Demographic aging is one of the most serious challenges for Europe. The scale of this phenomenon and limitations in the access to institutional care for the elderly means that a rapid, professional and integrated on a European scale the development of informal care services is necessary. Currently, about 60% of carers of the elderly are the closest family. These carers, while providing home care, usually have their own intuition and life experience, and not proven, substantive theoretical and practical knowledge.The project HomeCare for Dependent Elderly People - Educational Path for Informal Carers - HomeCare is a response to the existing and deepening skills gap in the provision of home care for the elderly by adults from their close environment.The aim of the project is to strengthen the care skills (knowledge and skills) of adults-informal carers in home care over dependent older people and provide professional, personalized and relationship-based home care educational path for informal carers of elderly people.As part of the HomeCare project, two key results will be created:-The Training Pathway for Home Care for the Elderly for Informal Carers, which assumes a holistic approach to the issue of caring for an elderly dependent at home, i.e. provides basic knowledge and skills in caring and proactive approach to aging.-Open online course for Informal Carers of Older People at Home (MOOC), which is intended to equip adults with necessary competences (knowledge and skills) to act as carers for dependent elderly people.An adult-homecare carer will get open, universal access to a modular course that develops the care skills of older people through informal learning. Professionalizing the services of informal carers will complement and support the institutional care system for the elderly at their place of residence and in a more individualized way, which is particularly important and needed in the context of demographic forecasts.

Given the great growth that STEM sector and ICT industry are demonstrating over the last years, the interest of youth people to study STEM, their entrepreneurship skills and spirit has become of strategic importance for the economy and the society of all countries. Demand for STEM professionals is expected to grow by 13% till 2025, while the average growth forecast for all occupations is expected to be around 3%. In addition to the STEM sector development, youth entrepreneurship is vital for creating employment and sustainable growth and has become a priority in the EU policy agenda as a tool to combat unemployment and social exclusion as well as stimulating innovation among young people. However, in spite of the growth of the EU STEM sector, the percentage of youth who decide to study STEM is alarming low. Moreover, In spite of the increasing recognition of entrepreneurship as a source of job creation, empowerment and economic dynamism, there have been no systematic attempts to look at it from a youth angle, towards STEM sector. So, the scope of VR4STEM project has been twofold. First, it aimed to respond to the need of attracting young people in STEM education, mainly by offering modern and attractive learning technologies, such as the virtual reality, and second to assist them gain entrepreneurship skills, build strong entrepreneurship background and spirit and meet the growing needs of STEM sector. VR4STEM has utilized virtual reality to enhance the efficiency and the attractiveness of STEM entrepreneurship education, attract youth interest and enhance their entrepreneurship skills and competencies. Several courses for STEM entrepreneurship were designed and developed, covering the innovative and special characteristics of entrepreneurship in the STEM domain, and promoted opportunities for youth entrepreneurship in STEM and ICT industry. Second, an 3D virtual world environment has been developed with innovative educational infrastructure, offering immersive and efficient learning opportunities, engaging the learners in various educational activities and learning scenarios and offering an attractive, entertaining and efficient way to learn STEM entrepreneurship domain.The partnership consisted of 5 partners, including public and private actors with relevant and complementary experience and skills that have secured the success and the high quality of the implementation and the results of the project. UPB, a long-term leading organization in the field of coordinating youth training in various fields and also in STEM, has coordinated the project. UPAT had expertise in Virtual Reality and intelligent educational systems and has led the development of the 3D Virtual World (VW) educational environment. NewEdu possesses valuable knowledge and experience in entrepreneurship training and has been the main content provider. eTS has great experience in developing educational infrastructure in 3D virtual environments. CTI has great experience in developing educational courses and took over the task of piloting the educational environment, the courses and training activities and also led the dissemination plan.The project had three main phases: Design, Implementation and Evaluation. Design phase took place during the first eight months with main objectives to identify the needs in Entrepreneurship Training for young people interested in STEM domain and then design a suitable curriculum for addressing them by utilizing state of the art technologies. Implementation of the STEM Entrepreneurship courses took place next, with an aim to prepare the learning material and integrate it in a 3D VW educational environment that will be developed. The final phase regarded testing extensively the developed educational environment through various pilot learning activities, evaluating it and using the results to improve and finalize it. The main results were:-Requirements analysis report on STEM Entrepreneurship Training and State of the Art reports on the use of Virtual Reality in Education and especially for youth training-A curriculum for STEM Entrepreneurship Training based on the Analysis and taking into account the about state of the art reports and capabilities of Virtual Worlds-Open Learning materials (texts, presentations,multimedia,3D objects) for courses-Project website and Content Repository, hosting all the learning materials-The 3D VW educational environment was the main output of this project, hosting all the STEM Entrepreneurship learning materials as well as the learning scenarios-User’s Guide for using the 3D VW-Plan, Report and Evaluation of The Piloting activities carried out to ensure the quality of the 3D VW, the learning materials and activities. The project has helped modernize and enhance the performance and effectiveness of youth entrepreneurship education in the field of STEM.

Promoting Lithuanian identity and culture worldwide is among national priorities of Lithuania, focusing on both the unique heritage and integrity with the Baltic region. Since 2020, the First Lady of the Republic of Lithuania is patronizing Lithuanian education worldwide, whereas digital education constitutes more opportunities to connect, learn and grow. Digitalisation of Lithuanian language and culture (LCC) education is promoted by Digital Agenda of the Republic of Lithuania which aims to foster Lithuanian culture and the Lithuanian language by means of ICT. Moreover, digitalisation of education on the European level is supported through EC Digital Education Action Plan (2021-2027) which proposes a set of initiatives for high quality, inclusive and accessible digital education in Europe. Hence, the project aims to strengthen the capacity of LCC educators in HEIs to provide high quality interactive and inclusive digital education. The following specific objectives are outlined to reach the aim of the project: *Develop digital pedagogical competence of Lithuanian language and culture teachers in Europe; *Support educators with high quality digital content and training materials; *Facilitate digital mechanisms to deliver the training course(s).The project targets LCC educators such as Lithuanian language teachers in HEIs with subjects of Baltic studies, and Lithuanian language schools abroad both public and private, formal and informal education. Additionally, the project targets students and researchers studying Baltic subjects, with LCC among them. There is a growing number of almost 40 Centres of Baltic Studies worldwide with more than 500 students researching the subject annually. More than 200 schools abroad are teaching Lithuanian language to almost 10k students.The project will develop digital pedagogical competence of LCC teachers in Europe by designing the specific methodology for online and blended learning (IO1) based on good practices of partners and stakeholders as well as by developing guidelines on ICT use in such training (IO2), reflecting on managing and engaging large number of multicultural groups. The project will support HEIs with high quality digital content and training materials by developing open resource materials for LCC education to be used both in studies, intensive training courses and individually by learners as the project will produce a set of reading, tasks, assessment and digitalised content on language (IO3) and culture (IO4) education for beginners and advanced users. Moreover, the project will launch an open online education platform for delivering the training course(s). An open source software-based platform (IO5) will allow managing the participants, their learning progress and achievements while the guidelines on virtual mentoring (IO6) will facilitate the work of mentors and training programme administrators. The project gathers experts in the fields of Baltic studies and teaching Baltic languages to showcase their best practices. diLILAC is implemented as a joint effort of 6 HEIs from Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Poland and IT partner from Germany. Numerous online workshops are foreseen to exchange good practices, involve stakeholders, and validate results. The outputs will be piloted during Baltic Summer University and Intensive LCC Winter course – an annual event since 2001 which attracted over 1500 participants from 32 countries so far. The results of the project will feature several focal aspects, like language teaching online, technology in approaching language teaching, short-term initiatives, language teaching as a means to maintain connections with the diaspora, language teaching for foreigners, the most relevant developments in the trends of Baltic languages and their pedagogy. The project will increase digital pedagogical competence of staff in participating schools and open digital learning opportunities for the target groups worldwide. The outputs will promote an inclusive approach to cooperation activities, such as higher percentage of under-represented and disadvantaged groups; participation in non-formal Lithuanian language and culture studies; development of flexible distance learning formats, customization of the training. The project is a blueprint on managing mobility obstacles such as pandemic and ensuring efficient and continuous education for students, teachers and researchers, including those with fewer opportunities.By increasing digital learning opportunities on Lithuanian language and culture, HEIs strengthen their capacity to educate and raise self-aware, multicultural and tolerant generations. Thus, the project reinforces local Lithuanian communities, helps strengthening the ties among the Baltic countries, and supports expansion of Baltic study centres worldwide. The project constitutes an exceptional added value for foreigners as well as involvement of diaspora in the field of LCC education.

In spite of Brexit, English remains the dominant language in Europe, as 2 out of 3 people have at least a fair working knowledge of the language. Nonetheless, difficulties in different areas of language acquisition and use remain widespread. For many, if not most, learners of English, speaking in public may be the biggest fear. However, for many others, reading, writing, listening, memory retention, or learning itself is just as challenging. To help learners with Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLDs) master the specific skills that they need, our consortium of 7 partners has developed 7 self-help learning modules as Open Educational Resources (OERs). They cover the domains of public speaking, interpersonal communication, intercultural motivation, writing, memory and vocabulary acquisition, learning in general as well as reading and listening. Each self-study module is an individual course and learners may complete as many modules as they see fit. To help learners identify which modules are most suitable for them we have also developed a self-assessment tool. The modules contain strategies, tools and techniques that learners can implement right away to improve their skills and overall competence. While the materials are designed for self-study, they can also be used as supplementary materials by language teachers or facilitators. The materials are rich in multimedia and we have also included videos. The materials contain hundreds of animations and cartoons to visualize the text, provide context and engage learners. Furthermore, the materials can be also be printed or downloaded for offline use.