"Cedefop's European Skills Index 2020 shows wide differences between European countries when it comes to skills matching. Indeed, according to Cedefop’s publication “Insights into Skill Shortages and Skill Mismatch” (January 2018), four out of ten employers in Europe are struggling to find people with the right skills. In a labour market heavily impacted by Industry 4.0 and SDG commitment (2 million employments will be created by the latter), and the rise of soft skills as a new area of interest in terms of qualifications, differences between skills offer and demand have widened. The context of the COVID-19 outbreak must also be noted, affecting the need of resilience as a fundamental skill; as the Commission has already stated, upskilling and reskilling programmes to protect workers from unemployment and loss of income to avoid permanent effect will be an essential tool to mitigate the effects of the crisis, with 59 million jobs at stake and those without university degrees in a higher risk (short-term job risk is highly correlated with level of education, McKinsey & Company, April 2020). Therefore, there is a crucial need for education and training systems to identify, anticipate and teach skills that are suitable for future needs, rather than to catch up with technological, demographic and environmental changes after they have happened. Vocational Education and Training (VET) is crucial to teach students, adults and workers the necessary skills and will therefore have a significant impact on the future of work.For all these reasons and with the objective of aligning the education and training provision with regional smart specialisation strategies (S3), the Stride for Stride project will work on building up the concept of Regional Skills Ecosystems. Six regions (Catalonia, Basque Country, Tuscany, Brittany, Varaždin, and Vestland) in five European countries (including high achievers, such as Croatia, mid-achievers, such as Norway, and low-achievers such as Spain, Italy and France when it comes to skills matching according to the European Skills Index 2020) will improve their capacity to identify skills needs and adapt their training provision accordingly. And this process needs to be done by engaging four main axes: public authorities, education centres (VET in this case), companies and the individual.Four workshops corresponding to the four steps of skills governance (adaptation, anticipation, transmission and use) will be organised in Florence, Rennes, Bergen and Barcelona between 2020 and 2022, with a double European-regional perspective that allow all the previously mentioned actors build together skills intelligence systems by means of exchanging their experiences (both though workshops and study visits) and taking part in multi-stakeholder open discussion hubs. These workshops will be attended by international regional representatives who wish to learn on the ground from each others' success stories and share their own, but also by local/regional stakeholders who will contribute to dialogue to build strong skills ecosystems based on the skills governance process.In this sense, the Stride for Stride project will add an international aspect to regional success stories, with a two-folded innovative aim:1.Tackling skills intelligence and forecasting at regional level to build regional skills ecosystems, and2.involving all relevant actors featured in the quadruple helix interaction system to help building powerful skills intelligence tools, not only as external ""validators"" of the process, but as an intrinsic part of it.A regional perspective for skills challenges mapping and forecast is of utmost importance to tackle the new opportunities that industry 4.0, SDGs and soft skills relevance are already opening in Europe. Regions allow a closer contact with citizens and are in a privileged position to assessterritorial economic, labour and well-being needs, including lifelong and lifewide learning opportunities. This project will also serve as a starting point for the development of exhaustive territorially-aware assessment tools that complement existing ones such as Cedefop’s national skills forecasts and OECD skills outlooks."

"<< Background >>DIGI-LINGO is an innovative project that focuses on the importance of languages in upper secondary, digital didactics and teachers and pupils’ exchange. The motivation behind DIGI-LINGO is to educate more skilled foreign language teachers, to motivate more students to participate in foreign language subjects as well as to improve the overall foreign language competencies of citizens in the Danish, Flemish, Norwegian and Spanish partner regions. To have strong foreign language competencies and encourage multilingualism is vital in today’s globalised and fast-paced societies, where the world is getting increasingly smaller and intercultural meetings and engagements are the norm rather than the exception. DIGI-LINGO addresses the need regarding the European goal on multilingualism that everyone can speak his or her mother tongue in addition to two other languages, that language proficiency levels of students are improved by the end of compulsory education, that multilingualism positively impacts on mobility within Europe and that a European Education Area as well as a European educational network is established (Council recommendation, May 22, 2019). As this project is based on a bottom-up approach, the most important focus areas of this project are the actual needs of upper secondary schools and teachers to improve their foreign language education and how pupils could be motivated to choose and engage in foreign language subjects. This project is based on a needs analysis performed within the upper secondary schools in the partnership countries, where both the language teachers and the headmasters of the participating schools were able to share their views on what would enable them to deliver even better teaching and motivate more pupils. From the talks and discussions in the partnership schools, it was clear that many teachers struggle to deliver high-quality digital language education and organise virtual student exchange with students from other countries. The technology is changing rapidly, but we found that the teachers’ competencies and skills to use digital and virtual tools in their teaching are not always updated with recent knowledge and best practices. These findings have been supported by analysis made prior to the Digital Education Action Plan. These shortcomings have only been made clearer during the COVID-19 pandemic, where teachers and schools have had to adapt instantly to a new virtual and digital teaching environment. For this reason, DIGI-LINGO is based on a clear needs-based and strategic motivation among all partners to work within the field of foreign language education. An ambitious project of this scale can only be completed within the frame of the EU Erasmus+ programme, as it allows local, regional and national stakeholders from all over Europe to contribute with a vast diversity of insights and ideas. This project consortium consists of four different regional authorities from Belgium, Spain, Norway and Denmark and the transnational organisation European Schoolnet, which will ensure that results are sustainable, transferable and scalable not only in one country but in any EU member state. The vast scientific and hands-on experience of the DIGI-LINGO partners and results of other esteemed European projects will be taken into account to finalise them, as well as the findings of the associated partners that will be piloting the materials. This intense process of collaboration with schools will improve the authenticity and usefulness of the project results suitable for a broader European educational field. The project results will thus have a robust base, grounded in educational theory, made adaptable to national and local educational practices and needs.<< Objectives >>To meet the overall objective of improving digital language teaching and virtual exchange in the participating countries (and the rest of the EU member states in the next couple of years), the implementation of the project will achieve the following specific and innovative objectives:1. To develop new teaching guidelines for digital language learning2. To develop easily accessible methods for virtual language exchange3. To establish a sustainable organisational model anchored at the regional level.By completing these objectives, this project will have developed and created sought-after new knowledge in how to implement and use specific digital and virtual tools and methods in the day-to-day foreign language teaching. This need for new models, guidelines and knowledge in the area stems directly from the foreign language teachers and headmasters and this will improve the foreign language teaching as well as make the foreign language subjects more attractive to pupils. The objectives mentioned above are legitimised by an analytical framework aligned with the objectives of the European Education Area. Our project relates to the context through the following three points: 1. To create a relevant impact that can be measured by European standards and indicators 2. To draw on previous experience and impact of different initiatives within language teaching, digital competencies and virtual exchange through desk research based on available literature 3. To make use of the tools created by the EU for assessment and recognition of different competencies (The Europass Language Passport, The European Language Label, SELFIE Guide and Etwinning).<< Implementation >>The implementation of this project will consist of two multiplier events (an online launch event and a physical final conference) to disseminate the methods and guidelines. This will be of the utmost importance to the last phase of the project, as a vital part of this project is to facilitate that guidelines, knowledge and methods are implemented all over Europe, where countries struggle with the declining interest in foreign language subjects and are looking for effective ways to enhance teacher competencies in the field of digital language teaching and learning.Furthermore, one of the major activities in the implementation of the guidelines and the organisation model, is the two teacher seminars. Here, the participating associated partner schools and teachers will be trained in the new methods and guidelines which have been developed as a part of this project. The actual testing of how these function in practice is also of great importance to the project, as the inputs from the teachers, headmaster and students will prove essential in finalising the guidelines and methods and for the subsequent dissemination and spreading of the project results. To co-create the guidelines and methods with the teachers and allow them to give substantial feedback and input to the products of this project, two physical workshops will be held in Brussels allowing the partner group to have in-depth discussions with the teachers. These workshops are designed to ensure that the project’s bottom-up approach is deeply anchored in each project result, ensuring that results and outcomes are rooted in actual needs from teachers and that they are applicable in their day-to-day teaching also after the project is finished and the products will live on.<< Results >>The project will consist of the following four project results:1. Analytical framework and identification of best practices in virtual language learning and exchangeThe aim of Project result 1 is to identify best practices in the partner regions regarding digital language teaching and virtual exchange. To do so, a multidimensional analytical framework will be developed allowing the identification of good practices, analysis and extraction of recommendations and transferability in different contexts. The main impact of Project result 1 is to lay the foundation for project results 2,3 and 4. Project result 1 will also have a positive impact on the persons directly or indirectly involved in the activities, such as:• A greater understanding and responsiveness to cultural diversity and different social, ethnic, and digital contexts in partner regions• A more positive attitude towards the European project and the EU values, where multilingualism is a key priority.2. Digital teaching guidelines and methods for virtual language teaching and exchangeThe aim of Project result 2 is to develop pedagogical and didactic digital language learning and teaching guidelines and methods for virtual language exchange. The developed guidelines and methods will validate the collected best practices. The project aims for the new guidelines to be broad and socially inclusive to make them applicable to a wide range of language topics. The new pedagogical and didactic digital language teaching guidelines will provide the foundation for the project results that include teacher seminars as well as the organisational model. 3. Transnational teacher seminars using blended learningThe aim of Project result 3 is to organise seminars for upper secondary foreign teachers from the participating schools. The content of the seminars will be based on the conclusions and recommendations’in project results 1 and 2. The seminars will be conducted in a blended learning format combining physical classes with online teaching. In addition to preparing the teachers to use the new guidelines and methods, the seminars also aim to make the participating teachers ""ambassadors"" for the project to anchor and disseminate results. The seminars/webinars will contain a variety of learning methods combined with digital tools and learning resources, such as flipped learning and use of instructional videos. The seminars will enable teachers to fully grasp the newly developed guidelines and become proficient at them and thereby the newly developed guidelines and thereby improve their competencies in the field of digital and virtual language learning and virtual exchange. The teacher training is intended to include both the transnational seminars in Brussels and on-site local training.4. Organisational model to support digital language teaching and exchangeThe aim of Project result 4 is to develop an organisational model that will support upper secondary foreign language teachers to take part in virtual language exchange events. The model is based on the idea of anchoring the support for virtual language exchange at local and regional authorities, which is intended to immensely decrease the administrative load of the participating schools. The model will include an easy solution to the logistics of planning and the project result will be shaped based on the previous project result that focuses on user-friendly and worthwhile methods and guidelines. In the short run, the expected impact is that the 8-12 associated partner schools will have a joint approach to establish virtual exchanges through the regional authorities. On a long-term basis (approx. five years), it is expected that the solution is widespread among most schools in the four partner regions, and also that other regions in European countries have adopted the model based on the success the associated partner schools’ experience."

The overall purpose of this project is to promote cooperation between all stakeholders in different parts the battery and electromobility value chain, to analyse what is happening in the sector related to skills agenda, and to develop a sectoral skills strategy and blueprint for sectoral stakeholders, including education and training in and for the sector.The Steering board oversees the work, evaluates, supports and if needed directs its development within the framework of the contract. ALBATTS Steering board is led by the ALBATTS partner ACEA and have influential and centrally placed members as EIT Innoenergy, EIT Raw Materials, EUROBAT, the Stuttgart region and the BATTERY 2030+ Research Roadmap project umbrella.The ALBATTS project works with two core and interdependent development processes. Three WPs (3,4,5) are focusing on “Sectoral Intelligence”, to find out what is happening in the whole battery value chain; stakeholders, drivers of change, technologies, attractiveness of the sector, global context, emerging skills, and competence and new job roles needs and offer.One WP, WP6 Education and Training, is continuously taking part of the sectoral intelligence results for analysis and planning of their work. This is done to address these emerging job roles and skills needs, identify gaps in present education offerings, formulate curricular items as learning objectives, produce or in other way address missing learning material. Besides, and to the support of these lines of action from the project work, there is also an ambitious and modern dissemination activity (WP2). The dissemination has two main strands - the sharing and shouting of activities, initiatives and results from the partnership, and the scan of related projects, initiatives or designed strategies and policies at national and European levels. These allow the creation of news, publications, and posts on the project website and media channels, to raise awareness from the e-mobility ecosystem inside and outside the partnership and to all relevant stakeholders. Dissemination is a collective effort which facilitates the promotion of results, related campaigns and organisation of events. The project develops mainly along the contract and work plan, although some adjustment to meeting plans and similar has been made due to the raging pandemic that has affected the work since March 2020. The project has reached out well with dissemination and networking activities and is today well placed and known in the context of other European organisations, projects and initiatives (concerning batteries and electromobility). The ALBATTS project has shown to be the only project which has on its main agenda to develop Vocational Education and Training (VET) for the value chain, while other projects mostly work with education as a part of their projects, and focuses on higher levels of education. ALBATTS is also a vital part of the recently formed ecology within the Pact for Skills. The value chain we are working with is developing and changing fast, both globally and in Europe.

EU territorial authorities are tasked with a significant, yet extremely challenging task: to develop and implement successful regional R&I policies that spearhead sustainable development and economic growth, while simultaneously advancing inclusiveness and quality of life (Regional Dilemma). RRI2SCALE has designed a robust methodological approach to assist regional R&I governance systems to effectively and sustainably address the Regional Dilemma. RRI2SCALE sets from the identification of how RRI is currently integrated within regions [Hordaland (NO), Overijssel (NL), Kriti (GR) and Galicia (ES)], what the key constituting elements of territorial R&I ecosystems are, what citizens think of the way RRI and R&I ecosystems interact and what their suggestions for future improvements are. This insight is triangulated with future trends on smart and intelligent cities, transport and energy as key drivers for regional sustainable development and growth (identified via Delphi), to result in techno-moral scenarios depicting potential R&I trajectories and consequent impacts on policy, socioeconomic and environmental level. The scenarios will be “tested” via JRC’s Scenario Exploration System and Regional Dialogues. Their outcomes will form the basis for the elaboration of Regional Agendas and Roadmaps that will describe the concrete steps to be taken towards the integration of RRI principles into territorial R&I design. All activities, outcomes and impacts will be closely monitored by the RRI2SCALE Monitoring and Evaluation Framework, which will include a set of customised indicators for mapping the impact pathways between regional innovation and RRI. All project results, together with a training compendium on how to perform the project activities, will form the RRI2SCALE Toolkit for replication by other territories. A Memorandum of Collaboration will be signed by all regions (participating/interested), to further the sustainability of the project’s outcomes.

In a context of high youth unemployment rates and depopulation in rural areas, entrepreneurship becomes a key element to build an adversity-safe future of Europe and a tool to find alternative ways to deal with labour market challenges. Building local ecosystems focused on promoting and enabling youth entrepreneurship with a glocal perspective can help in tackling these challenges, with teachers and youth workers as key enablers to promote innovative entrepreneurial models in a lifelong learning context. Led by Vestland County Coucil, YESpecialist gathers experts from six European regions in Spain, Italy, Croatia, Denmark and Norway, plus a European network of regional & local authorities for lifelong learning, to create a new innovative methodology that will build up local ecosystems, introducing non formal and informal methods into formal education and to promote innovative entrepreneurship concepts. The project will specially focus on rural areas and will be inclusive regarding young people from vulnerable groups. Cooperation between all actors (authorities, business, NGOs, and schools), with an emphasis on VET teachers and youth workers is key to achieve the project results. Key outputs of the project will be a repository of active youth involvement in local ecosystems at European level, guidelines for building up regional/local ecosystems to promote youth entrepreneurship in rural areas, and a training course for stakeholders aiming at building such ecosystems. The latter will be implemented in two international pilot training courses that will build capacity in rural local contexts while promoting their interconnection at regional, national and European level.