"The KA2 project ""Competence requirements for wholesalers and foreign traders in Europe"" is intended to substantiate the EU fundamental right of free movement of persons in the field of wholesale and foreign trade enshrined in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (Lisbon Treaty). What is required of a wholesaler and a foreigner if he wants to pursue this profession in another EU country? That is why this project will put together the competence requirements based on the tasks and solutions that a wholesaler and a foreigner in each EU country has to meet. We also compile those competence requirements that are country-specific for wholesalers and foreign traders only for individual countries.This will create a pool of tasks and solutions that will give greater transparency to those involved in VET, workers and businesses when faced with the choice of whether to use freedom of movement and work abroad or recruit applicants from another EU country. The apprentices have a self-learning opportunity with this pool, with which they can prepare themselves for the vocational exam. Teachers can use the pool for their lessons.In the long term, institutions from other EU states will complete this pool of tasks and solutions so that, in the end, they truly reflect the competence requirements of wholesalers and foreign traders across the EU."

<< Objectives >>1. The project will enhance the partnering organisations and also will address the inclusion and diversity as main priority;2. The profile, the experience and activities of the participating organisations are relevant for the CCS;3. The project outcomes bring added value at organisational level by building capacity of the partnering organisations to engage in cross-border cooperation and networking while narrowing the gender gap.<< Implementation >>Throughout the project duration, the following activities will be implemented:1. Project Management and Administration - administering and monitoring the planned work.2. Develop Diversity-Centred Learning Objectives - the learning objectives will be defined.3. Development of Training Materials - a blended training program - Inclusion and Diversity within CCS will be developed.4. Training Program Evaluation - to identify training gaps and opportunities for improving our training program.<< Results >>Learners’ perceptions of their own performance, including involvement during program, application of their learning, and having confidence in the practical implementation (at least 80% of satisfaction);Provide our staff and target audience with cutting-edge digital and entrepreneurial skills which refer to the CCS. Raise the self-confidence of our target audience when it comes to applying for a job or promoting their creative concepts.

"<< Background >>The current Covid-19 pandemic is considerably affecting rural areas, posing challenges exacerbated by low available financial resources, not easily accessible health services and greater isolation. Rural areas are also considered safe shelters characterized by better daily living conditions thanks to easy to maintain social distancing and access to nature, to cultural and nature-based recreation activities. The Covid-19 crisis is revealing the crucial role of natural and cultural heritage for social cohesion, local development and mental wellbeing. Food and gastronomy embody agricultural practices, landscape, local history and traditions, symbolizing the cultural heritage of a territory and are becoming ever more relevant in improving the economic and environmental sustainability of both tourism and agriculture. Food serves as a strong connection between nature and human society bringing together land, heritage and the people. It is a diverse and dynamic channel for sharing stories, forming relationships and building communities. The project presents some responses to the Covid-19 crisis which generated more poverty and more pressure on the adults, mainly women from remoted and deprived rural areas. It aims at show how adults, women and NGOs from rural areas can cope with emergencies and it builds the basis to rethink the current crisis as a crucial tipping point for a resilient development of rural territories. It is key to overcome the idea of rural areas as mere food production system, calling for a broader vision of rural communities as poles of development based on local heritage, natural resources, creativity and social inclusion as essential elements to regenerate rural areas and to rapidly support their transition towards sustainable future through tourism.According to ""The professional status of rural women in the EU""(European Commission report, 2019) : ""More business education and training focusing on making business plans, developing digital and leadership skills and bookkeeping is needed for women in rural areas. Personalised coaching tailored to the needs of women is more important than traditional classroom teaching."" Tourism is seen as an economic activity that can significantly contribute to rural development and is also a major employer of women. The labour force of tourism industries includes more female workers (58%) than male workers. This is the reason that we focus our project on adults and especially on women from rural areas, who have the interest and potential to establish their own tourism business as local gastronomy point, to become economically independent and contribute to the inclusive community development.The opportunity is represented by the partners countries policy that in 2019 offered the legal framework for people from villages to set up a local gastronomy point, which according to the definition given in the law, they include units represented by the private kitchens inside rural houses, where culinary products are prepared and served directly to the final consumer, according to recipes specific to the area. The legislative and fiscal framework of the Local Gastronomic Points - an instrument at the disposal of the peasant households that offer tourist services - is now finalized, so they can be set up and exploited in Romania and across Europe.Taking into consideration this great opportunity for adults, mainly women from rural areas, who already cook in their kitchen from years, old and local recipes, using healthy and specific raw materials and ingredients, the partnership carried out a research on the educational needs of the target group, and this way it was raised the idea of the Flavours of Europe project to fill the skills gap on: personalised entrepreneurship training on local gastronomic points, digital competences for data base of gastronomy heritage and business promotion, engagement in inclusive community development.<< Objectives >>Through FLAVOURS OF EUROPE project, we will develop high quality and innovative training materials, tailor to the needs of improving the competences of low skilled adults and mainly women to create businesses and develop inclusive communities in the rural regions with diminishing populations and/or regions which suffer from economic crisis generated by COVID-19.GENERAL OBJECTIVE: Flavours of Europe project aims to develop until 2023 a new educational curricula for increasing skills of more than 800 adults, especially women with reduced opportunities from rural deprived areas on building of inclusive community development through gastronomy heritage tourism. SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES:- to improve competences of more than 800 adults in 2023 from rural areas, willing to establish a local gastronomy point by providing to them courses on basic digital skills, entrepreneurial competences, legal framework knowledge and smart use of digital marketing technologies;- To support more than 400 women in poor rural communities (out of the 800 adults of project target group) to develop and transform their cooking traditional practices and knowledge into a sustainable tourism business and to create powerful relationships between communities and the private sector until 2023; - to support 8 local learning tourism environments (comprised of more than 80 tourism stakeholders) by creating for them in 2023 a training kit useful for providing tailored education, skills development and training opportunities to adults from deprived rural area. The training kit will be focused on inclusive community development through tourism promotion and evaluation of the human resource pool within communities as to provide more effective methods to manage their local food resources better and to lead/contribute in developing tourism development policies of the community. This can lead to empowerment and consequently better resources and business management and quality product/service delivery.<< Implementation >>The project will be carried out in 24 months and it will organised and executed along a work breakdown structure with a set of six content related work packages (WP) clustered in three phases (see Gantt Plan attached) :PHASE 1 - MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORKThe aim of this phase is the creation of a management, coordination and assessment system, which guarantees the correct working of the project and the fulfilment of the established objectives, making the most of the new technologies to enhance the management quality and efficiency. The project management activity will be carried out during the entire project life and will be coordinated by NERDA and will include processes of scope, time, cost, human resources, quality, communication, procurement, risk and stakeholder management.WP1 - Project Management is coordinated by NERDA and includes 5 types of processes: initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and closing of the project. It will include from the beginning of the project the elaboration of Project Management Plan, Quality Management Plan, Dissemination and Sustainability Plan and Impact Evaluation. Four transnational meetings (Italy, Portugal, Greece and Romania) and 4 online meetings will be organized during the lifespan of the project. All of them will by documented with minutes and photos.PHASE 2 - METHODOLOGICAL&TECHNICAL FRAMEWORKWP2 - EUROCREA will elaborate the methodology for the research, training materials development and testing activities for IO1, IO2 and IO3. It will follow the elaboration of the study: ""White Paper on GASTRONOMY CULTURAL HERITAGE AND TOURISM DIGITAL MARKETING"" coordinated by the University Stefan cel Mare , which will be an research of the future trends in adults needed skills in rural areas.WP3 - Development, validation and evaluation of New Training Materials will be coordinated by NERDA:O2 - Training COURSE - FLAVOURS OF EUROPE - Digitalisation of Rural Gastronomic Cultural Heritage in Europe coordinated by NERDA O2/A1 - Handbook 1: Entrepreneur in My Village - EBS SPAIN O2/A2 - Handbook - 2: Brand &Image of my food’s place - Univ. Stef. Cel Mare O2/A3 -Handbook- 3: 10 steps for Digitalization of the Gastronomy Cultural Heritage - AIR Romania O2/A4 - Handbook - 4: From my village I can be all over the world - INNOVA O2/A5 - Training Toolkit -FLAVOURS OF EUROPE -IDECWP4 - Development of LMS Platform (Educational E-learning) FLAVOURS OF EUROPE will be coordinated by BUDAKOV FILMSWP5 - Testing of the Educational E-learning Platform : FLAVOURS OF EUROPE will be coordinated by EBS will include an survey on minimum 50 tourism stakeholders/partner for first phase of testing of IO1-IO3C1 - Carrying out of an Short term joint staff training on Educational E-learning Platform: FLAVOURS OF EUROPE will be organized by EBS in collaboration with BUDAKOVE1-E8 - Testing Educational E-learning Platform: FLAVOURS OF EUROPE will be coordinated by University Stefan cel Mare and consists in organization of 8 multiplication events (minimum 230 pers for all events) to disseminate the project results but also to apply a second phase of testing the quality and content of the results obtained during IO1-IO3WP6 - Disemination and Comunication will be coordinated by Association Incoming RomaniaE9 - Organization of the Final Conference -FLAVOURS OF EUROPE -by NERDA (minimum 50 persons)PHASE 3 - DISEMINATION AND COMUNICATIONThis phase transposing the activity 6 and will support to the rest of phases to gather the necessary knowledge and to spread the results of the project. Together with the dissemination activities, in this phase a sustainable (exploitation) plan will be designed which will ensure the future of the created training course.To ensure the transfer of the project results is the objective of this phase. An exploitation plan will be elaborated which will define the different possibilities to exploitation the results, ensuring their sustainability<< Results >>RESULTS RELATED TO THE TECHNICAL ACTIVITIES OF THE PROJECT1. IO1 - White Paper on Cultural Heritage, Entrepreneurship and Digital Skills revealing the future trends in skills needed in rural areas for inclusive community development - research 450 questionnaires/partnership ;2. IO2 - Training Course - FLAVOURS OF EUROPE - Digitalisation of Rural Gastronomic Cultural Heritage in Europe including: Handbook 1: Entrepreneur in My Village Handbook 2: Brand &Image of my food’s place Handbook 3: 10 steps for Digitalization of the Gastronomy Cultural Heritage Handbook 4: From my village I can be all over the world TRAINING KIT- Inclusive Community Development Through Gastronomy Tourism3. IO3 - Educational Learning Management System -E-learning Platform: Flavours of Europe;4. C1 - Short term joint staff training on Educational E-learning Platform: Flavours of Europe;5. Testing of the e-learning platform Flavours of Europe: Minimum 450 questionnaires/partnership and 8 Multiplication Events with minimum 230 attending participants in 6 countries;6. 1 Final Conference "" FLAVOURS OF EUROPE - Digitalisation of Rural Gastronomic Cultural Heritage in Europe"" with minimum 50 participants.In addition to these products, several additional results are expected to be developed during the lifespan of the project:RESULTS RELATED TO THE MANAGEMENT OF THE PROJECT (see Project Management chapter + annex Gantt chart):1. Internal online workspace ex. Admin Project2. Partner contracts3. Project Management Handbook4. Chairing 4 transnational and 4 online project meetings5. Meeting minutes including to do lists + evaluation results of the meeting for 4 transnational project meetings6. Meeting minutes including to do lists for 4 online project meetings7. Interim report for N.A8. Final report for N.A.EVALUATION RESULTS (more information see section Project Management):9. Evaluation plan by internal quality evaluator including questionnaires for the evaluation of the project effectiveness and project progress;10. Interim evaluation report by internal quality evaluator;11. Final evaluation report by the internal quality evaluator;12. Questionnaire for evaluation of the transnational project meetings by RCCI (results evaluation are included in the minutes).DISSEMINATION AND PROMOTIONAL RESULTS (more information see section Dissemination and Use of Projects' Results):13. Dissemination plan;14. Project logo;15. Project corporate identity;16. Flyer/brochure, in all partner languages (English, Bulgarian, Romanian, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek);17. Banner in all partner languages (English, Bulgarian, Romanian, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek);18. 2 FLAVOURS OF EUROPE newsletters in all partner languages (English, Bulgarian, Romanian, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek);19. Social media in English;20. Initial project website about the project goals and objectives in all partner languages (English, Bulgarian, Romanian, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek).OUTCOMES:- More than 800 adults in 2023 from rural areas, willing to establish a local gastronomy point will improve their basic digital skills, entrepreneurial competences, legal framework knowledge and smart use of digital marketing technologies;- more than 400 women in poor rural communities (out of the 800 adults of project target group) will develop and transform their cooking traditional practices and knowledge into a sustainable tourism business with the potential to create powerful relationships between communities and the private sector until 2023; - 8 tourism learning centers (with minimum 80 stakeholders/partnership) will develop their competences in engaging the adults and mainly women inclusive development of the communities they live, to empower key stakeholders especially local communities to take ownership of tourism development by engaging them in the planning and implementation process ."

Integrating deaf people into the job market is a key challenge; more than 50 % of the 1 million deaf people in Europe are unemployed, and those who are employed are often in low-skilled and low-paid jobs.Access to digital jobs and professional VET programs in ICT for deaf and hard-of-hearing people is severely affected by the lack of proper field-specific terminology in the different sign languages, although the needs analysis conducted previously to the submission of this proposal has highlighted a rising trend in deaf entrepreneurship within the digital and ICT sector (ref. field research carried out by the project “Deaf Enterprise”, KA2 2016-1-UK01-KA202-024361, see innovation and complementarity section).The employment rate in ICT is going through a really positive trend in the last years; in fact, according to Eurostat, the number of ICT specialists in the EU grew by 39.1 % from 2011 to 2018, over 6 times as high as the increase (6.5 %) for total employment (shorturl.at/bepE0).As with any other language, lexical wealth of sign languages gets updated in accordance with use and diffusion of terms. New lexical resources for digital and ICT are lagging behind in sign languages, due to the common but misguided myth that written text can be sufficient for deaf people to understand and being able to express themselves, particularly with regards to the field of digital and ICT. According to the European Federation of Hard of Hearing People, there are 52 million European citizens affected by hearing disabilities of any kind, and national sign languages are to be considered their mother tongues. Access to sign languages is comparable to a Human Right, allowing them to be fully included in the daily life of their society. As such, the existing lexicon gap in the digital and ICT domain of sign languages has to be overcome in order to guarantee equal opportunities in accessing the ‘digital community’ of professionals for people with hearing disabilities.The project aims to develop the “EU Digital Framework for Sign Languages”, i.e. an analytical and descriptive database providing the main sign language resources in is (international sign) related to the lexical domain of digital and ICT. The framework will be mainly represented by an e-glossary containing at least 500 lemmas in IS, distributed in five key digital subdomains: 1.Computer science; 2.Cloud networking; 3.Internet of Things (IoT); 4.Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics5.Audiovisual and media production. Each entry of the glossary will be augmented with a short video showing how to properly sign it plus additional information like etymology, usage scenarios and situational contexts. Where a lexical gap is detected, new signs will be developed according to the current rules of new signs formation. Apart from the language academic interest, this project pursues the full integration of D/deaf individuals into professional and VET contexts with a degree of digital/ICT intensity. Therefore, the results are thought to be used and adopted by both D/deaf and hearing people, to favour the spread of deaf culture and encourage dialogue and inclusion. To this end, the “Guidelines for the inclusion of D/deaf workers in digital and ICT settings” will be delivered in the final stage of the project.The main target group is represented by D/deaf individuals about to enter the job market in the fields of digital and ICT, then also engaged in VET related training programmes. As a secondary indirect TG, the project encourages the uptake of results by VET trainers, employers and entrepreneurs in the field, sign language interpreters and schools, associations for the inclusion of people with hearing disabilities, who will benefit from project results.

<< Background >>The report of the ET 2020 Working Group on VET states that the social and economic contributions of VET have so far been under research and underestimation, VET institutions are assimilated with the provision of skills rather than having a wider role in the innovation ecosystem. VET systems are often not flexible enough to meet the changing needs of the labor market: in general, innovations in pedagogy and digital technologies tend to be implemented sporadically, forming a fragmented picture when VET systems are seen as an entire; and VET needs to respond to the growing demand for higher-level skills by expanding supply to higher levels. Also in the context of environmental crises, more needs to be done to develop the role of VET in the implementation of the UN Agenda for Sustainable Development, as achieving the 17 goals requires highly innovative approaches, many of which can be stimulated by VET skills.VET is in a world unprecedented change, but there is great potential for innovation and digitization to support high quality and higher VET. Having in view the above, the project will complement the work of all partner organizations that need to be part of the solution, an engine of innovation and to be part of the Lifelong Learning in the EU Innovation Scoreboard, on the need to address in a structured way the delivery approach of the strategies to be followed by regional development bodies and regional ecosystems of business and innovation. The goal is to also shape the workers, professionals and stakeholders of the future.The Regio.Digi.Hub project aims to incorporate innovation and digitalization to create a more flexible and modern high quality VET system in Romania and at European level to expand access, to model how learners learn and student outcomes, as well as the efficiency and effectiveness of delivery and how learners' achievements will be recognized and validated. Mainly, these effects will have a major impact not only on individual learners, but also on educational institutions.Target groupWorkers in the regional development sector: regional development agencies, innovation agencies, civil servants from local public administration, European Structural Funds consultancy companies, SMEs, trainers, researchers.The second target group consists of policymakers, senior technicians, and key socio-economic actors in the regional development sector.Given that partner organizations during the Covid-19 pandemic were not prepared to go online with regional development courses dedicated to local public administration, private companies and NGOs, because they had not previously prepared an e-learning platform, and staff and trainers did not have digital skills to run this online. Covid-19 crisis made evident in Europe the need to speed up the upskilling of VET staff and the development of innovative solutions in order to be able to provide distance and blended vocational education.<< Objectives >>The Regio.Digi.Hub project aims to build the capacity of the VET system of regional development education at the European level by finding the best combination of bottom-up approaches and leadership involving teachers, trainers and learners with top-level strategy and direction.The objectives of the project are:1. Development of an e-learning platform dedicated to innovation in regional development sector in order to better support the major economic, environmental and social shifts taking place and to place VET on regional development in a better position to address future developments through innovation by the end of the third quarter of 2024.2. Building the capacity of regional development VET system to embed innovation and digitalization by the end of the project3. Defining an own innovation and digitalization pathway for the regional development VET system appropriate to our stakeholders and especially to learners, employers and VET providers by the end of the project.4. Developing an Innovative Training Methodology & define the Learning Strategies for new teaching and learning pedagogies in regional development education by the end of August 20225. Elaboration of the course development with 3 modules validated of the 130 staff and trainers of the VET Centers by the end of the first semester of 20236. Improvement of the educational skills of at least 24 staff from 8 partner organizations of 6 partner countries of the project by developing and conducting a Short-Term Joint-Staff Training in the second semester of 2024.<< Implementation >>The project partnership will implement the following activities that will contribute to achieving the project objectives. Thus:QUALITY ASSURANCE ACTIVITIES: all the project activities that will be carried out throughout its life will be carefully monitored in terms of compliance with the quality assessment procedures. In order to evaluate the quality, each activity will be carried out according to a framework template, ie there will be similar steps to follow for each activity: planning, design and development, implementation, evaluation-evaluation and lessons learned, review and revision and final exploitation and sustainability. These processes will contribute to a better quality of all products and thus to the successful achievement of all objectives.DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES: All dissemination activities (local, national or international) will directly contribute, in the first stage, to raising the awareness of the importance of the innovation and digitization in VET system, in order to could adapt to the new changes that will take place in the labor market when digitization becomes more and more present.Moreover, the fact that all partners will have to work together to achieve them, will contribute to one of the basic objectives of the project: transnational cooperation of EU partnersactive in the regional development education and targeting similar groups of participants.PROJECT PARTNERS MEETINGS will contribute to the creation of synergies, cooperation and exchange of good practices between EU partners who are active in the same project.All these activities they will also lead to a better understanding between countries and to products that are more adapted to the real needs of the target groups of the project.DEVELOPMENT OF A E-learning platform: Improving access of workers actively in regional development field to quality education and education by improving cross-sectoral cooperation at local level and disseminating good practices among partner organizations. This activity is directly related to an improvement and an improvement of the access of the workers in regional development to the initiatives of lifelong learning, by creating innovative learning environments and learning materials adapted to their needs and level of knowledge. The staff from all EU partners' organizations will be trained for use in teaching the most innovative and modern learning technique.At the same time, through the open education resource, workers from the regional development sector will be able to easily access the life the learning opportunities as well as the participation in learning activities that take place in their communities.PILOT TESTING OF THE COURS MATERIALS AND THE INNOVATIVE E-LEARNING PLATFORM: Due to the development of this new training path, there will be an improvement in the level of digital skills and abilities of workers from the regional development sector.ORGANISATION OF A SHORT-TERM JOINF STAFF TRAINING ACTIVITY: A group of 24 staff will participate in this activity, to test the second version of the E-learning platform, to provide the best version of its target group in the second multiplier event.DURABILITY AND EXPLOITATION OF THE PROJECTBased on the contacts of the partners, a list of stakeholders of the project will be created at the beginning of the project. This list will be updated throughout the project and will include a wide range of stakeholders and professionals working in VET, IT organizations, universities, associations and local public institutions who may be interested in exploiting the results. The organizations and individuals on this list will be informed about the results and products developed, as well as how to integrate them into the educational programs and courses.<< Results >>MAIN OUTCOMES of the Regio.Digi.Hub project:• Easier access to regional development education programs for workers in the regional development sector within regional development agencies, innovation agencies, as well as for civil servants in local administrations, consulting companies for European structural funds, SMEs , trainers, researchers, and also for policymakers, senior technicians and key socio-economic actors in the regional development sector.• Inclusion of innovation and digitalization in the VET system in the field of regional development, thus increasing its flexibility and addressability• More regional development workers in the regional development sector within regional development agencies, innovation agencies, as well as civil servants in local administrations, consulting companies for European structural funds, SMEs , trainers, researchers, and also policymakers, senior technicians and key socio-economic actors in the regional development sector will improve their skills and competencies in their field of work to increase their performance in the workplace or to find new opportunities by equipping them with digital skills.• More workers in the field of regional development have access to education and quality education in the regional development field through the materials developed• Creating more intersectoral synergies and cooperation networks• Expanding the educational and educational skills of workers in the field of regional development, but also a• Awareness of the workers in the field of regional development, but also of policymakers, senior technicians and key socio-economic actors in the regional development sector as well as of the society in general about the importance of learning using modern learning systems that incorporate innovation and digitalization• Offering high-quality educational actions and activities that support the professional activity of the workers in the field of regional development, but also of policymakers, senior technicians and key socio-economic actors in the regional developmentPROJECT SPECIFIC RESULTS:1. Developed an Innovative Training Methodology & define the Strategies for new teaching and learning pedagogies in regional development education.2. Elaborated of a curs development with 3 modules in the regional development field3. Developed an e-learning platform dedicated to innovation in the regional development sector 4. At least 130 staff and trainers of the VET Centers, minimum 20 in each partner country, have taken part in the validation ofthe curs development5. A short-term joint training activity for adult educators from May 2022 has developed and carried out in Greece by Atlantis, a Greek ICT SME in Thessaloniki city.6. At least, 24 staff from 8 partner organizations of 6 partner countries of the project have taken part in short-term joint-staff training activity7. At least 130 Workers in the regional development sector: regional development agencies, innovation agencies civil servants from local public administration, European Structural Funds consultancy companies, SMEs, trainers, researchers, and also policymakers, senior technicians and key socio-economic actors in the regional development sector, minimum 20 in each partner community, have taken part at the pilot testing of the e-learning platform and equip them with the digital and regional development skills8. 6 transnational meetings have taken place: 1st in Piatra Neamt (Romania) in February 2022; 2nd in Piraeus (Greece) in September 2022; 3rd in Derio (Spain) in April 2023; 4th in Novi Sad (Serbia) in October 2023; 5th in Kranj (Slovenia) in May 2024 and the 6th in Sofia (Bulgaria) in November 20249. 13 multiplier events, 2 in each partner country, plus one Final Conference in Piatra Neamt, Romania with at least 300 participants in total