The 4th industrial revolution is coming at a worldwide scale, opening up new horizons driven by new-generation digital technologies. This change of paradigm has a profound impact in our economy and society, transforming products, processes and business models in every industry.The Feet IN 4.0 project takes this pillar as its backbone for the development of skills among the future and current workers of the footwear industry. And why is the Feet IN 4.0 project focused on the footwear industry?- The footwear industry is characterized as one of the most handcrafted industries in Europe. In 2016, the European Footwear Sector was represented by 20.300 companies and 286.651 direct employees, with exports to third countries having increased by 40% in quantity and 90% in value from 2009 until 2016.- However, the workforce in the footwear industry is still characterized by people with low-qualifications and even none or severe lack of ICT competences and knowledge. Despite of all efforts, there still are a remarkable number of footwear workers who are infoexcluded. To bring this target group to the digital era is essential to the success of the footwear sector but also to achieve a positive impact in cultural and economical terms and also to assure their social inclusion.The Feet IN 4.0 project intends to incorporate the industry 4.0 in the footwear sector, having as specific targets employees, managers and other key people who have direct connection to the sector and are excluded from or have limited access to the centres of knowledge. The Feet IN 4.0 project was oriented to create new and innovative learning contents that can help trainees to overcome the future challenges arising from the uptake of industry 4.0 in the footwear industry. At the time of the project application and still to this day, Industry 4.0 it is not only a reality in the footwear industry but in all business activities. Nevertheless, the specific characteristics of this sector of activity (namely low skilled workers, info-excluded and high demanding handcrafted jobs), makes this industry the ideal group to test innovative solutions that supports workers in the process of improvement of their digital skills. That way, by creating a training tool kit that combines a more traditional teaching materials (theoretical and practical content) with virtual and augmented reality that replicates the future tasks that workers will need to be engaged, those same workers become more prepared to keep up with the technological innovation linked to their functions. As result, Feet IN 4.0’s results helps them retain their jobs with high productivity. As so, this project provides open access, innovative and free training materials that enables workers in in the new digital era.The main target groups of the project are:(1) Footwear Workforce;(2) VET teachers, trainers, coaches and other stakeholders directed connected and working in the footwear industry;(3) Potential training providers;(4) Employers and HR managers in Footwear companies;(5) Employment services and social parties;The activities of the project directly involved more than 250 participants. In terms of results with relevance for the public we highlight:-Study on Industry 4.0 applied to the footwear industry in Europe-Methodology for applying Industry 4.0 in future profiles for Footwear Industry -The FEET IN 4.0 Training Tool KitOne of the project main expectation was to support continuous training and lifelong learning namely in the digital area. In addiction to developing innovative theoretical and practical training resources, the partners of this project are still working to obtain credit validation (ECVET) of the skills acquired in the training given, as well as making evaluation of learning outcomes in order to ensure the quality of the training provided (EQAVET).

<< 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.

"“Ecotextyle: Vocational Education and Training on Product Environmental Management for the Footwear and Textile Sector"" was a 24-month partnership at European level coordinated by the Centro Tecnológico del Calzado de La Rioja (CTCR) (Spain) with the cooperation of Neo Sapiens (Spain), BATTI (Bulgaria), Università Politecnica delle Marche (UNIVPM) (Italy), Institute of Leather Industry in Lodz (IPS) (Poland), Zavod IRCUO (Slovenia) and SATRA Technology Centre (United Kingdom). Funded under the Key Action 2 of the Erasmus+ programme for strategic partnerships for vocational education and training, this development of innovation project gathered organisations from different countries but working on the development of programmes to train and educate on product environmental footprints (PEF) on the footwear sector and the production of textile complements related to it. The objective of the project was to overcome the needs faced by manufacturing companies to offer the highest quality in products, reach a competitive differentiation and reduce operating costs to promote exports thanks to the creation of a training pathway for their workers. Considering sustainability and environmental accounting as the base for new job positions and vocational profiles, the project made possible the creation of a training itinerary dealing with life cycle assessment processes and services resulting from their implementation (Environmental Product Declaration, Eco-design, Product Environmental Footprint, Carbon Footprint, etc.).To make this possible, the project partnership developed a working programme of two years focused on exchanging good practices and knowledge among professionals of the sector that could be afterwards gathered in a single and interactive space. In order to ensure not only the quality of this output but also its suitability and matching with the project target groups, Ecotextyle carried out different activities on its six partner countries such as focus groups, interviews, workshops, online testing, impact research, etc. that also involved those who potentially could use the project results after the project end: students, workers, board members and professionals in general related to the footwear and textile industry and belonging to SMEs or VET centres. As a result, Ecotextyle developed an Online Training Platform providing updated information and materials divided in five independent thematic modules dealing with the bases for the production of eco-friendly products on the footwear and textile sector: Product life-cycle analysis, eco-design, carbon footprint, ecolabelling and environmental product declarations and product environmental footprint. This tool will allow the users to properly apply Product Category Rules (PCR) and to implement the EPD and/or PEF (still in testing phase) in line with the current and future European policies. According to all of this, Ecotextyle has made possible the creation of an interactive training tool that allows its users to tailor made their own learning itineraries and acquiring key competences related to their working sector and market. Moreover, the platform contains self-assessment tools to encourage its users’ interaction and that provides recognition to those completing all the theoretical and practical content included on it. All of this will contribute to develop the training of a new generation of workers on the footwear and textile sector. They will be aware about the importance of implementing new production methods that could be respectful with the environment and have a positive impact on their areas, while promoting new procedures that could optimise the use of the limited raw materials and resources of this industry.All the information about the project, its partners, collaborators, activities, materials and outputs can be found on the project website, main access point to its training platform too: http://ecotextyle.eu/"

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).

Plastic pollution has become a clear threat to many environmental niches and ecosystems, due to rapidly increasing use of plastic products and leakage to the environment. Polyethylene (PE) is the most widely used and the largest-volume plastic (c.a. 30% of total plastics). Due to the absence of reactive groups, the C-C backboned plastics are often categorized as non-degradable; generally disposed by incineration or landfill (67%). About 12% plastic wastes are recycled as the goods with inferior quality and performance. The real catalytic route for upcycling of PE wastes into value-added products is 90%). Two separate systems: multi-enzyme machinery assembled in the recombinant cells, and metabolic engineered yeast system, dedicated to the transformation of alkanes into monomers will be developed. Monomers of diversified chain-lengths will be used for the synthesis of polyesters presenting different properties and polymer performances, assignable for various applications. A zero-waste solution to the plastic waste management is thus created to keep them out of the environment, and reclaim their values. The new properties and specific applications of the new polyester plastics produced from upcycling of PE waste will bring up the SMEs with new business opportunities by scalable, flexible and robust multi-product manufacturing processes for on-demand and small-volume output production.