Many studies nowadays focus on taking stock of the platform economy in Europe (e.g., investigating its magnitude, business models, career and job characteristics of workers, ...), surprisingly the occupational safety and health (OSH) implications of platform work have remained largely under the radar. Against this background, the proposed project aims to (i) investigate the OSH risks and regulations of platform work and (ii) provide recommendations to foster a safe and healthy occupational environment for platform workers in European countries based on the results of this study. Pursuing these aims, the project adopts a mixed-method study design organised into two work packages (WP) and involves platform workers living in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. WP1 will consist in a European mixed-method cohort of platform workers. WP1 will explore longitudinally ways in which platform work is associated with OSH-risks and poor health and the experiences of platform workers in regard to OSH of their jobs. WP2 aims to research ways for promoting changes for safer and healthier occupational environments for platform work. For doing so, WP2 will explore how do platform work managers perceive the OSH of employees/workers, what are the characteristics of platforms that maintain a healthy work environment and what are the regulatory contexts and challenges in terms of OSH posed by platform of work. Both WPs will explore similarities and differences across countries and forms of platform work, thereby contextualising the findings about health and platform work within different regulatory environments. The expected results of this project will provide new and original scientific understanding of an understudied and evolving challenge for the future world of work. Drawing on the new scientific understanding, the project will provide new guidance for policymakers, companies and trade unions to protect the health of the European workforce.

The current economic crisis, the consequent rise of unemployment and the limitation of welfare resources in many Western European countries is resulting in the worsening of working and living conditions of a significant part of the EU citizenship. The raise of low-skilled immigration towards such countries is increasingly perceived as a 'threat' for the host societies. Conflicts and differences between national and migrant workers are becoming increasingly manifest, not only in the labour arena but also in the wider society. Discriminatory sentiments and episodes of violence concerning ethnic minorities are spreading. In the applicant's view, the responses of the social actors to the interplay between migration and employment in the host countries will be important in shaping the future of Europe's social fabric. Among such actors, trade unions play an important role not only because immigration is primarily linked to labour but also because many conflicts occur in the labour arena both at the individual and collective level. This project aims at analysing trade union responses to immigration, immigration policies and a broad range of migrant workers, and at understanding the trade unions' (actual and potential) role in the economic and social integration of immigrants. Furthermore, it focuses on the trade union's role in mediating conflicting interests between national and migrant workers. The research develops a comparative international perspective by looking at a national context particularly affected by recent immigration (UK) and expanding on a previous comparative study on Italy and the Netherlands carried out by the applicant in her doctoral research. The aim of the comparison is a) to highlight differences in trade unions' formal debates, actions and outcomes related to the inclusion of migrant workers across the three countries and b) to point out explanatory variables and mechanisms for observed differences. The analysis addresses three main aspects: 1) factors that influence union stances towards labour immigration, immigration policies and migrant workers themselves - particular attention will be devoted to analyse the influence of the European policies related to immigration and free movement of labour on national trade unions responses; 2) the effects of union attitudes on immigration policies and migrant workers; and 3) the dynamics and methods of trade union interaction with migrant workers. Being situated at the intersection between migration studies and employment relations, this research will contribute to the scholarly debate in these fields: a) migration studies (the integration of migrants in host European countries in the context of the current economic decline and increase of social hostility); b) comparative employment relations (revitalization studies and varieties of capitalism approaches); c) the sociology of labour and labour market studies (analysis of labour market dynamics in terms of increasing flexibilization and migration); d) the Europeanization of migration policies debate. Furthermore, by focusing on social cohesion, the inclusion of migrants in the labour market and host societies, this research has the potential to address sensitive social issues and to highlight best practices and responses. Through the dissemination of research findings - inside and beyond the academic sphere - and the promotion of dialogue with potential beneficiaries and users, this research aims at resulting in concrete proposals for action.

The COVID-19 crisis has heavily impacted education and training and has accelerated digital transformation providing a glimpse into the Future of Work. Moreover, the impact of COVID- has forced the majority of companies and organisations, of all sizes and across all industries, to accelerate -or rapidly implement processes for their digital transformation. The world has turned digital overnight and workers need to adapt rapidly to a new reality, which included a need to reduce all face-to-face exchanges and keep physical contact to a minimum, and large-scale adoption of remote ways of communicating.The ACSOL project (Acquiring crisis-proof skills through online learning) addresses two service sectors which have been very hardly hit: 1) Social care and 2) Arts, entertainment and culture. Analysis of labour market intelligence indicates low-skilled workers in these sectors tend to lack skills to easily adopt the digital transformation of their jobs, and that that they often lack the necessary skills to access the more complex online training formats to equip them with these skills. ACSOL offers these low-skilled workers the opportunity to train themselves in essential digital skills in order for them to gain access to further digital training and to be better prepared in their job.The ultimate aim of the ACSOL project is to expand adult digital skills training provision through online learning which would have significant advantages for workers in social care as well as entertainment, arts and culture. In particular, online learning on digital skills could help reach a much bigger number of learners on these sources in the context of the COVID‑19 crisis but it is crucial for our transnational project to make online learning more inclusive and more effectively convey the relevant meaning in the target group, with a training adapted to the profile of the low-skilled workers and key digital skills for challenges and opportunities on jobs related to digital transformation on both sectors.We propose to design and develop an eLearning toolkit that will boost the digital literacy skills and specific skills of current low-skilled workers, through continuing VET, so that they are able to both face the crisis provoked by COVID-19 and to increase their opportunities to improve their job and working conditions.To do so, we will first carry out a thorough labour market statistical analysis of online vacancies in the occupations on social care and arts, entertainment and culture activities to identify the impact of COVID-19 crisis on jobs and the evolution of digital skills demanded by labour market, which will be completed with a survey to micro companies, workers and users about the degree of digital transformation and will help gather ideas for business transformation and digital skills for workers and occupations on these sectors.Then, the identification of opportunities, needs and risks of digital transformation as well as key digital competences and proposals for involving our target groups will be presented and discussed in sectoral triple helix working groups established in each region, and integrated by business, vocational training providers and policy makers. The goal will be to develop a regional proposal at sectoral level with recommendations on topics such as the hybridization of jobs and embracing digital skills with recommendations for the adoption of eLearning-strategies that will be presented to the Annual European Network on Regional Labour Market Monitoring Conference – to achieve a common European vision. Therefore, a transnational perspective for a research and implementation project is proposed. The transnational nature of the project ensures learning from different settings and supports the exchange of good practices, success factors and lessons learned.Finally, we will create new eLearning materials that will embrace the topics that workers with low qualifications and employed in micro companies need to acquire for both confronting the current crisis and more generally to adapt to a changing world of work. The online learning toolkit will include a wide range of solutions such as online courses, educational resources, video content, mobile learning, etc., both formal and non-formal.The ACSOL products will be available online in 5 different European languages and will be tested with workers for their feedback in each region to get conclusions and improvements for the tool which will be incorporated.The ACSOL intellectual outputs and activities will have a series of long-lasting impacts and there will be especially significant impact on the target users of the Toolkit. The low-skilled European workforce of the social care sector and the culture sector, will be benefitting from our toolkit because it will help them acquire the digital skills they need both to access online, distance or blended training, and to maintain or transform their jobs in these sectors.

Europe is currently facing a demographic crisis, with a shrinking workforce coupled with increased demands for social services. The labour force in Europe is projected to decrease by an average of two million every year between 2010 and 2030. This represents a loss of 1% of its current size per year for 20 years. Yet, in many countries, most workers still retire (relatively) early. They often do so not because they want to, but because they feel compelled to (or) that they do not have other options. Solutions need to be found to make work more sustainable, and to extend working lives in order to avoid old-age poverty and to reduce state expenditure on pensions and welfare. (Changing places: Mid-career review and internal mobility, Eurofound Report January 2017)Recent OECD research has highlighted that there are many millions of adults in Europe with low levels of functional literacy and/or numeracy skills and that the majority of these are in employment (OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) 2016). This has negative implications for their employment potential and longer term career prospects.The concept of the Mid Life Career Review (MLCR) is one which is gradually gaining favour in many countries and the role of social partners in both lobbying for and delivering elements of this is one that could be critical to its success (Eurofound 2017). A MLCR is a holistic engagement designed to cover many topics such as retirement planning, finance, pensions and central to all models of a MLCR - skills. In the UK John Cridland’s very new report on pensions (published 23 March 2017) includes a recommendation to have a mid-life 'MOT' at 50 for skills and pensions. L&W Institute and TUC can take some of the credit for their campaign for everyone to have this mid-life entitlement at 50. This is the perfect time for this project, which can make a real and lasting impact.Our project will develop a suite of new materials to support the delivery of a Mid Life ‘Skills’ Review – with the emphasis on reviewing skills and competences and targeted at adults (at or around 50 years of age) with low levels of basic skills in literacy, numeracy and digital literacy. We will create new materials specifically designed for use both by Europe’s social partners and others in the workplace carrying out similar 'skills review' functions. These materials will include new online ‘gamified’ skills assessment tools in a variety of languages and new online learning modules for the reviewers/assessors. Where there is a learning need identified, learners will be signposted to existing training materials. A platform for hosting these materials will be developed and the materials themselves translated into partner languages. We will also explore with partners how these new resources can be combined with the kind of holistic offer needed for a full MLCR. Further, the reviewers across the partnership will be encouraged to become ‘mid-life skills champions’, with the support of online tools and a virtual e-network. This network will support its members and share ideas and experience.As well as a new suite of materials and in keeping with the European priority for prioritising the recognition of skills and qualifications, we will accredit learning through a new online digital badge and explore linking this into the Europass CV Programme. Badging of this kind is increasingly valued and is an innovation which the lead partner has some existing expertise in using. We will gain further sustainable impacts by: delivering a series of events in each partner country to highlight the new materials and support available; developing a series of employee case studies to highlight some of the positive outcomes from the mid-life skills reviews e.g. progression, promotion, career change etc; and building on or utilising existing learner tracking systems to carry out a longitudinal study of the impact of mid-life skills reviews (going beyond the length of the project) which will focus on 3 key perspectives: workplaces/reviewers/employees.The partners have been selected as all have existing close working relationships with trade unions and all have significant experience in working in the adult education and skills sector. The TUC, as lead partner, have considerable experience through unionlearn and TUC Learning Services of managing large, successful EU projects and were a core partner (alongside the Learning and Work Institute) in the recent successful Mid Life Career Review project funded by the UK Government and whose approach was described as both ‘good practice’ and ‘affordable’ within the 2017 Eurofound report.

ContextEurope is facing a demographic crisis, with a shrinking workforce coupled with increased demands for social services. The labour force in Europe is projected to decrease by an average of two million people every year until 2030. This represents a loss of 1% of its current size each year for the next 10 years. Yet, in many countries, most workers still retire (relatively) early. They often do so not because they want to, but because they feel compelled to, or that they do not have other options. Solutions need to be found to make work more sustainable, and to extend working lives in order to avoid old-age poverty and to reduce state expenditure on pensions and welfare. (Changing places: Mid-career review and internal mobility, Eurofound Report, 2017)Recent OECD research has highlighted that there are many millions of adults in Europe with low levels of functional literacy and/or numeracy skills and that the majority of these are in employment (OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) 2019). This has negative implications for their employment potential and longer term career prospects. The concept of the Mid Life Skills Review is gradually gaining favour in many countries and the role of social partners in both lobbying for and delivering elements of this can be critical to its success (Eurofound 2017). The Learning and Work Institute and the TUC can take some of the credit for their campaign for everyone to have this mid-life entitlement at 50. Indeed, the recent (John Cridland) report on pensions in the UK included a recommendation to have a mid-life 'MOT' at 50 for, amongst other things, skills. This is the perfect time for this project, which can make a real and lasting impact.Our recent ERASMUS+ Project developed the Value My Skills tool that takes users/learners through steps with clear instructions to identify and rate their skills, keep reflection notes, design an action plan and record their progress. The tool is best used in partnership with a learning coach - so that the learner can discuss their findings in a safe and supportive environment. The tool is freely available in several European languages.AimWe aim to add value to the already much used Value My Skills tool that was developed by the Mid Life Skills Review ERASMUS+ Project which successfully launched in 2019 and is hosted by the TUC. The potential benefits of our additional work in this field emerged from the evaluation of the Mid Life Skills Review ERASMUS+ project. We will extend the tool to new countries and boost functionality.InnovationsOur project will develop a suite of innovative new materials to support the delivery of the Mid Life Skills Reviews. These include new Quick Win online modules that will enable learners to see positive impacts from returning to learning - vital given our target audience is hard-to-reach low skilled adults in the workplace. We will also build new online materials to help boost the support for the critical role of the skills coaches. To help with mainstreaming and wider adoption we will design new National Delivery Models, bespoke for each partner country. In addition, we will develop - an Occupation Profile Tool - that will enable the users/learners to see how their skills match with the skills needed for different occupations. This will be done by linking to the EU ESCO skills classification system. The user/learner will also able to see where a skills boost (via the Quick Wins for example) could lead to routes into other occupations. As the Value My Skills Tool uses workplace coaches to work through the Tool with the learners - the coaches from across the partnership will be encouraged to become ‘mid-life skills champions’, with the support of a virtual e-network. This network will support its members and share ideas and experience.Finally, in keeping with the European priority for promoting the recognition of skills and qualifications, we will accredit the learning through the use of new online Digital Badges and will enable links to be made into the Europass CV Programme. Badging of this kind is increasingly valued and is an innovation which the lead partner has considerable existing expertise. ImpactsWe will gain sustainable impacts by: delivering a series of events in each partner country to highlight the new materials and support available; using social media to disseminate the positive outcomes from the mid-life skills reviews e.g. progression, promotion, career change etc; and ultimately through boosting the skills of hard-to-reach older workers within the labour market, benefiting themselves, their families, their employers and European labour markets. The partners have been selected as all have existing close working relationships with employers, policymakers and trade unions and all have significant experience in working in the adult education and skills sector and together we have the expertise to carry out all of the activities required within the project.