SEntrA project aims to promote social entrepreneurship among young people by offering a set of non-formal learning tools supporting youth workers and organizations to actively enhance youth social entrepreneurship. Specific objectives:• Develop research-based knowledge on the social entrepreneurship landscape mainly but not exclusively in the five European countries involved (CY, GR, RO, NO, IE), with a particular focus on youth entrepreneurship and with regard to current policies,key trends,legislation & development issues (based upon the UN Sustainable Development Goals).• Develop a manual in alignment with the EntrComp Framework of the EC that will describe the framework of the relevant skills & competencies, as well as the methodologies,way of thinking and environment required to support youth acceleration in social entrepreneurship• Design a training toolkit as an educational tool that can be used by youth workers & youth organizations to prepare young people to develop social enterprises (aiming at reaching concrete Sustainable Development Goals)• Develop an online learning platform providing free access to young people, youth workers/organizations and decision-makers/stakeholders to learning resources & project outputs • Offer valuable transnational training to youth workers in an existing accelerator that may be transferred in other EU countries.• Create a dedicated Vlog that will feature video stories and will promote success stories from the participating countries about social economy, social entrepreneurship and social enterprises to inspire the target audience• Propose valuable public policy for boosting social entrepreneurship among young people. The specific policy brief will be disseminated and promoted among decision-makers The project will increase awareness among young people, youth workers and youth organisations on the potential of social entrepreneurship, and will cultivate and nurture the social entrepreneurship concept among all target groups.The participants that will be directly involved in the project are 145 Youth workers, 100 young people from partner countries and 100 relevant stakeholders such as youth organizations, social entrepreneurship promoters, NGOs, public authorities,social enterprise incubators, universities etc.The project that lasts 2 years (24 months) involves the following partners from five different European countries:P1. ARIS – A Really Inspiring Space-CYP2.Fundatia Danis-ROP3.Norsensus Media Forum-NOP4.Asset Technology-GRP5. Letterkenny Institute of TechnologyOutputsIO1-Researching the landscape on youth social entrepreneurshipIO2-Framework for youth acceleration in social entrepreneurshipIO3-Training Toolkit to support young people to design social enterprisesIO4-Vlog/Social collaborative and learning platformIO5-Policy Brief/Youth Accelerator GuideAll partners participate in every output.Multiplier eventsThe first round of events target youth organisations/youth workers/trainers and stakeholders involved in social economy acceleration (enterprise incubators etc.). They will be organised within the first six months of the project in order to engage in the concept,present theresearch results (I01),achieve their active involvement, and take decisions for the next steps of the project development.The second group of events will occur towards the end of the project to disseminate the outcomes and promote the results at national level. The events target youth organisations and youth workers/trainers and stakeholders, will act as multipliers and achieve the wide use of the project outputs and results.Transnational trainingThe project includes one training activity, which will take place at the established Accelerator ARIS in Cyprus in (month 19) and will involve 25 youth workers from all five countries. The activity aims to educate and train youth workers/organisations in regards to establishing and running a youth social entrepreneurship accelerator programme. Training the youth workers is especially important, as they are the ones who will share their knowledge and expertise with young people and social enterprise stakeholders in their own country thus multiplying the impact of the project.The project is expected to have a significant and multi-faceted, positive influence on the partner organizations through the exchange of knowledge & experiences, the strengthening of their capacity and enhancement of their offering; on youth workers/organizations by improving their skills and competencies through non-formal learning; on young people & aspiring social entrepreneurs by offering a set of sustainable,useful tools and developing an enabling environment for the creation of new social enterprises; and finally social enterprise stakeholders by obtaining research-based knowledge on the social entrepreneurship landscape in Europe, providing a practical youth accelerator guide and a policy brief addressed to decision-makers.

Female Empowerment in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics in Higher Education (FeSTEM)Context/background of the project Science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) workforce is crucial to Europe’s innovative capacity and global competitiveness. Yet women are vastly underrepresented in STEM jobs and among STEM degree holders despite making up almost half of the E.U. workforce and half of the college-educated workforce. That leaves an untapped opportunity to expand STEM employment in Europe. Among STEM jobs, women’s representation has varied over time. In computer and math workforce (the largest of the four STEM components), women representation has dropped 3 percentage points since 2000. Engineers are the second largest STEM occupational group, but only about one out of every seven engineers is female. Men are much more likely than women to have a STEM job regardless of educational attainment. Project objectivesIn this context, the principal objective of FeSTEM project is to promote an innovative method and pedagogy that will allow HE students to use traditional and computationally-rich media to create meaningful, shareable exhibits that will act as mentoring models for encouraging girls and women to remain active in STEM. The novelty of our approach is reflected in the activities that will make use of traditional and computationally-rich media through which we envisage to expose HE students to successful female role models in STEM and encourage the development of networking opportunities for women to establish a peer support system. The making of meaningful, shareable exhibits is based on the premise that by having students engage as scientists in a creative, hands-on, and passionate endeavor allows them to spark their motivation to remain active in STEM- a motivation that is often extinguished by extrinsic and goals and expectations of education and workplace. ParticipantsThe participants involved in the project include women studying and teaching in STEM-related areas in Higher Education. MethodologyFeSTEM will deploy through the establishment of STEM MAKER teams in all partner countries which will consist of HE academics working in STEM-related departments and motivated STEM students (male and female) who will work at the project in all its different phases. STEM MAKER teams will be involved in the piloting and evaluation of the project outputs (tools, exhibits, activities and workshops), and thereafter they will apply what they have learned in a wider-scale through workshops and events. Ultimately, the project will build an active network of women in STEM (both junior and senior) that will act as a mentoring hub for encouraging girls and women to remain active in STEM. Main outcomesThe main project outcomes are foreseen to be: a gender-sensitive teaching methodology for engaging HE students in making shareable exhibits and promoting gender-equality issues, an open source online instrument for making gender-sensitive shareable exhibits, resources in the form of examples to illustrate how shareable exhibits can act as mentoring constructs for women in STEM, a community of practive for engaging HE instructors in a sharing community of practices and ideas and a mentoring community platform for STEM HE students. Long term benefits The results of the project are expected to be of value for HE teachers, students, trainers, managers, entrepreneurs, technicians and researchers. More specifically, in the outputs of the project are expected to benefit those who are interested in raising gender-sensitive awareness in HE and enrich HE STEM education with a gender-sensitive approach.