<< Background >>After the 2006 Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council on Key competences for Lifelong Learning, the updated Recommendation (2018) emphasized the purpose of key competences by stating that “in a rapidly changing and highly interconnected world, each person will need a wide range of skills and competences and to develop them continually throughout life”. The expectation is for “high-quality education, training, and lifelong learning for all, to support educational staff in implementing competency-based teaching and learning approaches, to promote a range of learning contexts from the perspective of lifelong learning, and to explore approaches to the assessment and validation of key competences” (LifeComp, p.7).Now, with the COVID-19 pandemic, major changes occurred in our lifestyles forcing changes in education and training, workplaces and skills requirements at all levels. In this context, citizens need to “be able to reflect on and develop their personal, social, and learning to learn competencies in order to unleash their dynamic potential, self-regulate their emotions, thoughts, and behaviours, build a meaningful life and cope with complexity as thriving individuals, responsible social agents, and reflective lifelong learners” (LifeComp, p.8) This key competence is named “Personal, Social, and Learning to Learn”, and is defined as “the ability to reflect upon oneself, effectively manage time and information, work with others in a constructive way, remain resilient and manage one’s own learning and career” (LifeComp, p.8).Aligned with classical theories of sociocultural development, internalization (which stems from social interactions) is the catalysator of learning. The social interaction aspect is KEY for LIFEx project. LIFEx project is built upon this knowledge base and is aiming to have a positive impact on European workplaces, by contributing to the workforce skilling in the “Personal, Social, and Learning to Learn” competence, through a competence-oriented virtual reality training programme, focused on providing Immersive Learning Experiences (ILx) designed to train this competence and support target-groups into “fulfilling their dynamic potential, self-regulate their emotions, thoughts and behaviours, build a meaningful life, and cope with complexity as thriving individuals, responsible social agents, and reflective lifelong learners” (LifeComp). According to the Accenture report “Immersive Learning For The Future Workforce” (2020) the key benefits of immersive learning are a) providing environments that more closely mimic real-life situations allowing workers to reach greater levels of expertise in less time; b) the possibility of remote collaboration and other remote training activities; c) the reduced costs on employee travel for training and space on real estate; d) learning through inconsequent mistakes; e) increased engagement that leads to better retention; g) and better analytics with rich data sets (behavioural, eye-tracking, heat maps and gesture tracking).Immersive learning is already implemented in medical training for surgeons, retail training, aeroplane traffic control, and other technical fields, but Virtual Reality is NOT enough explored in the field of soft skills training.<< Objectives >>The LIFEx objectives are to contribute to human empowerment by increasing the Personal, Social, and Learning to Learn' competencies of the European workforce; increase VET internal capacity to respond to trainees and market needs through attractive and engaging immersive training offers; foster the progress on the way soft skills training through VR is evaluated; and support teachers and trainers in implementing VR in the soft skills training.<< Implementation >>LIFEx main activities are the development of the Competence Matrix in EN, IT, GR and RO; the development of the preview of immersive learning experiences; the Digital Badges allocation per learning experience; the development and implementation/testing of the LifeComp Immersive Learning Experiences in Ireland, Italy, Greece and Romania; the development and implementation/testing of the eTools for LifeComp ILx evaluation tools in in Ireland, Italy, Greece and Romania; the Peer-review stages by all partners; the C1:LifeComp ILx Pop-up session for trainers; the E1-E4: VR4LifeComp Pop-up Sessions; the ongoing Quality and Evaluation monitoring; and the Communication and sharing of project activities and results.<< Results >>The main expected outcomes of the LIFEx project are a) to foster the collaboration of different organisations to contribute to human empowerment by increasing the Personal, Social, and Learning to Learn' competencies of the European workforce; b) to increase the VET partners internal capacity to provide VR training based on LifeComp Framework; c) to booster teachers and trainers ability to implement and evaluate VR training based on the LifeComp Framework.The results that will be developed to make the above outcomes possible are:The “LifeComp Immersive Learning experiences (ILx) Competence Matrix”: the competence matrix will adopt a Learning Outcomes' Approach where a set of LOs will be developed for each Immersive Learning experience in terms of Knowledge, Skills and Autonomy and Responsibility. The competence matrix will also include the description of the Immersive Learning Experience and expected contact hours to complete the experience. At least 3 ILx will be developed, one for each area: Personal, Social and Learning to Learn.The “LifeComp Immersive Learning experiences (ILx) Training Methodology and digital training methodology. For each ILx the following will be developed: a conceptualization of the Immersive Learning Experience (eg. scenario) and the conceptualization and design of the Digital Badge allocated to the specific experience. Methodologies will be centred in: a) virtual reality scenarios where the trainee freely interacts/reacts to the scenario and later will be able to see the video footage of the experience (autoscopy methodology) or virtual reality scenario with multiple choices, where the trainee chooses among a closed set of options to advance.The LifeComp Immersive Learning Experiences training. ISQe will design and share the pedagogical architecture of the virtual experiences, followed by the design and development of the immersive learning experiences with contributions from all partners. Each partner will implement a training pilot with at least 5 persons. Each person can go through one ILx or the three ILx, as long as all ILx are tested overall.eTools for LifeComp ILx evaluation. Two different kinds of etools will be developed: a) a digital autoscopy framework, including the evaluation criteria for each ILx, where Trainees will be able to watch the recording of their ILx. This way they can compare the way they acted in each ILx to the performance criteria (in the autoscopy framework for that ILx) and register a self-evaluation; b) eTool for LifeComp ILx evaluation for trainers whereby repeating each experience, trainers can see the differences/(hopefully) improvements to the way trainees dealt with each scenario.The ILx will adopt a gender-inclusive lens throughout.Sustainability strategy. Document that defines the activities to be carried out to enhance the successful sustainability of the project outcomes and results in terms of application/replication of the products and its placing on the market.Other results comprise: the project management, quality & evaluation handbook; Financial reports; Action Plans; Project management, quality & evaluation reports - Interim Report and Final Report; C1 - LifeComp ILx Pop-up session for trainers; Communication and project promotion strategy; Graphic identity manual with logo; .word document template & .ppt presentation template; project teaser for social media; Press Releases; Newsletters, LIFEx website and LIFEx Social Media and VR4LifeComp Pop-up Sessions (IE, IT, GR, RO).