EURATEX, COTANCE, CEC and INDUSTRIALL Europe, the recognised European social partners in the Textile, Clothing, Leather and Footwear (TCLF) sectors, together with the support of SPIN360, have implemented the Digital TCLF project with the aim to concretely respond to the existing digital skills gap in the TCLF sectors and the needs for skills development in one of the areas where the change in future is expected to have the greater impact: digitalisation of the skills related to industrial production in TCLF. A previous study carried out under the TCLF Sector Skills Council in 2014 had identified 13 new occupations emerging within the sector. In view of the rapid digital transformation since 2014, project partner activities initially concentrated in analysing and confirming with the support of sector experts the opportunity and validity of such occupations before inviting the industry for their validation. Once the names and conceptualisation of the occupations were finetuned, the partners worked on the characterisation of the profile of the 9-emerging digital occupations and the correspondent required skills sets, included digital skills, by the creation of a single and harmonized matrix, using the European skills/competences, qualifications and occupations (ESCO) format. A first extensive forecasting survey on digital skills in the industry was carried out in order to forecast the future demand of these occupations. Likewise, a second research analysed the current VET curricula and training offer in Europe by conducting a survey among almost 50 education providers and in-depth interviews with another 15 institutions from 12 EU countries.As the concluding outcome of Digital TCLF and elaborating on all the results achieved in the previous stages of the project, partners present a roadmap proposal aiming to guide the TCLF stakeholders involved at the EU and national level on the priority actions to be taken in order to address the 9 emerging digital(ised) occupations and the 19 related digital skills that the project has identified.All these conclusions and the results have been disseminated by the consortium through the updates on the project website, the publication of 4 newsletters sent to the relevant stakeholders and the Final Event of the project held in Brussels.

Europe represents now 4% of the worldwide footwear production (2017 data) but has the highest average price worldwide. Europe maintains a tradition of footwear production, and a capital of knowledge throughout its institutions, schools, universities, which allows it to produce the highest quality footwear in the world. Thus, when it comes to the Top 10 most important footwear exporters, 5 European countries are well represented, summing more than 10% of world share exportations. The future of European footwear production is undoubtedly centred in the highest segments of the market, in terms of quality, functionality, design and more and more differentiation.Footwear and leather goods include a variety of product categories: from commodities to specialised products (sports, technical, professional, safety) and finally to luxury products, exclusive and unique, being much more than high quality goods, respond to the most distinctive and capricious niches of market all over the world. In the same way that bespoke exclusive and high-end products such as Rolls Royce and Bentley’s cars, or some of the most traditional Swiss watches are completely handmade rather than assembled in line, high quality, luxury and exclusive footwear is also totally handmade. Consumers from around the world recognise Europe as the reference of luxury footwear manufacturing, which is represented by a limited number of SMEs and micro companies and successful designers with innate entrepreneurship skills (running their own atelier and commercialising their shoes on-line) that both develop and manufacture complete handmade footwear, where every single component is thoroughly studied and becomes special, exclusive, and which average price of 800 Euros/pair is later clearly justified. Such high-end companies have the “savoir faire”, but they cannot find really youngsters or newcomers to whom to transmit their knowledge and skills and who could continue their businesses. They face not only the problem of attracting the young generations to the footwear manufacturing, but also finding candidates with the right skills and competences to produce exclusive and innovative footwear. There is a hidden potential in an increasingly “generation” of new talented designers who have completed VET in the field of Footwear Design in many European countries with footwear industry tradition, very creative and skilled in terms of design but finds a lot of difficulties to materialize their ideas and creations, because they lack the manufacturing skills and means to turn their own ideas into luxury tradable products. Therefore, if Europe wants to maintain, and spread around the continent, its first ranking position in the production of high-end footwear, the industry needs to work on a complementary strategy focused in the differentiation, details, sophistication, exclusivity, and image, which includes a B2C attentive model of marketing and commercialization targeted to such group of consumers. The success of this strategy includes different factors like high quality materials and components, innovative design, but the most important relies on the development of a very target-oriented skills and competences capacity of the manufacturers. A consortium of 6 partners from the most representative countries in terms of Footwear tradition and positioning in the rankings, meeting all necessary competences in the field, assigned this challenge.The whole project was dedicated to maintain and strengthen the high-end footwear production across Europe taking into consideration the specificities of this product category, while promoting the entrepreneurship of new talent designers and the development of a new generation of high-skilled manufacturers, oriented to high-end products in footwear. The project was focused on the creation and development of innovative vocational training ICT and practical based, targeted to a wide range of groups – VET students, new talented designers, footwear workers/technicians, new entrepreneurs in the field of Footwear as a mean to cope with the lack of skills/competences in the field of high-end (luxury) footwear manufacturing in Europe. A wide range of outputs were delivered for the success of the upgrading skills/competences, starting by a deep study on the luxury aspects and the real evidence based training need in this field, evolving to a new profile on technician toward high-end/luxury segment, a programme and a compilation of training contents, a B-learning course which was tested and piloted, as well as diligences for the recognition and validation of the professional certification.All the outputs are available in English and in all languages of the consortium: Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and Czech.

<< Objectives >>The project main goal is to prepare EU footwear sector to embrace the challenge of transition to sustainable, human-centric and resilient industry, transcending efficiency and productivity objectives, in line with the sectorial pact for skills (EU Pact for Skills), allying benefits for industry, workers and society. With the outcomes of the project, it is expected to ensure that workers will acquire the needed skills to support green and digital transition in footwear factories across Europe.<< Implementation >>The work programme roles out in 5 WP (including Management), including short training pilot actions outreach Events for a 36m implementation. During each WP implementation it is expected to create relevant results in a combined and comprehensive manner, which will be used within project duration but also after the project lifetime to support the upskill and reskill of workers and managers towards a smoother implementation of I5.0. All partners will be involved in all the WP implementation.<< Results >>The project proposes to develop a multilevel tailor-made upskilling and reskilling scheme and correspondent innovative contents and tools, to implement the presuppositions of Industry 5.0 towards a green and digital transition, making footwear factories a place where creative and talented people can come and work and live a human, multicultural and personalized experience. With this project we will contribute to reshape and bring new competencies to European managers and workers.

Europe employs more than 278.000 people in more than 21.000 companies, mainly SMEs, adopting a development strategy based on higher quality of products and services, flexibility, short time to market, product differentiation and added value producing 3,2% of the 24.3 billion pairs worldwide (figures 2019 www.worldfootwear.com ). It is a very manufacturing intensive sector with more than 35% of the employees over 50, which highlights strong need of attracting motivated and qualified young talent to replace the future retirements. The Pact for Skills in TCLF (S4TCLF https://www.s4tclfblueprint.eu/ ) as a consequence of the European Skills Agenda, outstands the need of addressing innovative ways of delivering IVET and CVET to capture and maintain a younger generation of employees inside the sector and calls the attention to the urgent need of a digital transformation at the level of training/education.All these factors are currently further amplified by the impact of COVID-19.A survey performed by S4TCLF project to VET providers and High-Education institutions providing VET on the impact of COVID-19 in the training/learning activities resulted in the following findings:- Urgent need of changing the ways of delivering training, opting preferentially by “at distance” approaches- Difficulties in “delivering practical training”- Difficulties from trainers and teachers in adapting their own practices to the new “normal” due to the lack of digital literacy and materials adapted to the new approaches. difficulty in keeping trainees and student within the courses, calling the attention to the need of creating attractive pedagogical resources and environment.- VET providers surveyed also confirmed that after COVID-19 the training approach will change definitely compared to the past and nothing will be as it was, highlighting the priority of developing robust Digital teaching and learning approaches. Therefore, CTCP Portugal, CTCR Spain, POLICALZ Italy, TUIASI Romania, IPS Poland, together with CEC, the umbrella association, and a specialist on digital education, joined efforts to face up this European challenge, for the development of a Footwear virtual “learning by doing” approach targeted to:1st- Trainers/teacher/coaches in footwear sector willing to promote, develop, accompany and assess innovative digital training2nd- Students/trainees in footwear related IVET and CVET or others willing to go for a career in footwear sector and to know more about footwear manufacturing operations,And the expected contributes are at 4 levels:1-Preparation of VET Providers and HE providing VET and their correspondent staff, including trainers, teachers and coaches, for the implementation of comprehensive digital strategies for the learning By Doing in Footwear Manufacturing, including approaches, methodologies and autonomation in contents development.2-EU network of VET providers and HE providing VET to excel in the digital delivering of practical training, toward the development of the practical skills, in footwear manufacturing, including IT educational experts and Umbrella Association.3-Creation of a free complete digitally environment for training/teaching/leaning of practical skills in Augmented reality and correspondent contents.4-Creation of a joint international digital course certified at National level and recognized at EU level for the development of practical skills in Footwear manufacturing.The expected results will be in 3 groups and will be released in English plus the 5 languages versions of the partnership: Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Romanian.1- Joint International course for digital “Learning by Doing” on Footwear manufacturing for the practical learning on Footwear manufacturing, integrally anchored in digital strategies. 2- Joint virtual Shoe Fab Lab and correspondent contents in Augmented Reality (AR) This also includes a course for trainers, teachers and coaches on how to use authoring tools (for the development of innovative and attractive contents in AR. 3-Common methodology on training/teaching/coaching for training itineraries based on augmented reality (AR) which includes manuals for trainers/teachers, coaches and trainees and training opportunity for end users (students and trainees in IVET and CVET).

"<< Background >>The ShoeGame project arises in the context of a need for renovation and change in the footwear sector. Within the challenges it faces, two main ones should be highlighted: first, the fact that the industry suffers from an aging workforce, which is not being replaced due to the lack of attractiveness of the sector to the new generations and second, the gap between the training and education offered and the industry demands. ShoeGame intends to address these needs by developing a VET solution, based on digital tools, aimed at students who are either deciding if they should enroll in a VET course or already enrolled. The relevance of the project lies, firstly, in the central role, the footwear industry occupies in the contemporary world. According to the ""European Footwear sector report: structure, social dialogue and future"" elaborated by the industry’s social partners, the footwear sector in Europe remain strong thanks to its long tradition and cultural heritage. European footwear is distinguished for its excellent design and quality of the product, where a skilled workforce provides a substantial added value. Statistics show the good path of the European footwear industry despite the financial and economic crisis: between 2009 and 2015, footwear exports to non-EU countries have increased by 83% in value and 39% in quantity.However, as mentioned, in order to guarantee its renovation and evolution, the sector needs to be able to attract younger generations. Dr. Lívia Palicska, President of the Association of Hungarian Light Industry (AHLI), claims that “one of the biggest challenges the footwear industry is currently facing is the attraction of young people”. As she mentions, “there is no vocational education focused on footwear in schools and although there are some training offered by companies the percentage of those who continue working at the factories after the courses finish is very low”. In her words, “the manufacturing industry in general and the footwear industry, in particular, have to present themselves as a real alternative for young students (...) and focus on digitalization, automatization, education, innovation, research, sustainability” (World Footwear, 2017).The focus on these new topics will not only make the sector more attractive to younger generations but also bring it closer to the contemporary demands and challenges. It is important, for example, that the footwear industry aligns itself with the various green initiatives that have been pursued all around the world, for example with the new Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP), adopted by the European Commission in March 2020, which aims to promote circularity and sustainability and, in general, contribute to the effort of reaching a global circular economy and making sustainable products the norm in the EU. The training and education opportunities in the footwear sector also have to include innovative technology and digital tools in order to prepare future professionals to engage with them. This is even more urgent considering the current pandemic situation, not only because the education and training centers need to have the necessary skills to adapt to long-distance formats, but also because of the short and long-term impact Covid-19 is expected to have on the footwear sector. The report “World Footwear: Business Conditions Survey”, elaborated by the Portuguese Footwear, Components and Leather Goods Manufacturers’ in 2020 shows some negative predictions, “particularly gloomy in Europe”, and reinforces that “the footwear industry must therefore prepare for an extremely demanding scenario”, as the current situation will have an unprecedented impact in the sector. Therefore, adapting the training and education opportunities and tools to these challenges is crucial, in order to ensure the competitiveness of the footwear industry, and to promote its attractiveness and the career opportunities it offers, especially to younger generations.<< Objectives >>The ShoeGame addresses two of the main challenges faced by the footwear industry right now: on one hand, its aging workforce, mainly due to the lack of the attractiveness of the sector, and, on the other, the inadequacy of the training offered to the current challenges. It is expected that, by bringing the sector closer to the real world (by including relevant topics such as circularity and green economy, sustainability) and providing digital and technological skills, also very important in order to keep up with the modernisation of the sector, it will immediately become more attractive to younger generations. In parallel, the results produced by the project will directly target this need, by informing students about most of the typical professions and occupations in the industry and presenting them with all the possibilities it offers. The project has two main target groups: i) students who are at the age to take the decision to enter VET studies, who the project intends to inform and motivate to proceed with their studies in the field, and ii) students who have already taken this decision and are currently in the first year vocational training. The main objective regarding this group is to maintain their interest and increase their motivation to work in the sector, but also, more intensively, to capacitate them with the relevant skills and competencies to do so. Considering this, the project’s main objectives are:- To attract younger generations to the sector, informing them about the profession, the job market, and the challenges it faces;- To equip future footwear employees with relevant knowledge and skills related to footwear manufacturing from design till finishing, but also with competencies related to circularity, green economy, and sustainability in eco-design;- To promote students’ soft and transversal skills, increasingly important in the modern workplace, such as online teamwork, communication, positive attitude, analysis capacity and problem-solving, etc.;- To develop an innovative training approach and learning tools to be applied in VET contexts, related to the footwear industry or not;- To bridge the existing gap between the training offer and the industry needs;- To promote synergies and cooperation among businesses, universities, research centers and other relevant stakeholders operating in the footwear sector, contributing to the attractiveness and competitiveness of the sector;- To prevent school drop-out and maintain students’ interest and motivation;- To contribute, on a larger scale, to the renovation and modernisation of the footwear sector, maintaining its value and competitiveness.<< Implementation >>In order to answer the mentioned needs, and meet the proposed objectives, the ShoeGame project intends to provide future and current VET students in the footwear industry with the necessary skills and competencies, and motivate them to work in the sector. In order to do so, the following activities will be implemented: - In the first place, a status quo analysis will be implemented by all partners in their countries, in order to assess the knowledge gaps and training needs in the future generation of workers in the footwear industry. These analyses will be compiled into a common report. A second analysis will be conducted, this time on the relevant training resources to the national/regional curricula of the partners (educational goals) and their estimated benefits in terms of learning expectations and outcomes for the definition of the awareness content structure and the core training curriculum. This will lead to the establishment of the project’s methodology (Project Result 1)- The needs analyses will serve as a basis for establishing the contents and the tools to be used in the development of the scenarios to be incorporated in the serious game (Project’s Result 2). The scenarios will be tested and validated, firstly, by the partners’ staff (alpha testing stage) and, in a later stage, with target users (Beta testing stage) until the final version of the game is concluded. An external piloting phase will also be implemented. - The activities which are part of the project’s result 2, the main deliverable of the project, include the designing of the curriculum, strategy and the methodology, and the design and development of the game. All the training materials and guidelines will need to be validated and adjusted according to the comments and suggestions received.- The project’s consortium will also develop a series of support tools for teachers and tutors (R3).Partners will also work on three parallel horizontal workstreams: Project Management (A1); Quality Assurance (A2); and Dissemination and Exploitation (A3).<< Results >>The central objective of this project is to improve the attractiveness of vocational studies in footwear to the young generation while providing them with the technical and sector-specific competencies, as well digital, circularity and sustainability skills that are becoming increasingly relevant for the sector. The main result to be developed by the project’s team is the ShoeGAME serious game, with different content, aimed, on one hand, at attracting newcomers to the footwear sector, and, on the other, at providing information and knowledge to those already enrolled in VET training. In this sense, this result will both work as a training tool to be used in the classroom to develop digital skills and as a motivation reinforcer either for new students or students that are already in the VET system. The game will depict most of the typical occupations in the industry and will include special characters representing well-known symbols in the footwear sector in two-level scenarios. Players will learn about footwear manufacturing from design till finishing, including sustainable practices in eco-design, and options in recycling. The game will also develop transversal competencies from a lifelong learning perspective (online teamwork, communication, positive attitude, analysis capacity and problem-solving, etc.). The game can then be applied by teachers in different training contexts. In order to support the implementation of the ShoeGAME in the classroom, the consortium will also work on a package of training schemes, methodologies and pedagogical guidelines addressed to tutors/teachers for including the serious game and gamification as supportive tools to VET curriculum in the Footwear industry. With the objective of maximising the impact of the ShoeGame, and further developing the students’ capacities, the ShoeGame platform will include communication/collaboration features, that will allow the organisation of virtual sessions and favor the cooperation and exchange of information between students, allowing them to know other European realities. Moreover, the multiplier events of the project will be organised as a set of competitions, through the ShoeGame, aimed at pre-and VET students, motivating them and fostering their competencies and knowledge. This will also foster a sense of transnationality and of community between all the participants. Considering the target groups of the project, about 500 students and 100 teachers/trainers are expected to be directly involved in the different stages: needs analysis, design, development, pilot and testing. Through dissemination and exploitation actions (including the multiplier events, the website and social channels, printed documentation, etc.), the project will further reach about 5000 stakeholders, including trainers, students, schools/VET organizations, companies, managers, public entities and the general public."