Already done above.

Fast technological developments and the rapid uptake of digital technologies is changing the structure of traditional industries in the EU, pushing towards the so-called Advanced Manufacturing and the 4th Industrial Revolution (or Industry 4.0). Several common gaps at EU level have been identified in the engineering related qualifications at EQF5 level which include Engineering studies at University Level and Technical Engineering studies at Higher Vocational Level. These gaps relate to engineering processes, product design and general design for the manufacturing automotive industry. The aim of the project has been to develop professional and specialization skills, thus ensuring a transition from a general academic model to the application of knowledge for the development of key processes in a reference sector. A bridge is built for the transition from high scientific and technological knowledge to necessary and important specialized industrial skills. In this context, the project UPenAUTO aims at building a strategic cooperation at EU level between industry, education and research actors engaged in the review of competences and skills offered in Higher Education proposing modular and flexible training itineraries for engineering related graduates, based on specific profiles needed by the EU automotive industry, and promoting the uptake of Dual/alternate international training schemes in the automotive sector for boosting employability and securing talent within the EU. The specific objectives were the following: ->To respond to skills mismatches in the automotive sector by covering an existing training gap in the field of automotive engineering and design. ->Set up of a new EU Framework for new sectoral qualifications for the automotive industry that will contribute to the modernization of the European HE. ->Develop new EQF level 5 curricula for the smart specialization of engineering graduates. ->Boosting employability in the automotive sector through the uptake of Dual/alternate education systems alternating theoretical courses with work-based learning, “strengthening the relevance of graduates´opportunities to start their professional life based on their education” as stated in the Bologna process. ->Allow the connection between HE and research in terms of contribution of HE to the education and training of future workers devoted to innovation activities. ->Make STEM education relevant and attractive. ->Influence EU-level education and training policies and tools to ensure recognition, validation and increase international labour mobility. ->Encourage the use of skills and growth projections in course design, delivery and evaluation, as set in the recommendation Modernisation of Europe´s Higher Education Institutions.

"1 Context/backgroundThe project “Partnerships for lifelong learning in engineering and technology” addressed two different models of cooperation between actors in vocational and higher education providing consistent and permeable educational pathways from initial training to higher educational levels. The schemes analysed are(1) integrated learning opportunities (for example dual study programmes) and(2) bridging programmes (for example programs, where one institution recognises the learning outcomes of another partner).In Europe, both types of programs have become more and more popular and attract a growing number of learners. Meanwhile, there is only limited information on factors determining the success and/or side effects of such partnerships in the long run. Such evidence has to be based on information given by all parties concerned, i.e. those offering the programs (educational institutions), those involved in practical training components (enterprises) and finally those enrolled and seeking employment thereafter (learners/students). The P4LLL-tec study has taken into account all stakeholders concerned and contributed in filling the knowledge gap in the domain of technical professions in five European countries (Germany, Greece, Ireland, Latvia and Spain). 2 ObjectivesThe aim of the project was to study the conditions and design of integrated education and bridging programs in technical occupations as well as their impact on a successful entry into the labour market as well as the development of vocational identity of learners. The project seeked for general conclusions in the respective national context and in a European perspective. Future programs can benefit from the experiences made and documented in cases of best practise which the study has to identifed and summarised in case study reports.With this objective the study addressed some major and prevailing European topics such-new innovative curricula-labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment and - the aim of overcoming skills mismatches.3 Number of participantsThe approximate total number of participants was in total- about 900 learners / students (as participants in surveys and case studies)- more than 150 company representatives (in expert interviews, company surveys, case studies and dissemination events)- more than 80 representatives of schools, colleges, polytechnics, universities (in expert interviews, case studies and dissemination events)- more than 60 researchers/experts (in expert interviews, conferences / dissemination events 4 Description of activitiesThe project built on four major steps that can be described as follows(1) Mapping the design options for integrated learning opportunities or bridging programs in five European countriesActivities will be a combination of desk research and interviews with experts and practitioners(2) Case Studies: 1-2 cases per country were selected for in-depth studies. These included a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis.(3) Commitment studies: Learners/students of partnership programs and learners of traditional programs were interrogated using an online interrogation tool. The results were summarised in a form of a comparative analysis referring to all countries. (4) Employer survey: Human resource managers/company owners were interrogated by paper pencil questionnaires on the extent and nature of employment of graduates as well as on their knowledge, skills and competences acquired through the respective learning pathways. 5 Results/ impacts/ lonterm benefitsBased on the analysis, the project team has developped a ""quality quide"", a manuals for educational providers and policy makers in Europe that provides information on the factors that count for a well-functioning partnerships/programs. The recommendations are summarised in a manner that allows for general application not only relevant in one or a couple of countries participating in the P4LLL-tec study. The ""quality guide"" will remain a publication to be used on relevant occations, likewise all other (interim) project results will remain available for all future use (research, consultancy, lectures). In the long run, the project's result will be able to help setting up new educational programs successfully. Also, providers of existing programs can gain from the findings of this study in deriving further reform initiatives. Learning from best practise cases can further contribute to successfully addressing the needs of the labour market, providing learning pathways in a sense of permeability and progression."

"AI4Ed aims at questioning current teaching-learning processes and will incorporate and experiment with novel technologies (AI) and pedagogies, to develop tools, methodologies, and evaluation systems that respond to the new reality. ""An educational system, being redefined from a lifelong learning perspective, that will stimulate economic growth, social cohesion and the improvement of the quality and quantity of employment.” The project will develop a toolkit for the implementation of the strategy/methodology for an AI based training process, with problem-based and project-based learning at its core and which focuses on collaborative learning taking into account the promotion of multilingualism and cultural diversity. In such an innovative system the leading role will be played by the students, who will be accompanied and tutored by both teaching staff and company mentors when required. This toolkit will describe the steps an education institution needs to take in order to deploy an AI-based training process, from data flow and data format to AI ethics and transparency, and to pedagogically defined KPIs on personalised tutoring, active learning, and dropout prevention. Due to the gap in AI competencies, a trainning programme framework will be developed whereby students, teachers, and organisation managers will be able to learn about the implementation of AI in their processes. During the implementation of AI4Ed 5 use cases will be run in 4 member states (ES, PT, SI, DE) by 2 universities and 3 VET institutions. and at least 120 students will take part. AI4Ed toolkit and implementation guidelines will be available in the EDEHub, SELFIE for Schools platforms, and AI4Ed platform. By collaborating with EDEHub and initiatives such as SELFIE for Schools the consortium guarantees not only the long-term impact of the results."

<< Background >>Technological evolution generates the need for innovation to companies. This demands a workforce with a diverse set of skills: technical, professional, personal, interpersonal, and intercultural. Thus, the impact of digitalization accelerates this process so how students learn and how they manage their knowledge, not only what they learn, is increasingly critical. Education needs to produce meaningful learning, developing competencies that allow university students to internalize the necessary tools for learning and prepare them to meet market needs. Another need in the engineering field is the fight against gender inequality both in higher education and in companies. It has been analyzed by different studies that female students have less professional role confidence than male, and, at the same time, students with greater confidence in their expertise and career-fit are more likely to persist in engineering. This confidence problem is due to the lack of variety of competencies worked on in class, by emphasizing only stereotypically male competencies, the lack of social-related problems as well as the lack of female role models in workplaces. In addition, other studies analyzed the reasons why women leave engineering jobs and the main reason was the sexist environment they have at their workplaces (fewer opportunities for development, less likely to report support, and more likely to report undermining behaviors). All these problems should be tackled from engineering education by designing projects emphasizing different competencies, promoting equal participation, and increasing female professional role confidence.Within this context the project identifies the following target groups:- University engineering teachers: There is no sufficient expertise among teachers on how to tackle low achievement in engineering degrees and on how to promote female vocations in STEAM and especially in engineering. That is why they need training, tools and methodologies to face this problem. The integration of the different disciplines of Engineering in a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary way has been identified as a useful tool to combat low performance, as described in the report of the European Commission on Education in Higher Education. In addition, fostering equity women participation and presenting female engineering references is necessary to promote their presence in this discipline. These problems are common in all partner countries, but the experience of each partner is different and complementary. - Engineering Students: Low performance is one of the main problems in engineering studies since statistics state that on average more than 30% of engineering students drop out, mainly during the first year. In addition to this problem, when they start working they often have difficulties adapting to the needs of companies because students go from theoretical learning with separate disciplines to an interdisciplinary area that depends on the social problems of each moment. Additionally, women are underrepresented in engineering degrees and jobs, which generally make this environment more unpleasant for them.The STEAM-Active project aims to design and implement a set of STEAM interventions for higher education engineering students, based on a homogeneous methodological framework, to make them more ready to answer to the needs of the job market, that will require them not only to have appropriate specific skills but the mindset to manage the knowledge and competences through a comprehensive and problem-solving attitude.<< Objectives >>The STEAM-Active project aims to improve engineering teachers’ knowledge and experience using innovative educational methodologies such as STEAM and to better students’ performance in engineering related social issues by promoting their ability to integrate different disciplines in solving one problem as well as thinking about the environmental impact their actions have. Besides, we also would like to help to fight against gender inequality among students and increasing women's participation in engineering students and jobs. Through the cooperation among different European universities, all with a specific expertise and interest in STEAM the project allows identifying common problems among European teachers and students as well as global socio-scientific-technological issues that can be used to develop STEAM interventions. Moreover, this project will help developing STEAM sequences useful in a different context so any engineering university will be able to use the material we will create and, thus, they will be able to tackle all those issues mentioned in their own university.The specific aims of the project are:Improve the capacity of the higher education educational offer in engineering of new learning and teaching methods in line with the STEAM framework to incorporate the specific sectoral knowledge with transversal competences and the adequate flexibility to adapt to any application context in real business scenarios.Tackle engineering student underachievement and gender inequality, by using STEAM approach according to a defined and validated methodological framework. Provide university lecturers with STEAM based methodological approaches and teaching tools to be implemented to strengthen the capacity of students, as future workforce, to manage their knowledge and apply it according to a problem solving oriented mindset.Provide universities with consistent, re-usable and up-scalable teaching-Learning sequences based on the STEAM methods being related to a society problem to integrate them engineering curriculum goals.<< Implementation >>The first activity will be the development of a STEAM methodology framework by reviewing previous STEAM interpretations and projects and then, using the information obtained, design and evaluation tools will be developed. Based on that first activity, the second one will be the design of the templates necessary for the production of the common STEAM approach projects, also taking into account the technical requirements for making them available in electronic format. In order to transmit all the information to the engineering teacher, a training course in active methodologies with a STEAM approach will be done, and together with the partners, the skills and targets of the Engineering program to be covered by each one of the teaching-learning sequences of STEAM project will be decided. Following that, each partner will develop each own STEAM Teaching Learning Sequence. These proposals should be flexible enough to be adaptable to each partner’s university context. For carrying this out teachers will have to choose a socio-scientific-technological issue and, based on that, they will have to design a sequence considering the STEAM approach. After implementing and evaluating the sequences created, they will be evaluated and discussed with the rest of the partners. Finally, all the group will evaluate intellectual production to ensure the consistency of the teaching-learning sequences produced as well as their innovative nature and will create a collection of all the sequences of our project.STEAM-ACTIVE project will therefore tackle underachievement in the basic skills of engineering through more effective, innovative teaching methods. The design and implementation of a set of STEAM interventions for higher education engineering students, based on a homogeneous STEAM framework will enhance the development and implementation of new learning and teaching methods in line with the STEAM framework. Furthermore, all sequences designed will incorporate the learning of sector and transversal competences and will be flexible enough to be adapted to any application context (current partners and possible future interested institutions).<< Results >>Therefore, the STEAM-Active project expects to achieve an international methodological framework to advance engineering education, with the aim of informing and coordinating national programs and, in particular, eliminating stereotypes of gender in STEM by promoting the participation of women in engineering.More specifically, taking into account that one of the main problems of engineering students is that they are not able to respond to the needs of companies focused on interdisciplinary STEAM areas, the implementation of these interventions will allow the development of the necessary skills so that they can adapt better to the demands of the labor market. After all, active STEAM education allows the integration of different disciplines with current socio-scientific-technological problems, and all of this is what companies are missing today. In addition, along with all of the above, promoting female participation, implementing projects from a gender perspective and teaching female models in engineering will help achieve greater gender equality. All this will be achieved by increasing the confidence of the students regarding their abilities and the normalization of their presence in this field. Finally, like all STEAM interventions will take into account environmental impact, sustainability and the circular economy, it will increase students' awareness of these issues and also bring their learning closer to more real contexts.The results can be divided into three groups: 1) A protocol for teachers that will illustrate the framework of the STEAM project design methodology with active teaching methodologies. This protocol will include all the information that a teacher will need to design, implement and / or evaluate STEAM projects.2) A e-learning based training course for engineering teachers that will include a theoretical description of STEAM approaches, a full explanation of the protocol developed in PR1 and training in implementation techniques using active methodologies (PBL, PrBL, Inquiry Based Learning, cooperative teaching, ...).3) A collection of STEAM based Teaching-Learning Sequences (TLS) produced by different partners and adapted to different university contexts. The Teaching-Learning Sequence is the tool that allows us to manage the project proposed to students concretely and effectively, through activities that guide students to solve a proposed socio-scientific-technological problem, using scientific and engineering practices. Thus, each university will design a TLS that will be implemented and evaluated, and then, there will create a collection of all the sequences that will be shared with the community by publishing them on a website.