<< Background >>COVID-19 has had a major impact on the global economy and employment. Europe has not been immune to the consequences of the pandemic, especially those countries most affected by the virus (such as Italy, Spain or Portugal) or with less economic strength (like Greece). In Spain alone, more than 1 million jobs were destroyed in the second quarter of 2020 (not counting Temporary Employment Regulation Files), and things are not expected to improve in the short term. An OECD report predicts that the country will reach a record unemployment rate of 19.2% by the end of the year, and that it will especially impact young people, who already register high levels of unemployment (according to Eurostat, more than 17 points over Spain's average). This terrible situation will be more precarious for those students with obstacles to employability in rural or segregated areas, as their already scarce employment opportunities will be further diminished.Facing this scenario, it is essential to rebuild European society using adequate and effective tools that make it possible to alleviate the terrible consequences of the pandemic and adapt to the new landscape created by it. In this sense, experts agree that vocational training may be the most effective way to improve employability, especially of young people with obstacles, in a labor market transformed by the pandemic. This was stated by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in recent studies on the future of work and education after the pandemic.However, in order to achieve this, professional training must also overcome its weaknesses and evolve into the post-COVID-19 reality, becoming more appealing and focused on the lines required to alleviate the economic consequences of the pandemic, and offer better alternatives to its students, becoming a priority educational option for the governments of the member states (especially in countries where it is weaker, like Spain, Greece, and to a lesser extent Portugal and France).To this end, a large number of experts, reports, and agencies point out that professional training must overcome the following needs or weaknesses:- IT IS NECESSARY TO SUPPORT VET RESEARCH: The prejudices suffered by VET must disappear, turning it into another pillar of innovation and productive development. To do this, their direct participation in research must be promoted, showing that VET also has much to contribute, to finally banish a devalued image of this kind of studies, which will also provide confidence to employer companies.- THERE NEEDS TO BE A STRONG SUPPORT ON VET STUDIES TOWARDS THE MOST SOLID ECONOMIC SECTORS AFTER THE PANDEMIC, such as health, pharmaceutical, the agriculture and food sectors, distribution, electronic commerce, and technology.- THERE IS A LACK OF DEVELOPMENT OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY COMPETENCES IN VET STUDENTS, because as experts agree, the ability to adapt to change, to learn to learn, and qualities like communication, empathy, commitment, and responsibility will be necessary to get or keep a job in the new labor market left standing after coronavirus (oecd-2021).- THERE IS A LACK OF PROMOTING LEARNING IN WORK CENTERS, not reducing it to short internships, but involving the student's day-to-day activities in the company, thus not only promoting Dual VET but also involving traditional VET in the activity of companies.- IT IS NECESSARY TO STRENGTHEN AND IMPROVE DIGITAL VET: to do this, it is essential to implement innovative digital pedagogical approaches such as simulators, augmented/virtual reality, or artificial intelligence in VET, which can only be achieved by further investment in this training, as stated by Cedefop and the ETF.<< Objectives >>Through a rigorous analysis of the situation and the forecast (supported by experts) of the future post-COVID-19 society, we propose TECHVETLAB: a project aimed to contribute to alleviating the needs detected by experts from all participating countries, especially by promoting a mid-degree VET directly linked to emerging professional sectors after the pandemic, like the technology sector, and the research projects that these carry out and which will be the base for the reconstruction of the EU economy.TECHVETLAB proposes to do this through the creation of a partnership for cooperation that increases the quality of the work of each participating entity (both VET centers and participating technology companies), reinforcing their participation in diverse networks, increasing their capability to operate jointly at a transnational level, generating synergies between various fields (vocational training education, training and companies, inclusion)… but above all generating a new and highly impactful form of innovative vocational training based on the cooperation of the production and educational sector that favors the inclusion of students with obstacles.To do this, we propose an innovative method of education in VET cycles, where the VET classroom becomes a virtual department of the technology company, carrying out key parts of the research projects of interest to the company and training students with obstacles in the processes and transversal competences that interest them and that will favor their hiring. TECHVETLAB will generate learning in the workplace from the classroom, which alleviates the difficulty of accessing dual VET cycles or internships for students with obstacles, and will allow VET students with fewer opportunities to learn in demanding environments and to become partners in cutting-edge research projects.TECHVETLAB intends to answer to the needs raised by European and international institutions to generate new VET graduates capable of not only adapting to the reality of the post-COVID-19 labor market, also of becoming key agents in the European reconstruction after it, but especially focusing on the students who will have the most difficulties to achieve it: those with economic, social, and cultural barriers coming from segregated environments.This project has these specific objectives according to the needs detected:a) STRENGTHENING THE RESEARCH CAPABILITY OF VOCATIONAL TRAINING CENTERS by contributing to the direct involvement of VET training in the creation of new innovative products in the technological and/or biosanitary field that raise the value of VET work in the field of research.b) PROMOTING INTERSECTORIAL COLLABORATION BETWEEN COMPANIES IN THE TECHNOLOGY AND THE VET SECTOR, which will help to aim studies and even curricula towards the technology sector.c) PROMOTING THE DEVELOPMENT OF TRANSVERSAL COMPETENCES IN VET STUDENTS, especially those with fewer opportunities, generating study plans with the collaboration of experts, scientists, and entrepreneurs with this objective, since entrepreneurship requires exactly these skills.d) GENERATING AN INNOVATIVE SYSTEM THAT INVOLVES STUDENTS WITH FEWER OPPORTUNITIES AND VET TEACHERS IN THEIR DAY-TO-DAY IN RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT OF BUSINESS PROJECTS through networking, innovative approaches, and digital tools, thus promoting research in the VET field carried out by students, but also by teachers.e) PROMOTING A MORE ECO-FRIENDLY TECHNOLOGICAL SECTOR comprised of interdisciplinary teams that have environmental sustainability as a priority.f) ENHANCING THE INCLUSION AND EMPLOYABILITY OF VET STUDENTS WITH BARRIERS.<< Implementation >>In order to achieve these ambitious objectives, more than 650 actions have been defined, structured according to a series of stages and processes, which will not only allow them to be carried out optimally, but also to implement a total quality system that will enable a very close monitoring and detecting any non-conformity that could arise in each of the actions of the project.The project has and will have the following activities (structured in 23 work processes and 4 stages):- SITUATION STUDY ACTIVITIES: more than 40 activities including bibliographic search, meetings with experts, and various preparation and communication activities.- ACTIVITIES FOR THE CREATION OF THE LOGICAL FRAMEWORK AND FORMULATION OF THE PROJECT: 40 activities to draft documents, partner agreements, the project application, creating the COMMUNICATION, VISIBILITY, AND DISSEMINATION PLAN, and for the creation of the LOGICAL FRAMEWORK.- TRANSNATIONAL MEETINGS: 4 Transnational Meetings (Spain, Italy, Portugal, and France).- VIRTUAL COORDINATION AND COMMUNICATION MEETINGS: 24 digital activities to ensure the monitoring and coordination of the project and everything that it encompasses.- ACTIVITIES FOR THE CREATION OF RESULTS: 100 activities to develop all the results of the project, among which are national group activities, online activities, and virtual actions. Each entity will carry out key parts of the results, and working with them will be people of renowned prestige selected from among the entities this network has.- PILOT TESTS: 3 long-term pilot tests will be carried out between VET students and teachers from partner and collaborating entities, in which the new BPI METHODOLOGY will be tested for several months, involving the educational center in an innovative project in the technology field.- VISIBILIZATION AND DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES: more than 150 actions during the whole project, aimed at increasing the project's and the new Erasmus+ Programme's visibility, and ensuring that the results are known, used, and replicated. Among these activities, actions will be carried out in social networks, bilateral meetings, presentations, workshops, publication of articles, and participation in prestigious educational conferences.- MULTIPLIER EVENTS: there will be 4 highly impactful Multiplier Events, with the capability of involving the most important multipliers in the VET field, the technological field, and the pedagogical field.- EVALUATION ACTIVITIES: more than 300 evaluation activities, including internal evaluation actions for each activity, process, and stage, but also external evaluation mechanisms outside the project by renowned experts.All these activities will be developed based on three fundamental methodological strategies fully consistent with the objectives of the project and the Erasmus+ Programme:- Ensure sustainability and respect for the environment in all activities, promoting the use of virtual actions, using only digital media and materials, and favoring the reduction of the carbon footprint by encouraging the use of environmentally friendly means of transport, thus eliminating unnecessary travel.- Promote the full inclusion of all persons involved, since many of these direct project participants will be students with economic, cultural, and social obstacles, so specific measures will be implemented to enable all of them (direct or indirect) to participate in total equity.- Encourage digitization both in the development of actions and in the results themselves, favoring a significant impact both in the digital training of participants and beneficiaries, and in the implementation of highly innovative digital educational processes and methodologies in medium-degree vocational training.<< Results >>Through the intense work of an intersectoral network of cooperatives, technology companies, and VET centers from 4 countries, we will develop an innovative methodology capable of adapting the training processes of medium-degree vocational training throughout Europe to the needs generated as a result of the new post-COVID reality, aiming VET education towards the needs of emerging sectors, and closely integrating the innovative industry fabric in the teaching process. This is a work method focused on promoting employability opportunities and skill development for students with obstacles.The BPI (BEING A PART OF IT) methodology, an innovative evolution of the ABP method, allows the VET classroom to become a department within the company, directed by the teacher, with the objective of being an active part in the development of the innovation projects of technology companies. It is not so much that the classroom behaves as if it were the company, but rather that the classroom as a whole is integrated into the planning and responsibilities of the company.This methodology is created by renowned experts from the participating entities, and that will lead to three main high-quality results that can be used independently from one-another and autonomously, since they are each their own entity:- The BEING A PART OF IT METHODOLOGICAL GUIDE: it defines the BPI METHODOLOGY and provides all the necessary guidelines to implement it in VET classrooms through a global adaptation of classroom planning, the implementation of work online routines with the company, and the use of digital tools that equate the classroom with the company, allowing all students to carry out key roles within cutting-edge innovation projects.- The TECHVETLAB EDUCATIONAL MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE: a totally free and innovative software compatible with those used by technology companies for the control of operational and productive processes, but directly adapted to VET characteristics and educational needs. This will allow not only to coordinate the networking between the classroom and the technology company, but also to transmit to the student business management methods and tools, develop scheduling capability, realistic time control, develop transversal skills, and establish logical analyses of consequences using logical tree diagrams by the student. This tool can be used with the BPI methodology, or as an independent work simulator for classrooms that use the ABP method.- The VET4TECH SEARCH SYSTEM: a software that integrates extensive databases including all VET centers that apply this learning system adapted to the needs of the technology sector on a European scale, all students who have completed and passed specific training to work in the technology research sector, and companies in this sector interested in hiring VET students with fewer opportunities. This will become a powerful tool with hundreds of possible options that make it easier for centers to find technology companies that allow them to overcome the labor and internship obstacles experienced by VET students both before and after the pandemic.In addition to these results, others will also be created, such as:- A SUCCESS CASE GUIDE to show the experiences carried out during the project in three VET classrooms that will participate in three leading projects of the participating companies, demonstrating the effectiveness of this system.- A WEB PLATFORM to facilitate the dissemination of results and the replication of the project.Lastly, we want to create an innovative strategic partnership able to generate very positive results, improving the working capabilities of these networks, and motivating future mobility projects and enhancing VET research capabilities.