<< Background >>The European event industry faces several sector specific circumstances which create unique conditions for employees and employers to find one another. There are two main reasons: innovation and mobility. First, being both subject to and a driver of technological change, the event industry is perceived as extremely innovative and inherits extremely short lifetimes of knowledge. This is especially true for the field of event technicians. Learners are often required to update their knowledge immediately after being rewarded their qualification. The continuous restoration of knowledge and skills yields the current situations that employees acquire manifold competences throughout their working life which are neither certified nor validated. As a result, event technicians have difficulties to prove their mastery of latest technology. Employers on the other hand have difficulties to ensure the suitability of their personnel for certain types of jobs. Second, event technician labour force is extremely mobile, working often on international projects or foreign employers. With different understanding about job profiles in European member states, the match of competences of employees to the expectations of employers poses a large obstacle to employment process. These labour market rigidities have excelled with the COVID-19 pandemic and the complete stillstand of the event sector. The shutdown of the industry is putting great pressure onto the business model of established firms and companies. Due to the complete standstill of the industry and the proximity to other industry branches, many professionals have assumed new responsibilities. These workers won’t be available by the time events will take place again – limiting the capacity of the entire industry to deliver high-quality services once events are being planned again.A common denominator of these shortcomings is the importance of non-formal and informal learning. The high degree of learning-on-the job and self-education throughout the working life are inherent to the biography of most employees of the industry. A clear need of the industry is therefore a more flexible education system which takes count of prior learning and which provides for certification processes to make non-formal and informal learning visible. Finally, a common language needs to be established concerning skills and knowledge across national education systems. The answer to these shortcomings must therefore be established on a European level, providing for a structural solution to this systematic problem.<< Objectives >>In order to address these labour market rigidities, PACE-VET will provide significant contributions to the validation of competences in a European context. A common denominator of the shortcomings on the event labour market is the importance of non-formal and informal learning. The high degree of learning-on-the job and self-education throughout the working life are inherent to the biography of most employees of the event industry. The validation and recognition of prior, non-formal and informal learning on a European level via micro-credentials would therefore contribute to a more inclusive, resilient, mobile, and sustainable labour market in a fragile working environment. Following the Council Recommendation of 20 December 2012 on the validation of non-formal and informal learning (2012/C 398/01) as well as the Council Recommendation of 24 November 2020 on vocational education and training (VET) for sustainable competitiveness, social fairness, and resilience 2020/C 417/01, the enactment of transparent recognition processes in vocational education and training supports strongly the intentions of the European commission’s objective to strengthen VET in the EU. The PACE-VET project provides a significant contribution to these objectives by illustrating the practicality of a validation methodology and the provision of digital tools to equip both learners and assessors with the necessary means to credibly and reliably support the validation process. Specifically, PACE-VET aims to implement a validation process of acquired skills through the implementation of a digital, blockchain-based database solution (the Learning Record Store (LRS)) and the use of micro-credentials. This will provide a transferable solution on the example of the event technology labour market, which was particularly affected by the COVID 19 pandemic. The project recognises the importance of lifelong learning in the special labour market of event technology. It complements and extends the two former projects TeBeVAT 1 & 2 and the ongoing project TeBeVAT 3 with the end to pace-up the work done so far: the implementation of a validation process supporting partial certification of competences and the connection of associations and institutional partners from the field across the EU. Ultimately, the project contributes to increases learning opportunities, labour market mobility, structuring and planning of lifelong learning and broadens the perspective on partial certification for VET in the EU.<< Implementation >>The objective of PACE-VET is highly user oriented and is reliant on the active engagement and attraction of stakeholders. The project therefore will involve a series of activities to include end-users, participants, and volunteers in the development process. Further, the attraction of interested parties like educational institutions, chambers of commerce and certifying authorities and the engagement into active discussions and reflection about the needs of the industry regarding the future of education and training in the sector will be a central part of the projects work. To strengthen the involvement and to support the dissemination of these activities, the project will be participating in several international trade fairs from the event sector and hold regular meetings in which experts from the fields of certification and education will be invited. Two major aspects lay out the corner stones of the project:First, the project follows an iterative approach to achieve the outlined objectives. From the requirement analysis (“Pflichtenheft & Lastenheft”), the application development and documentation to the design and conduct of assessment and final credentialization, steps are being planned, conducted, evaluated and repeated if necessary, in order to achieve the best possible result. To ensure that the developed results will meet the requirements and expectations of users and stakeholders close communication and direct involvement. Dedicated activities will be established like expert interviews of learners, educational institutions and certifying authorities, acceptance measurement in the development process, critical analysis in reflection and discussion rounds a supported by the associated partners in a Reflection board.Second, an actual assessment will be conducted. To this end, participants will be brought into the project to test the application, run through the assessment and have their competences in two specific learning fields validated. These assessments will be carried out on-premise in the Netherlands by previously trained assessors, which will prepare and conduct the assessment. Assessors and participants will receive a digital credential certifying the competences assessed. With the assessment carried out, the project will train the first generation of assessors and provide evidence for the feasibility of the partial certification process.<< Results >>PACE-VET will make significant contribution to the validation and certification of prior learning in the context of Vocational Education and Training in the EU. The project will provide substantial advancements in two areas: 1) digitalisation in lifelong learning and 2) providing processes for competence recognition. With the provision of a digital application that is capable to connect to different databases (LMS), ensure unforgeability and trustworthiness (use of blockchain) and integrates features for learners and assessors (via Cloud Computing), large usability potential can be unlocked. The application will provide a currently missing tool that is user-friendly, secure and flexible to use. With a complete front- and backend, that integrate a Learning Record Store via xAPI, learners will finally be provided with means to document their non-formally and informally acquired learning. With the provision of processes that respect a high standard of quality assurance, the suggested recognition process excels currently existing practices. Quality assurance has been proven pivotal in the acceptance of validation processes, rendering the result of the project highly relevant for certifying and educational authorities. The provision of certifications via micro credentials, making use of recent technical and educational innovations, sheds new light into the assessment of partial qualifications.By providing an exhaustive documentation alongside the application and the requirement specification, PACE-VET supports the easy replicability by outside parties and an easier to follow replication of the validation process in other sectors of the economy. Especially the documentation belonging to the application will facilitate developers with an interest to pick up of the LRS to build on existing groundwork, thus lowering the threshold of transferring the process to other sectors and enabling a broader and sustainable usage of the final product. At least the micro-credentials for Light and Sound will not only be developed but also demonstrated and validated in an assessment activity. With the validity of the validation process proven, further credentials can be developed for the event technicians, and the concept can be exported entirely to other sectors. With the finally developed Best Practice Report at hand, other interest groups will have a concise guide at hand to understand the work steps which have been done from start to finish of the validation process.Finally, assessors will be trained and facilitated to carry out on-premise assessments of competences in the realm of event technicians. These assessments will provide participants the opportunity to test the developed app, to record their nonformal and informal learning and to receive support throughout the validation process. In the end, assessors and participants will receive digital badges which are unforgeable and proof the functioning of the certification process. These badges represent the successful award of a micro-credential and proofs the acquisition of skills, knowledge and competences. In general, the project takes count of the needs of an industry that is in a precarious situation. The involvement of several associations as partners and associated partners will contribute to an even stronger cooperation among the event sector on a European level. Steering and disseminating good practices in education and training and collaborating on the enactment of common structures across national borders to improve needed transparency and mobility. With the large partner network, a wide number of stakeholders can be reached, sensitised and sustainably connected.