CONTEXTGiven the growth that SMEs are encouraged to follow and strong public policy on the importance of digital technology, it is not surprising that business leaders are generally pro-technology. However, growing scientific evidence shows that unconstrained use of digital devices can have negative consequences for businesses in terms of productivity/performance and employees’ mental and physical health. Multitasking and the constant stream of notifications are associated with lower levels of creativity and concentration, and higher stress, while the google effect causes decreased memory efficiency. Collectively called “technostress” these issues are caused both by the technology AND by organisational expectations. The “always on” culture of checking emails at home or on holiday leads to worsened emotional states, poor work-life balance and burnout.Many large corporations are already addressing digital overload, via wellbeing policies within their HR/CSR work. In a 2018 study of 500 senior HR executives from global organisations, 70% stated that policies to promote digital wellbeing were important. A similar study, though, found that 82% of SME employers do NOT have any digital health or wellbeing policies nor plans to introduce them. Moreover, our own research showed the issue is so new that no enterprise development or business training providers currently offers structured guidance on the topic: they too are unaware and unequipped.OBJECTIVE Therefore, the objective of our project is to design, develop and implement a new approach to train European SME managers in employee digital wellbeing. In doing so we meet the needs of the following target groups:PARTICIPANTS & ACTIVITIESSME MANAGERS. Numbering hundreds of thousands in each of our countries, they need greater awareness and knowledge of this challenge and to develop the digital and entrepreneurial skills to lead change in company policy and practice.ENTREPRENEURSHIP (BUSINESS) EDUCATION PROVIDERS. They are a trusted source of training for SME managers and have ample access/geographic coverage to mainstream it, but they need knowledge of the subject matter AND suitable teaching resources. EDUCATION AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT STAKEHOLDERS. As policy makers and funders of subsidised training for SMEs they need greater understanding of the relevance of this topic, so as to be able to focus and design greater support for digital wellbeing competences.-SME EMPLOYEES are indirect participants and beneficiaries: thanks to the introduction of improved digital wellbeing policies and practices, they will be encouraged to strengthen their own competences regarding a balanced use of digital technology and digital self-care.RESULTSWe will produce two Outputs and the following resultsO1: Digital Wellbeing Pathway Creator. An interactive online tool enabling SME managers to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses in relation to employee digital wellbeing and to determine a suitable pathway through the subsequent learning materials (O2). 36 Business Advisors will help us test the Pathway Creator with 120 SME managers. A further 300 Advisors and SMEs will use the Pathway Creator during the project lifespan.O2: Digital Crossroads Training Programme. A complete set of learning objectives, training materials and case studies providing SME Managers and business advisors to gain the knowledge, skills and self-belief required to implement an in-company programme to prevent employee digital overload. 16 business advisors will use the Training Programme with 48 SMEs (4 each) during the project. A further 240 individuals, mostly business advisors but also stakeholders and SME managers, will download and use all or part of the OERs during the project lifespan. IMPACTWe’ve designed Digital Crossroads carefully to ensure our final goal: enabling SME managers to improve the digital wellbeing of their employees. LOCAL IMPACTSince the majority of SMEs and entrepreneurs access training and support from entrepreneurship VET providers close to home, the impact will first be felt on a LOCAL level: more businesses leaders will have the digital and entrepreneurial competences to lead change in their companies, having a positive knock on effect on employee wellbeing and productivity. Over the medium term, these benefits will become evident as improved growth and employment in the local economy. REGIONAL AND NATIONAL IMPACTAt regional and national level, the project will demonstrate the need to broaden our approach to digital skills’ competences in the SME and entrepreneurship education sectors, in line with Frameworks such as DigComp and the JISC approach.EUROPEAN IMPACTAt European level, the main contribution of the project will be to highlight the work that still is required to translate Dig Comp (and to an extent DigCompOrg) into SME training and entrepreneurship education, and to provide scalable response as to how to achieve this.

<< Objectives >>LGBTIQ YOUTH NET develops a new set of resources to help youth and youth educators combat anti-LGBTIQ online hate speech. We will:•Conduct desk and field research to explore the challenges & opportunities of youth combating online anti-LGBTIQ hate speech. •Upskill & empower young people to actively participate in combating online hate speech•Ensure participation of young people in relevant discourses about these issues•Allow project resources to get timely and adequate attention & reach<< Implementation >>In essence, we will:•Develop a Reach and Teach toolkit to engage and inspire youth educators and youth workers for interest in combating anti-LGBTIQ online hate speech•Create a classroom-based course, available also digitally, and implement it via an international training event•Ensure youth is heard and participates by establishing 4 Local in-person Assemblies and building an online platform for target groups’ peer cooperation•Implement an intensive and engaging share&promote campaign<< Results >>1.1.PROJECT MANAGEMENT HANDBOOK + strategies2.1. LGBTIQ YOUTH NET Reach & Teach toolkit showing 30 good examples of work in combating LGBTIQ hate speech 3.1. OERs CLASSROOM COURSE WITH PEDAGOGIC GUIDE3.2. INTERNATIONAL IN-PERSON TRAINING EVENT FOR YOUTH AND EDUCATORS4.1. LOCAL ASSEMBLIES of young people (TG1), educators and youth workers (TG2)4.2. A DIGITAL HUB peer-to-peer learning and networking 5.1 SHARE & PROMOTE STRATEGY detailing the campaign

<< Objectives >>The potentials of start-ups founded by migrants/ethnic minority background founders and their impact on the economic, social, and cultural life in Europe are undisputed – but unfortunately, this also applies to the hurdles they face. With the innovative resources of the INGROW project, we enable Adult Educators to address the specific challenges and impact on a more inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem and thus foster a more level playing field for migrant and ethnic minority background founders.<< Implementation >>Our approach is based on a sound analysis of the new skillset needed by migrants/ethnic minority background founders, compiled in a comprehensive Competence Framework that guides the development of our integrated set of resources. At the core of the approach is our innovative Knowledge Gap and Financing Readiness Assessment Web-APP, providing detailed feedback on personal knowledge gaps, linking to the resources and providing strategies to improve financing readiness for specific concepts.<< Results >>The overall objective of the INGROW Project is to increase the relevance and impact of Adult Entrepreneurship Education on migrant / ethnic minority background founders and their growth and innovation potentials – based on a contextualized and individualized learning approach. The project innovates entrepreneurship education for the target groups in general - but also creates very specific and individual support for concrete start-up concepts.

The EUROPEAN GREAN DEAL, promoting a fair and prosperous society, with a modern resource-efficient and competitive economy, and a climate neutral Europe in 2050, is the European response to tackle climate change and environmental-related challenges. The actions of companies and especially SMEs, accounting for 66% of private sector employment and approximately 60-70% of the industrial pollution in Europe have significant impacts in this regard. This applies to the products and services they offer, but also to working conditions, human rights, health, the environment, innovation, education and training as stated in the preamble of the EU Corporate Social Responsibility & Responsible Business Conduct. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the strategic, comprehensive and sustainable response from companies to address those issues. Even though CSR has been on the agenda for some years now, the implementation rate in SMEs is still alarmingly low and they are lagging far behind in responding to the justified demands of Civic Society. Many of them still believe, the topic is reserved for large companies, not being aware of the direct benefits but referring to the resources they consider necessary and the existing hurdles.The CSR-Ready project directly responds to the specificity of CSR implementation in SMEs and enables them to develop company specific strategies and measures based on a sound analysis of their specific impact areas and benefits, presented in a clear and easy-to-use CSR Scoreboard and accompanied by specific knowledge and tools needed to implement them. This innovative approach goes far beyond existing offers and initiatives and will lead to a higher implementation rate of CSR Strategies in SMEs in Europe. At the same time, future Entrepreneurs and StartUps are trained to implement CSR Strategies directly from the start – helping them to avoid future transition costs and allowing them to directly create CSR based competitive advantages. The project achieves a sustainable impact by directly supporting SMEs/ StartUps on the one hand and by professionalizing VET organizations, management consultants, entrepreneurship and SME support infrastructures and by providing first of its kind resources to be implemented into their curricula and services. We will build on the existing CSR theory and initially research on challenges and gaps explaining the low implementation rate in SMEs. Transferable studies on this subject area do not yet exist. Based on this, we will develop an interactive App-based CSR-Readiness Analysis Tool, leading to a company specific Scoreboard providing actionable strategy approaches and the specific learning resources. To guarantee the widest possible use, we involve VET organisations, trainers, consultants and support structures (incubators, chambers e.g.) in our work and enable them to update their services and trainings to real world needs.Specifically, we will:1) Identify the most relevant challenges, impact areas and best practices (IO1)2) Develop an innovative VET-Package providing curricula, learning resources and training materials to be implemented into the service provisions and trainings offered by VET, HEI and Entrepreneurship/SME support structures3) Develop an interactive CSR Readiness Analysis Tool Scoreboard (IO3) that enables SMEs to identify their specific CSR-Readiness, the Impact areas and actionable measures and provides the specific knowledge and tools to implement them4) To ensure wide and free access, all produced resources will be adopted as OERs and combined with a large variety of additional information on our interactive knowledge exchange platform (IO4)In doing so, the project addresses the following needs of our target groups and will create sustainable impact for them:a) SMEs and future entrepreneurs gain a profound understanding of the importance of CSR and are enabled to implement specific strategies b) VET organisations, trainers, consultants and support structures (e.g. chambers, incubators) are put in a position to update and professionalize their services and increase their impactc) By enabling companies to meet their social and environmental responsibilities while at the same time sustain their business, we make a sustainable contribution to improve the social, ecologic AND economic footprint of the European SME sector d) Project partners will acquire new strategies, tools and methods for improving the effectiveness of their services. They will improve their own competences in knowledge sharing and strategic relationship building and have a clear understanding of how to sustain and grow the project in the long term.The CSR-Ready project therefore is in line with the goals of the European Green Deal and will impact on the achievement of its objectives by increasing the implementation rate of CSR in SMEs and thus improving the social, ecologic AND economic footprint of the SME sector in Europe.

"<< Background >>European HEIs are increasingly becoming socially engaged and thereby increasing their role regarding regional and social development. The European Commission’s latest Higher Education Modernisation Agenda points out that since 2011 a great contribution was made in strengthening collaboration between higher education, research, and business. But beyond the economic impact, social or civil responsibility is less developed and therefore must be emphasized (Higher Education Modernisation Agenda, 2017). The CoCreAid project will have a direct impact on SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT by connecting NGOs from RURAL AREAS with HEIs. This will address SOCIAL CHALLENGES and address NEEDS OF CITZIENS FROM RURAL AREAS while providing INCLUSION. However, due to the ongoing pandemic, social and physical distance, co-creation between HEIs and NGOs are hampered. Consequently, the actual aim of promoting social progress and overcoming social challenges cannot be achieved. This is because social challenges can be overcome jointly through co-creation projects between HEIs and NGOs. Indeed, the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic further destabilises already ongoing co-creation projects and creates barriers between higher education institutions and the rest of society. A needs analysis by MUAS have shown that due to the pandemic situation, a large number of co-creation projects fail due to a lack of appropriate methods and tools for collaborations. Therefore, a digital CoCreAid Kit could support the collaboration between HEIs and NGOs to overcome these barriers and to continue and strengthen the cooperations. Depending on the course of the project, individual co-creation methods help to overcome transfer barriers. This will be done by providing a graphical user interface (GUI) with digital co-creation tools. Co-creation tools are methods that enable the co-creation activities along the whole process of co-creation (project definition, co-creation and (re)integration (Lang et al. 2012)) in consideration of the characteristics and barriers of co-creation projects (e.g. actors from different sectors and disciplines with different backgrounds, experience, and languages are working together). To do this, we use methods (such as e.g. appreciative inquiry, nudging, river of life, smart PICO, expectation matrix, UTAUT Modell, lean canvas, persona, usability tests, design thinking) from different disciplines (e.g. engineering, social sciences, life science, and economics) from different disciplines (such as engineering, healthcare, and other disciplines). We take the most effective methods and transfer them to the NGO context of co-creation for social impact. The unpredictable context of Covid-19 creates new opportunities of fostering DIGITAL AND INNOVATIVE ways of promoting CIVIC ENGAGEMENT, which can be embedded in co-creation projects with HEIs and NGOs. This project will use the opportunity to realise an “easy to use” graphical user interface to provide digital co-creation tools to project leaders of both NGOs and HEIs. The aim is to overcome both SOCIAL AND SPATIAL BARRIERS between NGOs and HEIs.The project will integrate CITIZENS from rural areas and promote collaborations through access to DIGITAL CO-CREATION TOOLS. This will help to OVERCOME BARRIERS AND ADRESS SOCIAL CHALLENGES. The project will enable the implementation and development of high-quality co-creation projects digitally, between NGOs and HEI. The aim is to increase social impact in the participating European countries and beyond.<< Objectives >>The focus of the project is to overcome barriers in cooperation that arise when HEIs and NGOs co-create. Furthermore, DIGITAL COMPETENCES will be strengthened among these cooperation partners by the practical application of the digital CoCreAid Kit. In addition, citizens in rural areas will be given access to the cooperation, thus contributing to addressing social challenges. As we are planning to develop the CoCreAid Kit 4.0 that we are aiming for, we will also use this product in cooperation within this project. In this way, we will show how much it facilitates the cooperation and thus contributes to social engagement. The co-creation projects between NGOs and HEIs are very important as the pandemic situation has brought new social challenges. Through successful co-creation projects, these social challenges can be addressed and overcome. Even before the pandemic, it was difficult for interest groups from rural regions to cooperate with HEIs and the pandemic situation has now worsened this situation. We are creating opportunities to overcome these barriers with our CoCreAid Kit 4.0. Accordingly, our OBJECTIVES of this project are: To create a greater awareness and understanding of transfer barriers in co-creation projects between HEIs and NGOs (PR1) To develop an “easy-to-use” graphical user interface (GUI) to ensure an equivalent “face-to-face-activity” in the digital space. The GUI offers different selection options and guides the user to the individual co-creation methods depending on the project progress. After the selection process, the users can apply the co-creation methods interactively (PR2) To increase capacity among HEI and NGO representatives in the development of digital skills, with the hands-on use of digital co-creation tools (PR3) To improve the inclusion of citizens from rural areas via NGOs in co-creation projects with HEIs (PR3) To scale the use of the digital tools to a broad target group, via multiplier events (PR4)<< Implementation >>In order to achieve the objectives of the project we are planning to implement the following activities: PHASE 1: EXPLORATION PR1: “Report on digital solutions for co-creation”: Compilation of research results and best practice solutions for cocreation in a digital environment. PR1-A1: Desk research: Research for digital solutions (e.g. platform and interaction opportunities) for digital co-creation. Determine existing good practices of digital co-creation between HEI and NGOs. PR1-A2: Qualitative research: In-depth interviews to get a deeper understanding of the requirements and demands of involved actors towards graphical user interfaces digital methodologies in co-creation projects across European HEIs (target group: academics who lead co-creation projects between HEIs and NGOs), n=40 and across Europe NGOs (target group: project coordinators working in NGOs collaborating with HEIs), n=40 PR1-A3: Consolidation of the findings from the desk research and qualitative research about digital co-creation methods in a synthesis report PHASE 2: DEVELOPMENT PR2: “Digital Co-Creation Aid Kit 4.0” – Building on the “Report on digital solution for co-creation” PR2 creates a graphical user interface that is easy to use for both HEIs and NGOs and citziens, allowing custom selection of co-creation tools. This can be used to replace personal face-to-face activities and make projects fluent using methods from different disciplines. Social challenges can be addressed and at the same time social engagement is promoted. PR2-A1: Based on the results from PR1, a graphical user interface is created. PR2-A2: Integration of co-creation tools into the graphical user interface: Starting from A1 - A2 includes the function that suitable tools are suggested and explained to the user. PHASE 3: IMPLEMENTATION AND REFINEMENT PR3: “Digital co-creation tools pilot testing and validation report” – Pilot testing of the CoCreAid Kit 4.0. The CoCreAid Kit with the integrated co-creation tools are used in projects between NGOs and academics & citizens. Validations are produced in the form of a report. This validation will be used for further improvement of the digital methods. PR3-A1: Pilot testing of the CoCreAid Kit 4.0 in 20 co-creation projects. PR3-A2: Validation of the CoCreAid Kit 4.0 based on a quantitative survey and a focus group. PR3-A3: Modification of the CoCreAid Kit 4.0 as final version, according to the insights of the survey and the focus group. PHASE 4: EXPLOITATION AND VALORIZATION PR4: “CoCreAid Kit 4.0 user guideline” - Aggregation of the experiences of the developed CoCreAid Kit 4.0 in a guideline form, customised for academics, NGOs and for citizens, incorporating cultural and contextual differences in the use of the tools in form of tips etc. Guidelines allow attracting more academics, NGOs and citizens, enabling them to use the CoCreAid Kit 4.0 and scale the project on the European level. PR4-A1: CoCreAid Kit 4.0 user guideline for HEIs PR4-A2: CoCreAid Kit 4.0 user guideline for NGOs PR4-A3: CoCreAid Kit 4.0 user guideline for Citizens PR4-A4: Dissemination of the guidelines via partner networks and multiplier events<< Results >>After completion of the project, it will be possible for NGOs and HEIs to successfully implement co-creation projects in a digital form of face-to-face activities. Social and spatial distances can be overcome as digital methods (e.g. appreciative inquiry, nudging, river of life, smart PICO, expectation matrix, UTAUT modell, lean canvas, persona, usability tests, morphological box) from different disciplines (e.g. engineering, social sciences, life sciences, and economics) and knowledge domains (e.g. university business cooperation, community engagement, new product development, new service development, design thinking, creativity techniques, service design, outcome driven innovations, client-centred innovations, knowledge intensive services development, scrum, lean start-up, prototyping, agile management, quality assurance) are transferred to the cooperation of HEIs and NGOs. Through developing an ""easy-to-use"" graphical user interface, an equivalent face-to-face activity is made possible. By making this digital product easy to use for NGOs, HEIs and citizens, the CoCreAid Kit 4.0 can be used despite low digital competences. At the same time, it also promotes digital skills. The GUI offers different selection options and guides the user to the individual co-creation methods, depending on the project progress. After the selection process, the users can apply the co-creation methods interactively. Specifically, the following Project Results are planned: PR1: “Report on digital solutions for co-creation” - Compilation of research results and best practice solutions for cocreation in a digital environment. PR2: “Digital CoCreAid Kit 4.0” – Building on the “Report on digital solution for co-creation” PR2 creates a graphical user interface that is easy to use for both HEIs and NGOs, citizen, allowing custom selection of co-creation tools. This can be used to replace personal face-to-face activities and make projects fluent using methods from different disciplines. Social challenges can be addressed and at the same time social engagement is promoted. PR3: “Digital co-creation tools pilot testing and validation report” – Pilot testing of the Co-Creation Aid Kit 4.0. The CoCreAid Kit with the integrated co-creation tools are used in projects between NGOs and academics. Validations are produced in the form of a report. This validation will be used for further improvement of the digital methods. PR4: “CoCreAid Kit 4.0 user guideline”- Aggregation of the experiences of the developed CoCreAid Kit 4.0 in a guideline form, customised for academics, NGOs and for citizens, incorporating cultural and contextual differences in the use of the tools in form of tips etc. The guideline allows attracting more academics, NGOs and citizens, enabling them to use the CoCreAid Kit 4.0 and scale the project on the European level. The guidelines and the CoCreAid Kit 4.0 will be disseminated in multiplier events."