The aim of the project is to enhance the co-creation philosophy to the service delivery system of urban challenge solving, through the inclusion of innovative SMEs in the design process. During the implementation of the project, the partners will peer review a co-creation procedure of setting up a solution that addresses a local challenge, satisfying the affected target group, capitalizing the expertise of the innovative SMEs of the region/country and enabling local authorities both improve the use of public money and raise their citizens’ satisfaction rates. The 3 partners, will peer-review other similar initiatives, in order to come up with a backbone of a “design service” offered to the local ecosystem by innovation agencies, that will enable cities, SMEs and citizens collaborate for the common good. The consortium members will set up a procedure where all the beforementioned parts will collaborate to “frame the challenge”, “ideate possible solutions”, “prototype” the best of them, “test” them in real life and adopt the ultimate one that satisfies the most, all stakeholders involved. In the end, the partners will set up a new service, which will be piloted in Greece by KEPA. The service will ensure that all stakeholders will be included and KEPA will facilitate the procedure of solving a social challenge by making maximum use of local SMEs expertise. The partners, based on the peer-learning activities and the Pilot Action, will develop a “Design Options Paper” –a guidebook on how other innovation support agencies can also cope with social problems and SMEs activation.

This specific project aims to bring three organizations together, to jointly seek solutions in the service delivery system of Design support programmes. The three members of the consortium have long-standing experience in providing services to SMEs, managing nation/regional funds to reinforce entrepreneurship. Also, on the one hand, the three organizations are positioned in totally different areas, south-eastern, central and northern Europe and their economies are at different phases, while on the other hand, they themselves as organization show a different level of service provision regarding design support. All those conditions, create an added-value consortium formation, as this diversity ensures that more different points of view will be captured in every subject examined, representing the concerns of the highest percentage possible of similar agencies across Europe. During the implementation of the project, the partners will peer review the procedures of setting up a design service that satisfies its target group, raising awareness of design support opportunities, the provision of the services themselves, the post-evaluation of the provision and the improvement of the service. In the end, the partners will have peer-reviewed existing services, come up with a backbone of how to set up a “design support service”, while at the end of the peer-review process, the partners will set up a pilot in Greece, where a newly-established service will be set, using and testing the draft DOP. After the set up of the service, the final amendment will be made in response to potential unforeseen issues not covered by the DOP, and its final version will be published.

“Design and Creativity Development Toolkit” project will be carried out within the framework of a strategic partnership of three EU countries - Latvia, Estonia and Denmark. The main purpose of the collaboration is to strengthen the significance of creative and design thinking among adolescents.The idea and necessity for the project is rooted in recent findings about increasingly growing numbers of young people who are not employed, not currently learning or training. The term is known as NEET youth and makes up to 12,6 % of the EU population. According to research, most often this status is not chosen voluntarily. Adolescents are affected by various risk factors, including migration, financial insecurity, social and territorial exclusion, family factors and many more.When pre-interviewing teachers and educators, results showed that currently there is no specific toolkit or set of methods adapted for the age of adolescents in Latvia, which would allow them to act proactively. Adolescents lose motivation, their self-esteem decreases, and the risk of mental health problems and deviant behavior grows. While unemployment rates among young people rise, latest discoveries prize creativity as a key competency for leaders (IBM 2010 Global CEO Study), providing definitions, components and tools how to enhance the quality of life satisfaction, work with our mindset etc. Current project focuses on the development of design thinking, emphasizing spatial, visual thinking as something relatively easy for teenagers to be perceived, as well as easy to use and interpret from a methodological point of view. “Perspective NEET group” i.e. those adolescents who are most likely to be exposed to a set of preventive and proactive activities, including the use of creative and design thinking tools were chosen as the main target group.The “Design and Creative Thinking Development Toolkit” will be created as a preventive tool for adolescents in the last grades of primary school (13-15 years of age), in order to contribute to minimizing the number of NEET youth.Project goals are:To promote the development of creative thinking in the adolescent age group by using age-appropriate design thinking development tools.To promote the interest and awareness of non-formal education teachers and other specialists in the field about the specifics and significance of creative thinking by providing methodological material for further independent work with adolescents.To promote the exchange of experience and opinions between the strategic partners of the project, ensuring learning mobility activities during the project implementation.To reduce the stigma about the incompetence and competitiveness of the creative professions in the labor market by emphasizing the multidimensionality and value of creativity in the examples of the world's leading companies.Promote a set of preventive actions to reduce the quantitative and qualitative numbers of the NEET group. Project tasks are:Carry out a meta-analytical study on currently available design and creativity development tools and their characteristics in the general age group. Results of the study will help to identify and analyze the experiences in all three Member States and to identify key areas for action with the chosen adolescent target group.To organize working groups among strategic partners in order to implement the process of exchange of experience of the project member states and to develop common tasks for the creation of creativity development tools for the target audience of teenagers.To create design and creative thinking development methods (games, tasks, etc.), adapting them to the specific stage of adolescent age group.To create design and creative thinking development tools for teenagers. Make it freely available to anyone interested in the form of a website.To develop methodological material for non-formal education teachers in Latvian, Estonian, Danish and English.To ensure the sustainability of the project by implementing cross institutional cooperation between project implementers, media, local governments, educational institutions and responsible ministries.Advise stakeholders to conduct in-depth research, including longitudinal studies, to determine the role of design and creative thinking in adolescents 'developmental stages and their potential impact on adolescents' self-esteem and overall well-being.Intellectual outcomes of the project:Meta-analytical research in each partner country;Design and creative thinking development (DCTC) toolkit;Methodology for implementation of the DCTC toolkit; Web - page as a mean of communication for project results and further activities.

The main objective of the project is to collaboratively address a common innovation support challenge, through the concept of the Twinning+ methodology. Design Impact Observatory (DesImO) aims to bring four organisations together, to jointly explore best practices and provide guidelines and tools regarding effectively measuring Design and its impact on SMEs. During the implementation of the project, the partners will peer review past and on-going initiatives focusing on measuring impact of Design interventions in the business sector (and especially in SMEs). The good practices will be identified and further researched on how they were set up, what data collection methodologies they applied, what were the advantages and limitations of those methods. Using the Twinning Advanced methodology, this initiative will lead to the elaboration of a Design Options Paper (DOP), which will include the results of the peer-review process and of the pilot testing, and will also act as a backbone of how to set up a ‘Design Impact Observatory’. This will help other innovation agencies to monitor the level of integrating Design – or any other driver of innovation – into business and its impact on SMEs.

The project “Transdisciplinary methodology for Integrated Design in higher education” with the acronym High5 concerns the European cooperation in higher education sector. Lodz University of Technology (TUL) is the project coordinator; TUL has invited 4 other institutions as partners: University of Thessaly, Thessaloniki (Greece), University of Aveiro (Portugal), University of Library Studies and Information Technologies in Sofia (Bulgaria) and Euroakadeemia in Tallin (Estonia). The aim of High5 is to create a new methodology - Integrated Design - that is based on already existing methods and approaches. Integrated Design combines valuable areas such as problem solving methodologies (Design Thinking and Problem Based Learning), sustainable development, circular economy, innovation thinking and entrepreneurial skills. Integrated Design is an answer to complexity of the world and projects undertaken at universities, in companies and various institutions. It has also its roots in the requirements of the European labour market where people have to be able to analyze a situation, define a correct problem, provide suitable solution and be aware of all consequences of implementation of the chosen solution. This wide perspective is covered by Integrated Design. Integrated Design in education is nearly related to the modernization agenda for higher education. The goal of changes in higher education is to improve its quality, to link education with research and business and to provide innovative teaching and learning methods in order to increase the effectiveness of higher education. Education at universities in Europe should be relevant (ie. provide relevant knowledge, transversal skills and experience). It should also support students in preparation for work and life. In case of innovative teaching it has to boost students’ creativity and creation of innovations that will be adjusted to the needs of the society. Moreover, the aspects of sustainable development and circular economy should be taken into consideration as the European population is getting more aware of the future consequences of current actions. The High5 project lasts 2 years and elaborates invaluable resources for Integrated Design. The materials will be dedicated to academic teachers and students. They can be partly implemented in projects realized in the companies as business is getting more conscious of sustainable development. Transdisciplinarity of the methodology enables to be use in divers fields and complex projects. The High5 results will fit in innovative learning techniques and will be attractive for the main target groups.Within the project there will be several activities that will improve key competences of students and teachers (International Schools, Teachers’ Trainings in Sustainable Development, Design Thinking and entrepreneurial skills, Gamification and Learning). Working in interdisciplinary and international teams will be crucial positive quality in the project.