1. Project backgroundWith the increase in mobility overall, and of tourism in particular, many places have been feeling increased pressures. This has led to complaints from local residents in those places that experience overcrowding, and since the numbers of visitors to many places are only increasing, learning how to be a better traveller can be part of the solution. By working directly with young travellers, CULTSENSE aims at contributing to change this situation on the long-term.CULTSENSE aims to contribute to addressing the issue of the increased mobility pressures over places and tensions and conflicts between locals and travellers. Through specific educational approach to a more understanding attitude towards other cultures, CULTSENSE aims at providing tools to HE students, who are the biggest share of young travellers (WYSE, 2017), and teaching staff. By focusing on Tourism, Leisure and Culture (TLC) programs, the project aims at providing tools and disseminate them largely through different channels and networks (such as WYSE and ATLAS). We believe that education plays a major role in addressing the problem which is also a matter of citizenship, important in the Dutch agenda for education. By sensitizing young travellers for local cultures, the project contributes to better quality of life for locals, more meaningful experiences for travellers and an overall better understanding of European values and identity. These pressures and tensions have been growing in Europe, with cities like Barcelona, Lisbon or Amsterdam having media attention for what is sometimes called “overtourism”. In the Netherlands, this has been of great concern, in Amsterdam, but also in Rotterdam where tourism numbers and international youth mobility has been rapidly increasing in the last years. The HEI's partners work as nodes in a network and together they cover different geographical areas, a range of expertise and experiences, as well as different points of view. The reach of the partners is there-fore important and provides a set of perspectives that enrich the innovativeness of the project, as well as of the solutions and tools anticipated. 2. ObjectivesCULTSENSE aims at developing tools for sensitizing young travellers to understand and respect better the local norms, values, beliefs and cultures of the places they visit. The tools will be co-created with and for students and teaching staff. It aims firstly at developing pedagogic modules that can be integrated in different courses, in particular in Tourism, Leisure and Culture (TLC), areas in which (potential) young travellers are more inclined to be aware of local cultures. Secondly, a pedagogic toolkit for teaching staff will be developed and training will be provided. CULTSENSE will ultimately contribute to a better relationship between residents and travellers, even in crowded places.Specific Objectives (O):O1. Design a holistic methodological approach that contributes to fostering transversal skills, in particular social and civic engagement, intercultural awareness and cultural literacy;O2. Creating tools to improve the level of intercultural competences and skills of TLC students, through a strong cooperation between different European programmes with large networks within HEI's and tourism, leisure and culture industries; O3. Fostering innovation in teaching materials related to intercultural awareness, enhanced by transnational cooperation between HEI's providers (partner organizations) and other stakeholders (associate partners);04. Stimulating and disseminating good practices related to the use and awareness of the tools and methodological approach through open access channels, and across a range of relevant networks, related to TLC.4. Target groups This project has two direct target groups: the first, TLC students in the partner countries (Block of Tasks - B1). The second is the teaching staff of the partner organisations, for whom training will be provided (B3). This training is based on the holistic methodological approach developed in B1 and will aim at supporting and stimulating knowledge exchange and dissemination in different points of Europe so as to reinforce the scope, impact and spillovers of the project (B4).5. ResultsThe project will have a large scope and contribute to a long-term changing situation aiming at changing the awareness and attitudes of young people, focusing on TLC students, regarding the cultures and places they visit, promoting more understanding, respect and real intercultural dialogue. The results of the project Include production of fourteen intellectual Outputs (IOs), as well as activities linked to Project Management, Multiplier Events and Quality and Evaluation. Through the development of methodological and pedagogical to

<< Background >>Hospitality (accommodation/ food & beverage businesses) is in a deep crisis as a result of temporary and permanent closures and loss of its customer base linked to the Covid-19 pandemic. Together with tourism, the hospitality sector is the 3rd largest socio-economic activity in the EU. The industry is also central to the European recovery and as such needs to contribute to building smart (digital, sustainable) ecosystems for all tourism stakeholders which offer travellers more memorable and sustainable experiences through for example longer or off-season stays (European Tourism Convention 2020). Travellers, tourism businesses (90% of which are SMEs or microbusinesses) as well as destinations all need to be supported in working towards a sustainable tourism recovery.The future of tourism is green, digital and inclusive. The hospitality sector plays an important role in social inclusion, offering the first job experience for many young people. It also offers jobs to relatively unskilled people, as 30,2% have a lower secondary education or under, compared to 17,7% in the overall economy (EUROSTAT).The project considers the Council Recommendations on VET and the New European Skills Agenda as well as the Osnabrück Declaration (2020) and will as such be working towards all four priorities of the declaration:1. Resilience and excellence through quality, inclusive and flexible VET2. Establishing a new lifelong learning culture – relevance of CVET and digitalisation3. Sustainability – a green link in VET4. European Education and Training Area and international VETThis will be achieved through - A broad range of project activities, bringing together stakeholders from across sectors linked to the hospitality and tourism ecosystem, especially by encouraging lifelong learning and linking VET education and business leading to boosting the resilience and sustainability of SMEs and CVET provision. - The creation of results and materials such as the collection of practices, the development of a high quality training programme, adequate exploitation materials and the creation of a sustainable SME network to boost international collaboration and exchanges. - Answering to the recently published European Commission Digital Education Action Plan (2021-2027) by offering inclusive and accessible digital education through high-quality learning resources.Identified NEEDS:Need for an open source, flexible and easily accessible online training and OERs for SMEs who are chronically lacking financial resources and local access to upskill staff (EC 2018).Addressing inclusivity by offering an attractive training opportunity for hospitality sector workers: the tourism industry gives more opportunities to low educated workers. Focusing on sustainability; the project will offer support to overcome the current crisis, build resilience/develop more sustainable and profitable practices for the future in line with the European SME strategy 2020 and focus on the EU post-Covid recovery.Offering academic staff/educators access to resources to support their students by rooting sustainable practices and entrepreneurship throughout their learning journey. Participation in entrepreneurship education increases the likelihood of engaging in entrepreneurial activities later in life by 35% on average (European Training Monitor 2019). Supporting/strengthening the links between SMEs & VET/HE/Adult education providers in line with the EC focus to boost innovation through education-business cooperation.Raising awareness of sustainability challenges/current & future skills needs of SMEs to encourage adequate educational provision, inform/support SMEs & alert policy makers.Supporting the hospitality and tourism ecosystem/local communities by developing sustainable tourism that benefits people, business and the environment.Providing new practical examples and recommendations for public authorities and policy makers to support decision making.<< Objectives >>OVERALL OBJECTIVES: - Raising awareness of the advantages of sustainable business management & green skills for business, society/community & the environment. - Supporting SMEs in their green transition by upskilling/reskilling staff and encouraging sustainable entrepreneurship & practices. - Contributing behavioural change and understanding that sustainability is not a nice to have by-product but can be integrated across all aspects of business operations. - Developing business sustainability competences of academics & educators. - Offering a new flexible open-source training opportunity for hospitality managers/ workers to upskill and meet new labour market needs future demands of employers & businesses. - Offering an opportunity for adult professionals to gain relevant green business skills to upskill, reskill, increase their employability, or reinvent their “green” business & access a changing labour market in the hospitality sector. - Supporting hospitality/tourism schools with expanding their CVET training offer for SMEs & hospitality professionals. - Expanding the offer of relevant resources & training materials available to academic/educators to support changing skills needs. - Supporting the adaptation of existing training offers/programmes to recent developments in the industry by providing new highly relevant content. - Supporting the integration of (business) sustainability into hospitality curricula.CONCRETE OBJECTIVES - Produce a comprehensive report about the post-Covid 19 sustainability challenges and skills needs of hospitality SME staff (PR1) to inform all subsequent project activities.Offering a comprehensive set of transferable good practices to be integrated into the training programme or consulted separately in order to make more informed and sustainable business decisions and strengthen resilience. (PR2)- Develop an attractive and multilingual training programme and hands-on practical easy to use learning resources/toolbox for SME staff, academics/educators that will lead to the uptake of sustainable practices that benefit businesses and their local ecosystem, the community as well as the environment. (PR3) - Demonstrate and raise awareness about how sustainability benefits local businesses and their staff, the community, immediate environment (through all training materials, events, guidelines and policy recommendations). (PR1, 2, 3 & 4) - Target hospitality and tourism schools, SMEs, sector representations, public authorities, policy makers as well as other players part of the local and regional tourism ecosystem through dissemination and exploitation materials to encourage the uptake of sustainable practices in hospitality businesses. (PR5) - Create and animate a network community of sustainable hospitality businesses across the partner countries which can be rolled out across Europe and lives on after the end of the project (PR 5).<< Implementation >>MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIESDescribed in a Project Management Plan, which includes, among others, partner meetings incl online and other communication actions to promote the creation of synergies, the cooperation/exchange of good practices among partners active in the project area; transnational meetings, scheduled to contribute to smooth progress; other pre-established communication actions. This Project Management Plan will not only guarantee that the project is carried out as planned but also enhances understanding among the partners and the products/results tailored to the real needs of the target groups.QUALITY ASSURANCE ACTIVITIESAs a core framework of the quality assessment, there will be similar steps followed in each activity: research/needs analysis, design/development, implementation, evaluation/assessment and lessons learnt, revision and, finally, exploitation of the results and sustainability. These processes (see the Quality Assessment section) will contribute to a better quality of the products/results and, thus to a more successful achievement of the goals.DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIESThey will directly contribute to the spread of the information about project activities/results as well as raise awareness about the crucial role of sustainability for SMEs and business. Besides, the fact that all partners will collaborate to carry them out, will contribute to the improvement of transnational cooperation of partners working within the hospitality ecosystem.CONSULTATION REPORTThe consultation about the post-Covid 19 sustainability challenges and skills needs of hospitality SME staff will inform all subsequent project activities and project results and will hence be essential to reaching the project objectives at all levels (regional/national through country analysis and at European level through consolidated analysis).METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK & COLLECTION OF PRACTICES Innovative practices linked to sustainable business management from the partner countries will be used as case studies to enrich the training programme but will also be available as a stand alone tool to offer maximum flexibility to the user and target group. Practices will offer practical examples for SMEs to work on becoming more sustainable in very different business areas such as for example value chains, communication or partnerships.COMPETENCE FRAMEWORK AND CURRICULUMThe mapping of competences to be acquired and the establishment of the competence framework are essential for the development of the lesson plan/the detailed and attractive/highly relevant curriculum for the 6 module training programme.DEVELOPMENT OF TRAINING PROGRAMME, WEBSITE/TOOLBOXHighly attractive website and OER will all project materials/results will be easy to navigate and use, also respecting the needs of those with limited digital skills. The high quality digital and open source training programme will be available in partner languages to provide an interactive learning experience for those who are maybe not regularly engaging in continuous education and lifelong learning activities. The programme and Toolbox will lead to the uptake of sustainable practices that benefit businesses and their local ecosystem, the community as well as the environment.TOOLKIT FOR CHANGEGuidelines and policy recommendations and a comprehensive campaign at the final stage will target various audiences - academics & educators, SME staff, adult learners through adult education providers job centres, public authorities, policy-makers - and will raise awareness about the role of sustainability in business management and the need for uptake of sustainable practices. The EcoSME network will serve as a hands-on tool to test the exchange of practices of SMEs and encourage collaboration to bring about sustainable change, lasting impact and a shift towards a sustainable business mindset.<< Results >>The project has been developed in a way to ensure that a maximum of results can be disseminated and exploited by its target audiences in the long term.REPORT FROM CONSULTATIONThe country reports & analytical report does not only serve as a basis for all subsequent project results but can also be disseminated to local/regional/national policy makers/VET schools/sector associations in order to highlight the importance to invest in CVET and particularly in the area of sustainability to strengthen the sector.The CATALOGUE OF PRACTICES to which all partners will contribute, forms another central part of the project. It will provide practical examples in order to illustrate the content of the training but can also be accessed/consulted/used independently without taking part in the training or modules. It will be searchable with tags and links and updated along the project life time as well as beyond when new examples emerge.COMPETENCE FRAMEWORK AND CURRICULUM for SME owners and aspiring entrepreneurs in the hospitality sector comprising both accommodation & restaurant businesses in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic which has put new pressure on SMEs to adapt and survive under very challenging circumstances. New expectations are being put on businesses to comply with demands in the area of sustainability. Green skills will be essential for businesses to remain financially sustainable. The ONLINE TRAINING & TOOLBOX will offer 6 modules linked to key areas of sustainability, from understanding the concept to implementing it in a way that it favours both the business and the three dimensions of sustainability (society, environment & economy) in the hospitality sector. Although participants/users of the training programme are encouraged to take the whole course, they can also choose to only work through individual modules. The course can be used as a blended or stand alone online course.GUIDELINES FOR EDUCATORS & POLICY RECOMMENDATIONSThe project will develop guidelines for academics/educators in order for them to see where the main gaps and needs of SMEs are, to understand trends in the industry etc. and how to best benefit from the training programme/materials. The guidelines will help them to anticipate future skills needs and guide their students in the right direction. The project will produce policy recommendations to be sent to policy makers together with the consultation report. The policy recommendations will be based on all the work carried out during the project (consultation, case studies, reports from the regional pilots and fora, feedback from partners and stakeholders etc.). The WEBSITE containing training/toolbox & VIRTUAL NETWORK SPACE will be the shop window of the project and will be flawlessly and professionally designed to ensure that participants stay engaged and enjoy the learning experience. The website will include all relevant information about the project and its results destined to its different target audiences to be explained further on.All partners have very good and regular contacts with SMEs and where SMEs have struggled because of the crisis, partners are also looking at developing new networks/relationships in the sector within regional ecosystems but also internationally. The project aims to initiate a NETWORK OF SMEs working on sustainability that can serve as a pool for knowledge exchange across regions. The network will initially comprise SMEs from the partner countries but will be rolled out to other regions as a tool to establish and encourage sustainable hospitality business practices.PILOTS AND MULTIPLIER EVENTS will be held in 4 partner countries bringing together project target audiences to test and subsequently improve project results upon their recommendations as well as to inform and raise awareness about project results.WORKING DOCUMENTS: Dissemination & Exploitation Strategy, Evaluation Plan, Visual Identity, Templates and Charts, Sustainability Plan.

Advancing Rural Development through Entrepreneurship Education for AdultsProject backgroundRural depopulation is becoming a major policy challenge in Europe as the population and employment have become increasingly concentrated in the urban centres and rural regions showing an ever-continuing downfall in terms of the population size. Further pressing challenges in rural areas include risk of poverty and social exclusion, and raising unemployment rates. (EC,2018). Concomitant with these challenges, ARDENT project is targeted to Adult learners in the rural communities (aged 25 and over) of various professional backgrounds possessing some formal education but currently unemployed*. It aims at improving the transfer of competences from HEIs in the sense of lifelong further learning to the Adult communities in Rural areas, to seed in them the basis to become job creators and not job seekers. Through a Community-Based Learning approach to entrepreneurial skills development among adult learners, ARDENT seek to integrate them into a process where they need to generate creative solutions to real-life challenges of rural communities. In this way, the university is able to engage with the society and achieve synergies through lifelong learning in the form of entrepreneurship to promote rural development. To support this change, ARDENT will:(I) foster development of entrepreneurship skills among adult learners targeted at rural development (II) increase engagement and activities of the HEIs within their local environment through their continuing education offers in the form of lifelong learning (III) boost attractiveness of rural regions among youth and urban communities, by creating new employment opportunities (IV) improve the quality of services in the rural regions, bringing in innovative solutions to increase quality of life (VI) widely disseminate the results across Europe, to bolster integration of rural entrepreneurship and collaboration practices in HEI curriculum.Project approach and outputsDuring its lifetime, ARDENT project will launch 5 rural councils in partner regions, analyse needs, and accordingly design and implement the Rural Entrepreneurship teaching program at partner HEIs, carry out 20 rural entrepreneurship adult student projects in respective regions, and increase capacity by offering workshops to rural communities and by expanding their networks and interaction with their urban counterparts. This will include producing 4 main intellectual outputs: IO1 – Rural Council Building Tool Box with an objective to create 5 rural councils, unifying the region and enabling cross-institutional collaboration.IO2 – Rural Consultation Roadmap & Needs Analysis Reports with an objective to (1) identify the rural needs and bridge the divide between the HEI and its regional community through regional consultation events that require innovative solutionsIO3 - Rural Entrepreneurship Community-based Learning Pack, a two-semester training course which will develop relevant entrepreneurial skills through developing a minimum of 3 entrepreneurial concepts addressing societal and business challenges. The ideas will be pitched to the community and implemented by the students. IO4 – ARDENT Rural Knowledge Port, to facilitate the interaction, sharing of ideas and resources, function as a knowledge repository and be the backbone of the education program, we will develop an online knowledge port to also allow us to scale the project beyond its current size. The outputs will foster: (i) entrepreneurial skills development among adult learners (125 adult learners, 25 academics from all regions attended/ participated in the challenge program).(ii) improvement in entrepreneurship lifelong learning offers at HEIs (the course program integrated into partner HEI adult educational offers) (iii) economic and social development in the rural areas where the project partner organisations/HEIs are located (45+ local businesses/ community members will attend the workshops at national launch events, 20 student projects will be implemented, involved rural populations will benefit from the improvements in social and cultural life)(vi) strengthened relationships between HEIs and their rural communities, through national events, online networks, and e-mail dissemination (2,500+ partner HEI and UIIN contact database)(v) launch of Rural Knowledge Port that will contain project outputs, 200+ self-learning materials as OERs, as well as the rural-urban network database of 100+ rural and urban businesses, NGOs, and other relevant organisations from each region (vi) extensive dissemination of the project process and results among other EU regions where rural development is recognised as a priority (5 national launches and 1 international showcase event)

Global and European educational commitments manifest in many ways – differently and even inconsistently – in national education policies, national and local curricula, teacher education, and student assessment. What is common, however, are the high expectations towards the work of educational professionals, especially teachers and leaders/principals. Their role in in the ambition to improve quality, in making education more socially just, in advancing equality, learning, and in thinking about and building the future, has been highlighted by international, regional and national educational agencies and stakeholders for long, and addressed persistently in the academia. For instance, educational researchers have stated that teachers and leaders/principals are, among other potential “public-good professionals”, in salient position in advancing societal development. Researchers have also discussed about the recognition of teaching as moral and intellectual practice, which impacts the way teachers conduct their work in the classroom, and about teachers’ engagement in critical reflection on vales, humanity, and aspirations. At the same time, global educational community has raised a concern that there is a real risk to overstate the potential of schools and educational professional to impact broad social transformation.Consequently, it is somewhat easy to agree with the statement that “educational professionals matter”. From the GloBe priorities and key topics point of view, the question remains: how?Bearing in mind this massive list of roles and responsibilities of teachers, let alone leaders/principals, who are presumed to lead pedagogical processes, and acknowledging the justified concern by the educational community, we still wish to comprehend schools as forefronts of establishment of solid and shared value-basis, and advancement of social participation and civic engagement. But this prerequisites people who are equipped with meaningful key competences, which for us comprises of dialogical and participatory professional capabilities, global citizenship education, and common sustainable future agenda. Drawing from the whole-school approach, we wish to amplify competences of both working and learning community. Our assumption is that this is of critical importance in the advancement of human well-being and pursuit of social inclusion within and beyond schools.Th Global Learning for Sense of Belonging (Globe) is a 36 month long international innovative project that aims to advance human well-being and social inclusion within and beyond school environments by enriching the sense of belonging of school leaders, teachersand students alike. To reach the aim, the objectives of GloBe are to: 1) deepen and broaden the scope of day-to-day work of school principals towards pedagogical and shared leadership 2) enhance novice teachers’ shared and co-teaching professional capabilities to cross disciplinary and grade-level boundaries in schools, and 3) introduce new to “sustainable future” learning modules to actively engage students.GloBe project comprises sets of training activities, outputs, and outcomes, which are closely inter-related and support each other throughout the project cycle and development process. Thematically trainings and intellectual outcomes will focus on following themes: Pedagogical Leaderships, Shared Leadership, Co-teaching; Global Citizenship Education; and Agenda 2030 and Sustainable Development Goals. The project will intertwine the development of professional competences and global issues pedagogy, and in doing so, create new kind of future professional capabilities and identities. GloBe comprises of three identical courses/groups, which all include five core training activities. For each training, we will select one leader/principal and two teachers (3 professionals) from the same school to create local teams (2 schools) to support each other in each partner country. In total we will train 54 professionals, 18 from each country in one semester long learning process. The first and the last training are intensive residential international seminars, whereas the second and fourth take place in local schools in each three partner countries. Third training is a webinar. Through the activities that take place in local schools, we will reach indirectly a great number of educational professionals and most importantly, hundreds of students.. There are two kind of organisations in the consortium from 3 different countries: civil-society organisation and higher education institutes, which each has extensive experience in their areas of expertise and about working in close cooperation with schools, teachers and leaders/principals. Consequently, there is strong common understanding of the key concepts, realities of schools as operational environment and basic values as well as strong will to learn from each other and work together towards the jointl

"BackgroundIt is indisputable that mathematics are a global cultural heritage which all countries try to educate their children. In order to manage the heterogenity in European classrooms in the mathematics education, it is necessary to teach mathematics by means of different forms. One perspective is that all human concepts, including mathematical concepts, are based in the perceptual motor system experiences that occur while interacting with the world around us (Wittmann, 2013). Based on this perspective, one can benefit through discovering mathematics in the real environment in an active way. So called Math Trails are one possibility to allow problem solving in a more realistic way. The system MathCityMap (www.mathcitymap.eu) is a digital tool that allows the preparation and organization of Math Trails by means of digital tools. It is already possible for teachers to create these math trails in a web portal and for students to run them on a corresponding smartphone app. It has been created and developed since 2012 and already counts more than 2000 active task creators and 5500 tasks in many different countries and languages all over the world and especially in Europe (Gurjanow et al., 2019). Studies show that the MathCityMap Math Trails have a positive effect on the motivation (Cahyono, 2017) and the long-term performance and memory effects of learning when they are carried out regularly (Zender, 2018). Nevertheless, experiences show that Math Trails are mostly used as a special learning form for excursion days without further relevance for the normal mathematics lessons.AimThe idea of this project is to close the gap between ""normal mathematics lessons"" and Math Trails as a ""special learning and teachning method"" through adapting them to the European curricula of mathematics education and combining the needs of teachers with the technical possibilities of digitization. Surveys among teachers and MathCityMap users show that they wish for methods to assess students, follow their learning progress while running a trail, that they have sorrows in terms of supervision and that the amount of work for the preparation of a Math Trail is one of the main reasons why teachers do not use Math Trails regularly. To reach the project's aim, three different components are addressed: (1) digital tool, (2) connect the running of Math Trails to the curriculum teachers have to use and (3) create different forms of teacher training on how to use the system regularly. These activities support teachers to regularly use Math Trails in their teaching and encouraged them to do so. Component (1) will be based on the needs of teachers as described above. Component (2) will be done for the mathematics education curricula for every partner country in the form of so-called theme-based and topic trails. At first, the curricula will be analyzed and topics which can be covered by a math trail will be collected. Afterwards, the topic trails are created with objects that can easily be found in many different locations (eg. at school yards). Finally, the topic trails will be connected to the curricula of the countries, whereby they are of course transferable to other European curricula as well. Component (3) will be done on the one hand in a digital and decentralized way as a MOOC, where European teachers have to complete different modules and create own tasks. On the other hand, we will develop a short-term curriculum for learning-by-doing courses which are conducted at school and universities to theoretically and practically educate teachers how to use the tool.ConsortiumThe consortium contains 8 partners from 6 countries (D, F, IT, P, EST, ESP). All of them will contribute to the project in different ways. It consists of experts for app coding, teacher trainings, MOOCs, tasks and outdoor education and dissemination covered by universities, a teacher association and a company. The associate partners include teacher associations and schools. The planned activities in the consortium are annual project meetings for coordination and to present current work results, the development and conduct of long (MOOC) and short term curricula to enrich and disseminate the project and technical and didactical developments of the application, webportal and tasks/trails.ResultsIn the end, European teachers receive a concept of math trails to be used in the regular maths lessons with results on a technical (advanced app, augmented trails), didactical (theme-based trails, long- and short-term curriculum) and practical (new tasks and trails) level. Hereby, the impacts are that teachers use digital teaching methods more frequently and students use mathematics outdoors regularly and benefit from its use.Nowadays in Europe the digital technology is connected to the real world. Within this project we will strengthen this connection and use the benefits of a digitalized Europe for improvements of European schools, curricula and educational context"