will be developed together with the actual target group from all partner countries. It will be available as free online source, embeddable in different technical systems and LMS. + FSC Trainer the Trainer guide incl. competence grid: - ITALY: for the implementation and use of the tool by European trainers. European trainers are instructed online in the use of the tool and further trained on the topic of Future Skills. +FSC EU Framework Competence Grid and Value Strategy- Hungary: development of Future Skills Tool Competence Grid and elaboration of Quality Management and Improvement Strategy. +FSC Policy Paper - Lithuania Dissemination Strategy for the FSC Tool and key learnings from testphase regarding target groups’ users preferences."

D-COLLAB project focuses on the digitalization agenda at all stages of higher education with a special focus on Slovakia. The pandemic of COVID-19 has found education systems in many countries largely unprepared for the need to switch to digital teaching and learning. Even though higher education institutions have been probably better prepared for the abrupt shift towards online teaching than secondary or elementary schools, the degree of complexity of teaching at the tertiary level contributes also to the challenging nature of this task. In the middle of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the D-COLLAB project focuses on finding and introducing effective ways of teaching and learning at the tertiary level using digital platforms. The interventions will be introduced at the University of Economics in Bratislava, who is the main beneficiary of the project. The project will focus on training the teaching staff as well as the students at all three levels of higher education to equip them with knowledge and competencies needed for effective teaching and learning in the digital environment. The project will also develop digital competencies of students with special needs, who are in an even more challenging situation due to the shift towards online learning. The corresponding 5 intellectual outcomes will be produced to support the skill development of these target groups. The produced outcomes will be made available through the developed web e-learning platform and they will be made available to interested teachers and learners locally, nationally, and internationally in open access to help them with their learning and teaching challenges in the digital space. During the project, three integrated training modules will be developed for the teaching staff and one training module for students (with a special section focused on students with special needs). The training modules will be implemented twice during the existence of the project, with the involvement of about 80 academics and 150 students, out of them about 40 students having special needs. The project will also focus on the active dissemination of its activities and outcomes through different channels and towards target groups outside of the participating partner institutions. Thus, the project has the good potential not only to contribute to a higher quality of digital instruction at the University of Economics in Bratislava but also at other institutions of secondary and higher learning in Slovakia, and in other partner and European countries. Even though the developed outcomes will focus on the instruction in economics and management programs in the first place, many aspects are relevant and can be carried across to other academic disciplines, or even to lower education levels. From the long term perspective, the project outcomes will facilitate the development and introduction of fully-fledged online degree programs at the University of Economics in Bratislava, but also at other institutions throughout the project partner network. The core outcomes of the project will be sustained over the existence of the project through the continued cooperation among partner institutions and also thanks to the commitment of partners of their own institutional resources.

The AEERO project was led by the University of Wolverhampton and delivered over a three-year period (2016 – 2019) by a transnational consortium of 7 partner organisations from 3 EU member states (UK, Italy and Portugal). These partner organisations included VET developers and providers engaged with industry, commerce and learners to provide training, mentoring and other consultancy services; media specialists and a dedicated technical development partner specialising in interactive and innovative multimedia techniques and technologies. The objective of the AEERO project was to create an innovative, online learning resource that could be used in teaching vocational skills to employees across the EU aerospace sector and its supply chain.The Aerospace sector was a focus due to its importance as a vital high tech and highly skilled industry with huge growth potential and as well as identified skills gaps. These skills gaps included shortages in advanced technology and manufacturing skills as well as shortcomings in advanced manufacturing and lean supply chain management.Based on the project’s research and needs analysis of training requirements for aerospace employers and employees, an app-based training tool focused on Process Mapping; a key Business Improvement Technique that can increase efficiency in any business by identifying waste and non-value-added activity in any individual process; was developed.The AEERO PMAPP App is freely available for download at the Google Play Store. It’s complemented by detailed supporting documents which guide users through the app as well as providing more information on the concept of Business Improvement Techniques, Process Mapping and its importance in Lean Management as well as its role in quality assurance.The project has been widely disseminated to, and tested by, key stakeholders.

<< Background >>One of the biggest challenges is the availability of healthcare professionals that are able to use the latest information technologies developed in the big data analytics era (Rozman et al, 2016). The consortium therefor created an innovative, multilingual Massive Open Online Course on Bioinformatics providing it to the widest possible audience and integrating online Work Based Learning periods (Online Seminars).<< Objectives >>The BioS project aimed at advancing the skills of European medical doctors and other health professionals through the design, development and delivery of new modular vocational curricula on Digital Skills on Bioinformatics/Computational Biology, as well as transversal skills, straightforwardly responding to the skills gaps identified by existing research evidence.<< Implementation >>BioS has developed and delivered the BioS Vocational Open Online Course (VOOC) in accordance with ECVET/EQF/EQAVET and through the BioS Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) aiming to upgrade the transversal as well as occupation-specific skills of health care professionals in Medical chemistry (biomedical analysis), Medical statistics, Medical interpretation, and Clinical genetics, by introducing them to the use of Computational Biology for clinical applications.<< Results >>The project’s objectives were pursued through the following main results:- Modular Curricula integrating latest advancements in Computational Biology for the Healthcare sector - Training Material including, inter alia, video lectures, learning activities, assessment exams- Development of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) bringing together medical doctors, bioinformatics experts, educators, researchers and policy makers - Policy Briefs and Recommendations - Dissemination material