"<< Background >>Digital technologies are transforming people’s life, business and society. The lesson from the Covid-19 crisis is demonstrating that in Europe is essential that the real and the virtual business contexts will be seamlessly connected giving rise to what are known as digital integrated systems. It will be required the integration of devices and online working tools, the digitalization of workflows and several innovative production systems within a network of suppliers together the application of new operational activities and methods in various technical levels.The rapid development and spread of digital technologies are contributing to change in every aspect of people’s lives, business and society. Digital transformation is the result of digitization and digitalization of economies and societies (OECD, Going Digital: Shaping Policies, Improving Lives, 2019). We consider digital transformation as a more pervasive set of changes that digital technologies cause or affecting all aspects of human activities. The digital transformation is intrinsically connected to what has been defined as the fourth industrial revolution, a process through which digital technologies are shaping the future of society and economic development in a comparable manner to the case of steam power for the first industrial revolution.Digitalization influences mission-critical applications in B2B/B2C processes and it is expected a transformation also in organizations with long investment cycles, allowing decision makers about the new opportunities. DigiWork will give a contribution in researches, reports, sharing good practices, making sectoral analysis and defining the most innovative educational digital needs, working in close cooperation with the main institutions and associations. The urgent need is to learn more about the concepts of Digitalization and Industry 4.0, their implementations in several sectors, and what changes this will bring for the future. Digital industry central to the growth, the development and the competitiveness of the Europe. It generates turnover of more than 7 billion, accounts for 15.5% of the total added value, purchases more than €5,400 billion in goods and services each year, and still employs 14.2% of total workforce. So DigiWork will create an international synergy to integrate the actual EU limited open knowledge and experience, sharing it and creating effective results that will give a benefit for the employability of thousands and thousands of people in Europe. It is expected to create an impact on EU level to contribute to the industrial development of EU by sharing the results and each time adding on the previous studies to prepare the industry for future changes. The EU’s Future Government 2030+ “Accelerating the digital transformation of government"" and ""EU’s strategy for e-Skills in the 21st Century"" set an ambitious target for all Member States. By 2021, public institutions and private organizations should be efficient and inclusive, providing borderless, transparent, personalized, user-friendly digital services. But real innovative skills need to be acquired by students and workers to design products and deliver better services for the EU citizens, professionals and entrepreneurs.To bridge the gap between the labour market requirements of the digital industry and the skills that students entering the labour market acquire, universities should develop and implement appropriate curricula and/or course. This requires an emphasis on digital skills training adapted to different industries. Universities should therefore stimulate innovative learning and teaching practices as well as improve digital capabilities of the higher education sector.<< Objectives >>Good practices are scattered across the Europe, illustrating that digital technologies also provide new development opportunities in HEIs that do not operate in areas where digital technologies are common among local actors. In these cases, HEIs represent drivers of innovation and can improve the national and local existing ecosystems spreading the new process of digital transformation. HEIs and their competency centers/laboratories could be poles of excellence for enterprises to raise awareness of I4.0 by providing practical demonstrations of new technologies and best practices. Another important goal is to provide services to HEIs in order to strengthen their innovation by offering curricula and services linked to I4.0 opportunities. Universities, in partnerships with companies could provide services and guidance about the opportunities of digital transformation.The project will focus on the new digital working approaches that will be needed in Europe and that imply a real digital revolution in processes management and competences. Digitalization and Industry 4.0 imply also new working concepts based on the adoption of innovative digital ecosystems which will involve all the most recent digital factors and expertise. This new concept of advanced organization will require highly qualified profiles and more qualified workforce to cover the requirements of new digital jobs. Digitisation, smart working, job crafting, virtual teams, remote working empowerment, e-collaboration are having also a deep impact on business practices in companies and public institutions. So, there is the need in EU of a specific open curriculum to improve specific and transversal skills. The project can support actions to reduce the gap between the Partners European higher education (HE) systems and those in other European countries but also to foster and strengthen the role of HEIs as active players for a real impact of digitalization effects in Europe. It could also promote synergies among the different pillars of the digitalization of HEIs being:• the new digital teaching methods, training and development of digital skills;• the use of digital technologies to support the development of research and the contribution of research to investigate the new frontiers and challenges of digitalization;• the HEIs contribution of digital tools in the management of companies, business activities and support organizational change;• the role that digital technologies can have in the employability of students at Post graduate and Master levels.Collecting the Partners experience and including all specific analysis, DigiWork will produce innovative modules on topics as: disruptive technologies enabling digitization; managing digitalization; digital integration with physical production assets; rethinking the design of classical working-systems; analyze data; business data evaluation and big data management; e-procurement; e-health; Internet of things; document management systems and digitization of work-flows; human machine interaction; touch interfaces and accessible GUIs; advanced robotics and human-robot collaboration; virtual and augmented reality; blockchain; additive manufacturing; green production systems; smart factories, etc. The training curricula needs to adapt these requirements in effective changes to be able to train concretely the labour force. With DigiWork the determination of key competences required to create the qualified workforce that the Industry 4.0 demands in the advanced industrialization process of Europe and concretely contributing to train the workforce, with suitable skills and competences, is being targeted.<< Implementation >>Considering the large experience of V-s, LUISS and of each 4 other Partners, the project governance methodology and project management approach that will be adopted will combine related practices, methods and processes that will determine how to plan, develop, control and deliver in the better way the project goals throughout its implementation and successful completion. It will follow an evidenced, systematic and controlled approach, describing every step in depth, so that project team will know what to do to implement the work according to the schedule, budget and target groups specification. In particular: - The definition of the needs of target audience; - The establishing of a common “language”; - The activities management (complete, accurate and credible); - The adoption of a common methodological approach for the effective results delivery; - The resolution of conflicts in the easy and short way; - Fast implementation of experiences needed for the implementation of the activities, results and solutions. The DigiWork project is structured in 4 results, each one has a leader responsible for the result planning and execution. The detailed plan of each of them will be discussed and approved by the Partners in the transnational meetings. Also the evaluation and dissemination/exploitation activities, for each result will be structured by the Partners considering the activities in detail and their discussion/joint approval by the Partners. For the implementation of each result all Partners will participate actively in the result development and undertake the task envisaged and approved by the partnership to deliver the results foreseen. Each lead Partner will be responsible for accompanying the work development in order to guarantee the fulfilment of the task according with the planned timetable approved by the National Agency.The project will be managed following a specific planning that will includes 9 macro-Activities (A), each of that is important for the achievement of the DigiWork project goals: A1 Project management and coordination (Months: M1-M36) including 5 transnational project meetings in Slovakia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Spain and Italy and supplemented by online meetingsA2 Analysis of the impact and diffusion of digitalization gaps within RES1 (M2-M7) Starting from preliminary experiences of the 6 Partners it will provide detailed advices for the preparation of the DigiWork specific learning path and the evaluation tools.A3 Report on innovative skills to enhance HE students employability and develop effective work-based approaches (M5-M7) A specific report will be produced to analyse the needed specific and transversal skills. A4 Online training curriculum: methodology of development and delivering (M8-M14), focusing on the way to develop learning contents, knowledge and skills assessment tools. A5 Learning contents, knowledge and skills assessment tools (M15-M26) The main aim is related to DigiWork training modules and the implemented multimedia products. A6 DigiWork integrated platform implementation (M27-M36) including the website, the knowledge sharing area and the learning management solutions; it will be composed of almost 18 training modules including text, images, cooperation and resources sharing, video and interactive materials. A7 System implementation and contents validation (M31-M36) - learning products will be released. A8 Dissemination and exploitation (M1-M36) It includes the activities of Partners to reach the main stakeholders and target groups like five national and the final conference in Italy. A9 Quality and risk management (M1-M36) in order to guarantee the quality of the activities and of the expected results of DigiWork.<< Results >>COVID-19 will have far-reaching impacts on labour market outcomes. Beyond the urgent concerns about the health of workers, the virus and the subsequent economic shocks will impact the world of work across three key dimensions: the quantity of jobs (both unemployment and underemployment); the quality of work (e.g. wages and access to social protection); and effects on specific groups who are more vulnerable to adverse labour market outcomes. Digitalization, computing capabilities, smart working, workforce flexibility, job crafting, virtual agile teams, remote working empowerment, e-collaboration, new manufacturing devices, social media, artificial intelligence, addictive manufacturing, block-chain and big data analytics, are enabling, improving and transforming current public and private organizations. Digital technologies are becoming very relevant at the EU level for the workers employability; they are disrupting industries, re-shaping the organizations’ boundaries and changing the nature of business exposing people and entities to new competitive logics and threats. Underemployment is also expected to increase on a large scale. As witnessed in previous crises, the shock to labour demand is likely to translate into significant downward adjustments to wages and working hours. While self-employment does not typically react to economic downturns, it acts as a “default” option for survival or maintaining income-often in the informal economy. For this reason, informal employment tends to increase during crises. However, the current limitations on the movement of people and goods may restrict this type of mechanism. For this reason, in DigiWork project a detailed multi-sectoral analysis report will be prepared in 6 countries indicating the comparison of current situation of digitalization and Industry 4.0 pillars in Partners' countries, together a transversal needs' analysis that will be also included. These in-depth multi-countries researches will be carried out for the precise determination of the changes in the future of the vocations focused by Industry 4.0, the common grounds (e.g. smart factory, lean production and digital manufacturing) and newly emerging requirements especially for different vocational levels in European High education and training institutions. Detailed reports for educational requirements will be also produced, monitoring digital transformation and providing cutting-edge tools to foster innovation and value creation. A study will be carried out for determination of new educational requirements for digitalization and Industry 4.0, determining new key and transversal competences for various professional qualifications and levels, reflecting them to concrete and open educational programs (common and field specific programmes), arrangement and procurement of the required equipment infrastructure, human resources, etc.Specific events and meeting with HE institutions, SMEs associations, employees trade unions will be held for this purpose. An innovative curriculum model by the most advanced educational design techniques will be created for competences development. This also thanks an advanced and complete e-learning platform, integrated in DigiWork website, that will be produced by experts in the project fields. Innovative multimedia e-modules and e-exams will be prepared, permitting effective learning activities and the sharing of best practices of each Partners' country. It will gain the necessary knowledge to give the possibility students to increase their competences and give more opportunities to find new working positions or a new well-payed job. The project activities will be always shared with local target groups and stakeholders in each country. All the intellectual results will be translated into the languages of the partner countries. All the involved Partner organisations will increase also their capabilities on the project fields and in the European projects experience."