"The inclusion of people with social disadvantages, e.g. senior citizens, immigrants, ethnic and cultural minorities, or people with lower levels of education, is a hotly debated topic, in society as well as politics. Education is a key issue of inclusion, since it is one of the most relevant factors of successful integration. Museums and Science Centres are pioneers in lifelong learning, and as such - next to schools - highly relevant places for inclusive education. Explainers/Facilitators in Museums and Science Centres play a key role in connecting the topics of exhibitions with visitors, i.e. they are on the edge of communicating to inclusive visitors.The objective of the ITEMS project is to develop, test and promote a training programme for explainers in museums and science centres that enables them identify the needs of some of these groups and to properly address them in their daily educational work. The challenge for explainers is that the range of needs is vast, as are the possibilities to react to these and thus support the visitor. The project aims to develop strategies to open the content and activities for these groups with special needs, including the use of digital media to facilitate better communication and interaction. A modular design of the programmes will enable the partners to integrate the training into the established structures in use at the different locations.For the development of the training module, a number of different strategies will be applied. It will build on best practices already available at the partners, supported by research on the abilities and needs of the respective target groups. In the whole process professionals, such as researchers or specially trained psychologists, will be included. The evaluation will help identify and correct for weaknesses in the programme, thus significantly improving the final product. By gaining active insights and using lots of practical examples during the training, explainers will not only get hands-on solutions to start with, but also the theoretical background to further develop measures and themselves in the future. Last, but not least, for the framework of the training programme the ITEMS project will build on the tried-and-tested professional development programme for explainers originating from the EU project PILOTS.During the project, the participants of the programme - explainers - will significantly enlarge their competences to work with people with special needs visiting a museum or science centre. The over 60 participants at the partner institutions will be from various backgrounds, a gender balance is aimed at. Through the dissemination training more than 100 multipliers (""explainer trainers"") from all over Europe will be directly reached. To make the results available to an even larger community, the training module as well as a guidebook collecting strategies and best practice examples will be published online. This enables further museums and Science Centres to take up and improve their own programmes. Further, contributions to conferences, newsletters as well as journals will further spread the material throughout Europe.Overall, the education of the explainers will enable inclusive activities for disadvantaged people, such as senior citizens or immigrants/refugees, to be consistently run at museums and science centres. For the participating organisations as well as those museums / science centres reached through the dissemination activities, the ITEMS project will not only enable a systematic approach to improving their offers to special visitor groups, but also lead to a more inclusive and open museum / science centre environment in general."

"In the recent years, regional, national and European policies have stressed out the crucial need to increase cooperation and synergy research between stakeholders in the fields of education, training, employment and entrepreneurship, in order to deliver better services in lifelong guidance. To do so, the Cités des métiers International Network (RICDM) wants to launch a new project in strategic partnerships about the development of “multi-partnership management” in Cités des métiers and other lifelong career guidance centres. Indeed, we need to go further than the traditional fields, as publics’ needs are evolving and the lifelong career guidance approach is not addressed enough. In that sense, the project would be a continuation of the European project COCADE ""DEveloping CAreer COunselling services in integrated spaces"", during which good practices within lifelong guidance services were shared. The Keep In Pact project “Keep INnovation in multi PArtnership CooperaTion in lifelong guidance services” led by RICDM will gather 6 organisations working the fields of education, vocational training and employment; covering 5 countries. The other partners of the consortium are Universcience-Cité des métiers de Paris (FR), Learningdigital (IT), Municipio do Porto-Cidade das Profissoes (PT), the Agency for Science and Higher Education (Croatia) and the LifeLong Learning Platform (BE).Main purposes of the project are to :-up-skill the ""multi-partnership management"" function among professionals working in lifelong career guidance services,-develop an innovative ecosystem approach of multi partnership management This would lead to the adaptation of services to the needs/expectations of clients and increase the use of the digital in lifelong career guidance services, while building-up new multi partnership cooperation in the field. Also, the projects aims at the gathering of different actors to provide lifelong career guidance services, the mutual added value among stakeholders, and the contribution to local and regional public policies to reach consistency of initiatives among stakeholders.The partners aim at the fulfilment of these objectives thanks to the innovative tools and contents that will be implemented, as the topic has never been addressed yet : learning materials, virtual reality, a repository of skills for the non-formal competences validation process of the partnership management function, etc…The project will be organised in particular around 4 activities of intellectual production :-A practice analysis regarding stakeholders cooperation in lifelong career guidance,-A toolkit for mutual learning and training activities -The non formal validation of skills,-The building of a European Community of practitioners.The project includes as well 2 training activities for trainers, 2 dissemination events, and 5 transnational meetings.For activities such as intellectual outputs, project committee and training sessions, the consortium’s partners have identified two target groups: -a first target composed of around 30 professionals among partners’ staff with a diversity of profiles such as partnership managers, directors, career counsellors, facilitators, teachers/trainers, project officer, communication assistant, etc.-A second target group will be gathered during the dissemination events, with participants such as policy makers, representatives of companies, clients or end-users of services and citizens. A total of 170 persons is expected: 70 in the first event and 100 in the second one.Around 50 other external participants are expected during the project, including experts working in the fields of education, training, employment and entrepreneurships policy; and staff of local partners among Cités des métiers via the RICDM and CISOK centres via AZVO.The project will have longer term benefits, in that sense that the practices and the tools will be carried out and useful after its end, as they will be transferable to other territories and countries, in order to sustain lifelong guidance services partnerships. Then, the contents and outcomes of the project will be useful for the European community of practitioners created. Finally, the attractiveness of already existing lifelong guidance structures such as Cités des métiers and one-stop shops centres such as CISOK centres in Croatia and Ohjaamo in Finland will be increased, as they will benefit from a better services quality and offer for their clients following the project. In addition, as the LLLP is involved in the Europass Revision Advisory group, the project could have an impact on this Europass revision and thus help Euroguidance improve their work."

Hypatia will bring about lasting change in the way schools, science museums, research institutions and industry engage teenage girls in STEM across Europe. Bringing these stakeholders together with gender experts and teenagers themselves, Hypatia will develop, pilot and disseminate a unique modular toolkit of activities and guidelines for engaging teenagers in STEM in a gender-inclusive way. These innovative activities, based on existing European good practices, will be implemented in 14 EU countries and further afield, in schools, science museums and by institutions in research and industry, thanks to hubs of stakeholders strengthened through the project. The activities will have a central focus on gender-inclusive ways of communicating STEM, empowering teenage girls and exploring the range of skills that are needed for the great variety of STEM studies and careers open to young people. The Hypatia hubs will provide a sustainable basis for these activities to be carried out on the long term, with a focus on dissemination through networks and stakeholder engagement allowing the project impact to multiply.