Project context/background:The COVID-19 crisis accelerated the need for modernisation and digital transformation of training systems in Europe. CIRCULAR SME SCAN (CSS) connects this with a circular economy which is a strategic approach to a more green economy in support of European economic recovery.Circular, sustainable, environment-climate friendly operation of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) results in their competitive advantage over their rivals. However the over 25 million European SMEs encounter challenges in grasping these opportunities, as they do not have the knowledge, matching financial, non-financial resources that large companies have to make the due changes. As these enterprises constitute the main body of the business ecosystem in participating countries, a strategic alliance between them and circular economy experts has to be forged. This, especially in the COVID pandemic, generates awareness on and illustrates that outstanding quality, inclusive, digital vocational education tools on circular skills and competences are beneficial for this group.Project objectives:Main goal of CSS, in support of innovative practices in digital era, aims at creating a self-scan and learning platform that develops SME circular economy skills-competences by focusing on four main areas of entire SME circularity value chain (supply-acquisition, operation-production, retail, waste stream analysis).For the delivery of the main goal, specific objectives are strongly linked with Intellectual Outputs and are:1. Framing competence & skills of SME circularity context.2. Elaborating self-scan solution in support of SME circularity. 3. Creating learning content & platform.4. Deriving stakeholder guides to take full advantage of self-scan & learning contents-platform independently, as SME ecosystem stakeholders are drivers of the change process.Making available the digital self-scan, vocational education-training contents, curricula, and online learning platform are the novelties of CSS.Number and profile of participants:Project consortium of four partners represents HU, NL, ES and GR. CSS is led by a HU regional innovation agency (STRIA) with proven record of SME skills-competence mapping and development. NL partner (BDL) from one of the first Dutch circular regions, is a professional in person and digital vocational education and training (VET) organisation. ES partner (EOLAS) is an SME innovation and management consultant company that connects business, education and government, supports organisations. Tech partner comes from GR (AVACA), responsible for self-scan, learning platform solutions, IT developments of project communication-dissemination.Description of activities:CSS starts with collecting best practices and methodologies, applying focus group interviews to illustrate SME circularity skills, knowledge-competences. Following that setting up of circularity indicators, their measurement-evaluation is done with direct SME participation via validated self-scan tool. As result of these two main preceding activities, SME circularity digital learning content, online learning platform are elaborated and pilot validated. To conclude, all relevant project outputs are summarised in stakeholder guides that aim to sustain project results by impacting professional, political actors for strengthening VET activities in service of SME circularity.Project methodology to be used in implementation:CSS project methodology is available to partners and thus EU Member States, with efficient digital, online tools-materials promotes sustainable, circular and innovative behaviours within target groups. As a result SME professional profiles and, ultimately, productivity of EU Member States increases. Methodology builds on online solutions as in lifelong learning online approach is one of key competences included in EU legislation on digital competence. Methodology is “learning to learn” characterised (another of lifelong learning competence). It also provides for customization of the learning process itself.Short description of the results and impact envisaged:Direct project target group (SMEs) intends to improve their competitiveness through increased circularity, lay foundations for new (incl. online) business opportunities, innovative initiatives, cooperation among SMEs-entrepreneurs-circular experts.Indirect target groups or stakeholders of dissemination activities are those with whom SME owners-staff and entrepreneurs will cooperate when making their business more circular in a digital era. They are impacted by awareness raising, dissemination, engagement.The potential longer term benefits:Project dissemination activities increase awareness on circular operation of SMEs, build brand and identity within target groups and their audiences. By providing targeted, digital, online information on SME circularity, CSS creates deeper understanding, latter being the other longer term benefit for target groups.

Legislation, norms and regulations in the field of waste management are under constant development and new technologies and knowledge emerge continuously, requiring industry to adapt rapidly to survive. There are sectors which are facing great difficulties to detect, understand and apply these developments, while at the same time generating a considerable amount of hazardous and/or dangerous waste. It concerns sectors with a high concentration of (micro)SMEs which focus on non-knowledge intensive activities. The car or vehicle repair and maintenance sector is a typical example of this, it is one of the branches which face great difficulty to transform or adapt their activities to the current legislative, normative and regulatory developments and the adoption of good environmental practices.Traditional methods are currently predominant in the sector with respect to training in this field, including for waste management. Traditional training in this sense is understood as attending physically a training course, where a trainer transfers theory, and best practices are merely explained and exposed but not experienced. However, this type of training is not tailored to the needs of the target public, partly due to the their reluctance to these type of methods (on many occasions the reason why left in early stage formal education and training, or opted for lower level VET training with a more hands-on learning approach). But another, an no less important reason is that the number of staff in these kind of SMEs is already low, and has suffered even more due to the economical crisis. This increases the strain on existing owners and staff, with more hours and much less flexibility, reducing the possibilities for participation in training that required physical presence and fixed hours. CARWASH has provided an answer to this challenge by developing an easy understandable and user-friendly serious game with its support training platform, which will provide the professional (i.e. owners and staff) of the car repair and maintenance sector, with the knowledge. skills and competences to properly understand and apply the legislative, normative and regulative framework concerning management of hazardous and/or dangerous waste, and implement good environmental waste management practices. The serious game and support training platform can be accessed on-line and is prepared for mobile use. The playful learning approach through a serious game counteracts many of the inconveniences for the target public as encountered in traditional training. It has done so by starting with a needs analysis, which fed into the development of the learning objectives and requisites for the game and platform and their subsequent development of the game & platform, complemented with a learner´s guide provides. All underpinned with project & quality management, dissemination and exploitation. CARWASH has been developed by 6 partners from 6 different European countries, representing the expertise, competencies and knowledge required, while at the same time representing the identified target groups:•ASPREMETAL y CTRIA, are related to the sector and represent jointly over 120 associates.•VOKA represents all companies in its área (total 3400) of which a significant group belongs to the target sector.•TRAIN2000 is the CNA Pesaro training organisation with 6000 members of which 270 belong to the sector.•EP2000 is expert on methodological and pedagogical approaches and provides training to the sector.•AVACA is the technological expert, with a track record in serious games.The foreseen impacts on the direct target group have been realised: -Gain knowledge on waste management and adhere to the legislative/normative framework: the target groups indicates that have gained relevant knowledge on the topic and see the game as a useful tool for learning. They indicate that they can gain knowledge which helps to avoid sanctions. -Implement good environmental practices, and reduce the decision-making times: they identify that good management of hazardous waste contributes positively to the positioning and image of the company and see it relevant towards their clients. -Good waste management and environmental practices are appreciated by the clients, and a company can distinguish itself by communicating this and increase their client base. This is confirmed by the target group, who mention clearly that adhering to these kind of principles helps to gain competitive advantage. -Increase their employability: from the impact dialogues it is evident that this is an issue which considered by most respondents as most relevant for the future professional, i.e. those who are currently in VET training cycles related to the automotive sector. The inclusion of the knowledge and approach of Carwash will allow them to acquire knowledge which is not included in the regular curriculum and can give those who have used it a head start in the labour market.

"The reduction of food waste is seen as an important lever for achieving global food security, freeing up finite resources for other uses, diminishing environmental risks and avoiding financial losses. In its roadmap for a resource efficient Europe the EC has set the target to halve the generation of food waste by 2020.Although the food waste issue has gained a high interest in Europe in recent years and some initiatives have been started, there is still a lot to do about citizens’ education.The project specific goal is to develop educational contents to raise awareness of the food waste problem and educate citizens to reduce their food waste footprint.General objective is to improve the offer of high quality learning related to food management and sustainability, tailored to individual adult learners and delivered through a completely innovative way of outreach. The target group will be the whole citizenship, in order to educate and shape up “sustainable families” and to make them ""responsible consumers"". The project aims at reaching all strands of citizens also those with some financial difficulties, by targeting the educational modules towards specific sub-groups;•Families: the hard core of citizens who can make real changes on consumes and household food consumption.•Beneficiaries of food aid and people facing food shortage: material assistance needs to go hand in hand with social inclusion measures, such as guidance, education and support to help people out of poverty•Social workers: the project offers them methods, contents and tools to actively work as educators about food waste reduction.The main outcome will be a multifunction and interactive platform hosting various training contents and tools developed with an innovative approach based on informal learning, education and entertainment, in short edu-tainment.In particular, the platform will host:- A learning path including educational materials and methods/scenarios for adult education activities - An internet TV, a simple base of short educational video-materials, which responds to actual nutritional, social and economic situations related to an efficient use of food resources- A board-game, available both online and off-line to help people learn about: food products and food processes from the farm to the supermarket; culinary traditions in different European countries; negative effects of food; the reality of food poverty in Europe and in the world; smart solutions to improve their consumer habits and re-use discarded foodstuff. - A networking area, to allow the creation of a community of practice, where organisations active for the reduction of food waste can exchange views, stay in contact, share best practice, and organise educational events using the EFFECT results.The project is promoted by a consortium of 6 partners from different EU countries, including the representatives of the end beneficiaries (Food Banks), experts in adult education, charities active in food redistribution, technical experts in digital education and an NGO experienced in campaigns related to food waste reduction.In order to involve people, stakeholders and decision-makers, the project will launch a European campaign, based on internet presence (websites, social networks), distribution of paper and digital information materials (brochures, newsletters, flyers), organisation of big events with high visibility, networking with civil society organisations, demonstration days.In total the people directly involved in the project will be about 5000.The campaign will start with a European survey, that will serve on one hand to investigate the target group level of knowledge as for food waste, their interest, their gaps and the best way to address them; on the other hand it will raise awareness of the project, stimulate curiosity in the general public and create an initial group of people interested in the project and its results. Then the results will be developed and later tested and evaluated by involing again the target group, in view of the fine-tuning and final release. The awareness raising campaign will be given a boost during the last months of the project, thanks especially to the organisation of big multiplier events for the presentation and demonstration of the results. The consortium also plans to develop a database of at least 500 organisations working in the filed of sustainability and reduction of food waste, that will be involved in the project, stimulating further exploitatation at international level.Thruogh the campaign and visibility activities, it is intended to reach at least 15000 people in Europe.It is expected that the project long term result will be a change of behaviour and habits that contribute to a real reduction of the amount of food waste at home by adults and their families and promote sustainable way of living with benefit to financial situation of citizens and positive impact to their local and global environment."

"LEARN-EER, “Mutual Learning for Energy Efficient Retrofitting” is a project addressed to the training of professionals of the building sector. Competences and skills required in new employment opportunities related to Energy Efficient Retrofitting of existing buildings (EER) are relatively new, and were not required 10 years ago, neither included in curricula from last 30 years. Therefore EER is not an already acquired knowledge and skills among professionals (including architects, engineers, installers, building managers among others). That’s why innovative and professional training around EER is needed. But a different approach is needed to train EER workforce, more dynamic and able to integrate good practices and new methods into daily activities, based on participatory approaches and ICT-based. In this sense the Peer to Peer(P2P) learning approach is a wise solution to develop a more flexible and open environment for accessing to this training needs. The main objective is the development of an active learning platform for the building, energy and retrofitting sector’s professionals, aiming to improve Energy Efficiency in the Retrofitting of buildings (EER). The operating philosophy of the platform is based on the ""peer to peer"" or mutual learning methodology, i.e. the target groups may act as learners and trainers, sharing specific content through the platform. The platform is addressed to professionals and final-course students (future professionals) of the building, energy and retrofitting sector. In order to properly reach target agents, the necessities these groups manifest will be identified, as well as hindered barriers regarding the peer learning approach and the knowledge shared itself. The project has been developed and implemented by a strong mix of 6 complementary institutional profiles including VET providers, experts on energy efficient retrofitting and development of ICT learning solutions. The blend of institutional skills and experiences across the partnership has ensured that each of the identified IOs have key, experienced organisations driving project activity forward. Report Form Convocatoria: 2016 KA2 - Cooperación para la Innovación y el intercambio de buenas prácticas ES The project developed 3 distinct outputs:- O1: Output Title Skills Framework for Energy Efficiency Building Retrofitting, which aimed to support the implementation of the LEARN-EER platform and guarantee itsimpact by developing a framework addressed to the Energy Efficiency building Retrofitting (EER) sector barriers and its value chain agents.- O2: EER Peer-Learning Platform development, this output focused on the development of the platform, including the definition of the requirements on functional level of theplatform, the learning objectives and the methodology to build up and optimize the platform.- O3 Guidelines and User Support, developed targeted guides, manuals, recommendations and supporting material for the stakeholders: Guidelines for Peer-Learning,Guidelines for Expert Moderation, Guidelines for VET Organizations and a Policy Brief.A total of 10 Multiplier events took place, with over 275 participants.The activities were supported horizontally by project management and quality management. A dissemination strategy was developed with its related materials, and activities executed. An exploitation plan underpins the steps for sustainability and exploitation of results. A management handbook, quality plan, 2 quality reports, an exploitation plan and an impact evaluation are related results. Also a dissemination strategy with an extensive set of dissemination materials and a dedicated website were developed. With regards to the impact, the impact evaluation demonstrates that the expected impacts on participating organisations, direct and indirect target groups and other relevantstakeholders have been reached."

CHET Project aims to promote excellence in teaching and skills development for creativity and innovation in engineering HE environment in Europe:1. NEED FOR KEY COMPETENCES ON CREATIVITY & INNOVATION for the engineering HE.2. NEED TO REDUCE UNIVERSITY LEAVE/FAILURE on technical degrees.3. NEED TO GENERATE A CHANGE IN UNIVERSITIES & TEACHERSCHET aims to address the above mentioned needs by providing engineering HE, with the skills and competences to embed innovation and creativity in their their teaching activities. By providing them with these skills, they will be able to prepare their students better for the labour market and contribute to the reduction of university failure/leave. To make this happen the project will develop learning materials and content, based upon the needs of teachers and universities, delivered through the CHET e- learning environment, which will allow them to implement learner-centred learning approaches which foment creativity and innovation among their students (aged 18-25) and increase their interactive learning with teachers and peers in the school setting.Target Public:Therefore the CHET direct target public are:- HE ENGINEERING TEACHERS AND/OR TEACHING STAFF (including future teachers): main users of the CHET e- learning environment, which will be developed based upon their needs.- HE INSTITUTIONS WITH ENGINEERING/TECHNOLOGY FACULTIES: decisions on the adoption and take-up of new learning methods and tools are taken at the level of the education institutes, thus support of their management is needed.Innovation:Although there have been numerous projects funded by the former Life Long Learning programme related to creativity and innovation, the large majority of these focussed on industrial sectors (e.g. CREATIN-Creativity Techniques for Innovation in Products and Services or CREATIVE TRAINER). Those which did address the educational sector, addressed in the majority of the cases VET areas, e.g Creative Learning Communities.CHET can be considered innovative on several levels:• Specific focus on a subset of education professionals: (future) HE engineering teachers.• Implement one innovative methodology for improvement the creavitity and innovation that will work on five major areas: Curricula, Assesment and support for creative pedagogies, Teacher education and professional development, ICT and digital media and Education culture and Leadership.• Therefore; the e- learning environments’ development will be innovative in the following digital media and resources.• Anytime-Anywhere learning.• Relevance across curriculum subjects.• Recognising the importance support in the home environment.• Teacher learning needs are central.Tackling a challenge which is present across EU countries and educational systems, is only possible on a European level, through intense cooperation of relevant players. The transnationality is vital to learn from each other experiences in how different national higher technical educational systems address the issues and to detect good practices across different countries. Knowledge from different EU regions will be combined and integrated into the Intellectual Outputs.The consortium involves universities with engineering faculties, educational authorities and institutions and creativity, innovation and ICT experts, their different views and perspectives are exchanged, analysed and applied in both project and own activities.