The Covid-19 crisis has impacted on the global economic downturn of recent years. The pandemic has also impacted youth and adult populations throughout Europe, not only in daily life, but also in terms of loss of employment as well as a major decrease of educational opportunities. The EU 2020 Strategy acknowledges that education and training can help tackle key challenges Europe is currently facing in recent years and particularly in light of the current global pandemic. The project acknowledges the importance of human and social capital as articulated in the 2020 Strategy and the aims of Erasmus+, and intends to provide opportunities for individuals and schools to develop their skills through formal and informal education. The 4c’s project builds competencies for educators and students around the 4C’s of 21st century skills: critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in an increasingly complex world, children need to develop higher level thinking skills in order to find solutions to social, emotional and economic problems. In order to respond to the challenges of the 21st century, children need to be creative, innovative, enterprising and adaptable, with the motivation, confidence and skills to use creative and critical thinking purposefully. The Covid crisis has highlighted the need for increased skills for educators in the museum and education sectors in developing and delivering creative digital curricula in the virtual or online environment (British Council report, 2020). The 4 C’s project responds to this need by supporting the delivery of creative and critical thinking educational approaches into schools through engagement with the cultural sector specifically museums, galleries, makerspaces, science centres and festivals. The project will bring together experts from the museum sector with makers and Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Maths (STEAM) leaders to create a competency framework, reflective practice tools for educators and evaluation tools for digital cultural heritage projects. The 4 C’s project capitalises on the mobilisation of digital cultural heritage and engagement with maker spaces models, as tools to create unusual and exciting learning opportunities. The 4 C’s project responds to the need to digitally transform the way in which students are engaged, by supporting teachers and educators to develop skills, reflect on their practice and to evaluate their teaching with students. The 4 C’s project is an extension of the Erasmus+ Creative Schools project (2019-2022, 2019-1-FR01-KA201-062212) through the development of additional opportunities around the areas of competencies, particularly in and around the digital curriculum, and evaluation tools. These areas were identified in the first phase of the Creative Schools project (www.creative-schools.eu) as one of three things needed by educators (the first is teaching methodologies), but remain out of the scope of the previous project. More importantly, with the current Covid-19 pandemic, museums, galleries, makerspaces, science centres and festivals realise the need to review, relearn and redesign engagement with audiences especially through digital and onsite engagement (blended learning). The 4C’s project will provide the opportunity to do this. The main beneficiaries of the project include museum professionals, as well as primary and secondary school teachers, who - through engaging with the project - will become equipped with the skills necessary to facilitate pedagogical strategies for creativity and critical thinking. Children and young people involved as participants in the project will develop the skills required to respond to the challenges offered by the new curriculum and these will be assessed and evaluated in the 4 C’s project. The 4 C’s project will involve 5 of current partners from the Creative Schools project, with the addition of the Festival of Curiosity from the Republic of Ireland. The project partners all provide considerable expertise and knowledge in the subject area of innovation, creativity and critical thinking and with working with schools and young people. Project results will be disseminated through the partner’s networks, which include both the educational, the creative and the cultural sectors.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, in an increasingly complex world children need to develop higher level thinking skills in order to find solutions to social, emotional and economic problems, both personally and in the context of the wider world. In order to respond to the challenges of the 21st century, children need to be creative, innovative, enterprising and adaptable, with the motivation, confidence and skills to use creative and critical thinking purposefully. The Creative School project responds to this need by delivering creative and critical thinking educational approaches into schools through engagement with the cultural sector, specifically museums, galleries, and science centres.The Creative School builds on the outcomes of two previous Erasmus+ funded projects: The Creative Museum (2014-1-FR01-KA202- 008678) and the Making Museum (2017-1-FR01-KA202- 037487), by providing opportunities to generate and evaluate knowledge, clarify concepts and ideas, seek possibilities, consider alternatives and solve problems. The Creative School project aims to use the creative and innovative methods and tools developed throughout the Creative and Making Museum projects and apply them to develop learning modules for children and school teachers. These modules will promote self-directed learning, critical and visual thinking skills by using cultural heritage content made available by the full and associate partner organisations. The project will achieve this in a number of ways: firstly, through an analysis of training and information needs of teachers, educators, children and also parents; secondly, by producing a set of training materials focusing on the development of thinking skills through engagement with cultural heritage and thirdly, through the creation set of guidelines and recommendations aimed at influencing policy makers and curriculum decision makers. The main beneficiaries of the project include primary and secondary school teachers, who, through engaging with the project will become equipped with the skills necessary to facilitate pedagogical strategies for creativity and critical thinking. Children and young people involved as participants in the Creative School project will develop the skills required to respond to the challenges offered by the Creative School curriculum. The project will also explore the possible mobilisation of digital cultural heritage and engagement with maker spaces models, as tools to create unusual and exciting learning opportunities.Here maker spaces are intended as community-operated workspaces, where people with common interests in technology, science, heritage and art, can meet, socialize and collaborate.The project will provide teachers, educators and children the chance to engage with a wide range of subject matter and themes including innovation, STEAM (science, technology, arts and mathematics), sustainable development, urban regeneration, social innovation and entrepreneurship. The project brings together nine project partners from eight countries and six of the partners have worked together on the Making Museum and Creative Museum projects. The project partners all provide considerable expertise and knowledge in the subject area of innovation, creativity and critical thinking and with working with schools and young people. Project results will be disseminated through a range of international and national networks and support by a series of multiplier events, tailored to meet the needs of the local audience.

The background of the intrface europe project is intrface denmark, an association of 75 upper secondary schools and local museums in Denmark, who collaborate in partnerships to produce and carry out museum-based, school-related coursework for students. The leaders of intrface denmark initiated the present project with the ambition of combining the Danish experiences with similar experiences originating from the collaboration of two Pavia University museums with secondary schools in Pavia, Italy, and the Chester Beatty Library's work with St. Oliver's Community College in Drogheda and with other schools in the Republic of Ireland in order to develop and produce - for the first time ever - a European school-museum collaboration and coursework Methodology and Best-Practice Handbook. 18 teachers and museum professionals from these 3 countries have come together to realize the aims and ambitions of the intrface europe project, which will be followed by researchers from Pavia U. and Aarhus U. in Denmark. The Danish Industrial Museum is Lead Partner. The 1st main aim of the project is the development and formulation of a European methodology for securing structured, permanent, pedagogically and didactically sound, innovative and productive partnerships between museum professionals and secondary school teachers, who collaborate equally to develop and carry out museum-based coursework for the students, innovating and strengthening their collaborative, pedagogical and didactic practice, skills and competences in the process. Bringing schools and museums into productive contact with each other and meshing the formal learning environment of the school with the informal learning environment of the museum challenges both groups of professionals to re-think their usual practices, thereby giving them a fresh perspective on their daily work routines. Partnerships where the partners work together on concrete projects that are relevant to their professional lives and practice ensure an effective form of life-long learning.The 2nd main aim of the present project is the development and formulation of a European methodology for the development and implementation of such coursework. Coursework that involves using the museum as a knowledge and learning resource creates a new and innovative learning environment for students that calls for and enhances creative thinking, a variety of learning styles, an awareness and understanding of the multidisciplinarity of knowledge. Museums become accessible and relevant to students when their coursework takes place there, with museum staff and teachers working together to provide an immersive learning experience for them. Coursework like this also promotes learning within the 8 EU key competences. In order to develop sustainable and a useful European methodology and best-practice examples, it is necessary for the partners to use terminology and concepts that are universally recognizable. Therefore, Generic Learning Outcomes are used as a framework for the learning outcomes of the coursework and for the students’ evaluation of it. Theory about communities of practice and strategic communication are used to evaluate and qualify partnership collaboration. The first step for the partners is to gather information about school-museum collaboration and coursework in their own country according to agreed-upon search criteria. This information, combined with their own experience, is pooled and is the basis for the formulation of a draft methodology for coursework and collaboration. The national partnerships then test the viability of the draft methodology by collaborating according to its guidelines to plan and implement museum-based coursework for students from the partner schools. The partners then pool their test experiences to formulate the final intrface europe methodology and a best-practice handbook, also incorporating the follow-up research results regarding strategic communication. The next step is for each partner to find and establish at least two new partnerships and mentor their implementation of the European intrface methodology. This is one concrete form of dissemination of project results; dissemination will also happen via the project websites, through professional networks, reports and articles in relevant journals, by word-of-mouth via the mentorees and students and at the international conference which marks the end of the project. An impact of intrface europe partnerships' collaboration and coursework is learning experiences for young people that strengthen them within the 8 EU key competences.An impact of the project is the creation of a viable European secondary school and museum network with a common core interest (intrface europe) to develop and extend. A longer-term benefit would be increased European collaboration at university level working to establish museum-school research and curricula at universities and teacher training colleges.

CONTEXTECes dernières années les musées ont connu une véritable métamorphose, cependant cela n’a pas suffit à renverser totalement les représentations sociales traditionnelles autour des musées. Ainsi, aujourd’hui, les musées sont confrontés à des défis majeurs que la Mission Musées du XXIème siècle du Ministère Français de la Culture et de la Communication a réparti en 4 axes :- Le musée citoyen : philosophie d’action du musée de demain- Le musée protéiforme : capacité de renouvellement dans ses murs, hors les murs et sur le web- Le musée inclusif et collaboratif : relation aux publics- Le musée comme écosystème professionnel : transformation des métiers et des nouvelles formes d’organisation OBJECTIFSLe premier objectif était de poursuivre et d’améliorer l’offre de formation testée dans le cadre du précédent projet. - Les formations Making Museomix : formation-actions sur les pratiques innovantes- Le programme Maker en résidence : expérimentations de collaboration musées/makersL’idée était de structurer davantage ces offres, de les évaluer afin que les bénéfices apportés pour les participants et surtout pour leurs organisations soient tangibles et valorisés.Le second objectif portait sur l’exploitation et la dissémination des productions et résultats du projet Creative Museum. En effet, les dernières productions du projet Creative Museum ayant été diffusées à la toute fin, il ne restait que très peu de temps pour cette dernière étape importante. C’est par le moyen de différents outils et formats que nous détaillerons plus bas (conférences, ateliers, formations, etc.) que cette étape a été menée.Les rencontres et échanges organisés lors des réunions transnationales ont permis aux partenaires de se nourrir des expertises et des connaissances d’autres professionnels du monde des musées ou d’autres secteurs d’activités, de développer leurs compétences et d’enrichir leur réseau professionnel. NOMBRE ET PROFILS DES PARTICIPANTS Les actions de formations ont regroupé une vingtaine de participants issus du secteur des musées et des communautés de makers inscrites dans des partenariats avec des musées. Ces programmes ont permis aux professionnels d’expérimenter dans des conditions réelles des pratiques créatives et innovantes. Menées dans différents musées partenaires, elles ont également permis aux participants de découvrir de nouveaux environnements, de travailler dans des équipes pluridisciplinaires et de développer leur réseau et de possible collaborations. ACTIVITÉS CONDUITES 4 réunions transnationales qui ont été couplées à des visites d’étude et des rencontres pair-à-pair.- Dublin (novembre 2017) : définition du plan de travail avec un focus sur la dissémination des productions et des résultats : définition des moyens pour collecter les données – Évaluation des actions de dissémination, impact.Visite d’étude : Chocolate factory, lieu hybride dédié aux industries créatives.- Trondheim (juin 2018) : finalisation de l’organisation des différentes formations et travail sur les actions de disséminations Visites d’études : Musée du littoral, Rockeim – Musée de la musique, Centre de sciences, Musées des arts décoratif et du DesignConférence : musées et centres de sciences comme lieu d’innovation + échanges sur des outils et pratiques conjuguant numérique et empowerment (30 participants)- Amsterdam (octobre 2018) : échanges et analyses de pratiques. Visites d’étude : Story House – Belvédère et au Street art museum- Bordeaux (février 2019) : réunion finale des partenaires – bilan général et projection sur de nouvelles collaborations.Visite d’étude : Fabrique Pola lieu partagé dédié aux arts visuels. Sew et Laine : fablab dédié au textile3 formations Making Museomix ont été menées à Lille, Caen et Zagreb.3 programmes Maker en résidence ont été réalisés à Zagreb, Trondheim et à Sèvres RÉSULTATS ET IMPACTLe projet à ouvert de nouvelles perspectives pour les professionnels participants et de leurs organisations et leur a permis de prendre conscience du potentiel de toutes ces nouvelles formes d’engagement des publics.Les partenaires ont acquis de nouvelles méthodes de travail innovantes et créatives qu’ils ont pu intégrer directement dans leur pratique professionnelle. Ils ont partagé, diffusé, formé des partenaires, des collègues, des membres à ces nouvelles méthodes.Le projet Making Museum a également permis de découvrir de nouveaux modèles économiques, notamment dans la coopération entre les musées et le monde des makers et autour des usages du numérique. De part la diversité du partenariat mais aussi grâce aux visites d’études, le projet a fait découvrir aux professionnels des musées de nouvelles formes d’organisation et d’engagement - l'entrepreneuriat social, la citoyenneté active, le développement local ou l’innovation sociale.

The Creative Museum project was a three-year Strategic Partnership running from 2014 to 2017 and is funded via Erasmus+, Key Action 2 (Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices) - Vocational and Educational Training (VET).It gathered nine partner organisations: from museum associations to sciences centers through heritage, art museums and a maker space.The initial project proposal outlined the potential role of both digital engagement and the maker community in light of the European economic downturn. With reference to the Council of Europe 2014 report, the project sought to explore ‘new opportunities brought by globalisation, digitisation and new technologies which were changing the way cultural heritage is created, accessed and used’.The project addressed two main challenges for museums. Firstly, to become significant agents in the local economy as research centres, tourist destinations, places of employment and training. Secondly, to engage with more diverse audiences, emphasising their mission of serving the society with socio-cultural and educational purposes. As some older models of interaction no longer work, museum staff need to step outside their comfort zone and seek innovative ways to collaborate with their communities. The project was created in response to the need to provide training for museum professionals and their partners to accommodate a perceived shift in the dynamic of museum public programmes, where museums find themselves working collaboratively outside the sector, creating a new language of participation and engagement.As the Creative Museum project has developed and evolved we have seen digital technology as one of the tools that might be used as a means or method of interpreting collections, but the focus of the project has become to be as much about learning from and through the maker community about creative practices. Throughout the three years of The Creative Museum project, museum professionals have been encouraged to learn from each other through the partner meetings and the Museomix training sessions, to test new ways of interacting with audiences and create partnerships through the Maker-in-Residence training programme, to share practices and experiences, as well as disseminate the processes and outcomes via the website, social media and all conferences and workshops which have been organised by the project’s partners.The Creative Museum project had been designed as a space for prototyping, experimenting and documenting new ways of learning from organisations and individuals outside of the sector. Through training, discussion and experiementation it encouraged staff to take risks and to develop new ways of engaging with audiences; it was a dedicated space for projects where people had the right to make mistakes and to learn from the process. The Creative Museum project can be seen as a ‘laboratory for innovation’: it has encouraged discussion, reflection, brainstorming and experimentation amongst museum professionals, it has contributed to open up museums and transform them into more creative, participatory and lively environments.