The REVAMP project will develop, test and implement an innovative and sustainable transnational freely accessible online training package to enhance medical and healthcare practitioners knowledge and skills, to recognise and understand the health needs and impact of violence, abuse and neglect on victims, thereby improving their health outcomes. The World Health Organization (WHO) identifies Intimate Partner Violence and Abuse (IPVA) as a pandemic, with a 1:3 global prevalence rate in most countries (WHO, 2013). IPVA includes physical, sexual, emotional abuse and controlling behaviours by an intimate partner (WHO, 2012). The WHO (2017) estimates that globally almost 1/4 of adults suffered physical abuse and/or neglect as a child and about 1/3 of women experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or nonpartner sexual violence at some point in their life. Tackling and ending gender-based violence is recognised by the European Commission, and further supported by combating gender-based violence and protecting and supporting victims (European Union, 2017). The Council of Europe indicates that about 1 in 5 children has suffered this type of abuse and that, in 70-85% of cases, the perpetrator was known to the victim. ‘Violence against women and domestic violence continue to be one of the most pervasive human rights violations, both in Europe and beyond’ (Council of Europe, 2014, page 1). The need for effective transnational education of medical practitioners to recognise victims of IPVA is clear due to the plethora of evidence that IPVA is a common problem that has a significant negative impact on individuals and families. Medical and healthcare practitioners will see victims of IPVA on a daily basis given the high number of victims. There has been little attention to producing a robust and freely accessible training. This project will be carried out transnationally as IPVA is prevalent across all countries, and migration might result in a victim trying to access support in several countries. The REVAMP project represents an original approach of joining forces across Europe to deliver this training to all medical and healthcare providers. REVAMP's target group are medical and healthcare practitioners as defined by Eurostat Statistics Explained (2017), where 'practitioner' means a person who delivers healthcare to a person such as: medical doctor, nurse, midwife, dentist, pharmacy, physiotherapist, social worker etc. REVAMP partners are embedded in the delivery of training medical and healthcare professionals, ideally placed to co develop and disseminate the training. REVAMP has the following objectives: 1-To develop a freely available and easily accessed online training package consisting of five modules for medical and healthcare practitioners to enhance their recognition of an understanding of IPVA, thereby improving the health outcome of victims.2- To use innovative teaching methods3- To involve a multi-lateral partnership of institutions4- To contribute to the public health strategy for recognition of victims of IPVA5-To ensure a broad dissemination of findings to relevant stakeholders6-To recognise the new acquisition of skills and knowledge by 5 ECTS for successful participationThe methodology that will apply to the REVAMP project is designed to support the development of an effective and transnationally relevant training programme for medical and healthcare practitioners to enhance the recognition of and understanding of the impact of violence on victims and are able to then refer these victims for ongoing support. REVAMP will be freely accessible from an outward facing website. Using a variety of pedagogical methods to engage medical and healthcare practitioners in the training programme, each of the five modules of the REVAMP training package will present a different aspect of IPVA. REVAMP will be developed into five modules (OCAPA): Orientation to the training package, IPVA and the child, IPVA and the adult, IPVA and the older person, Analysis and Evaluation. The effective open access REVAMP Platform from which the training is accessed is a significant step towards transnational recognition and training of IPVA giving wider exposure and access to medical and healthcare practitioners across Europe. Medical and health care practitioners across Europe will have the opportunity to engage in free and consistent training to support an effective response to victims of IPVA. Training participants will have improved skills competencies resulting in positive impact on the health and wellbeing of the victim. There is currently no standard training focussing on the training of medical and health care practitioners transnationally and REVAMP fills this gap. After completion, this project may be used to develop further trans European training.

More than half of the total turnover of a modern industrial firm in Europe is directly transferred to suppliers and it is the responsibility of the purchasing & supply management (PSM) function of a firm to manage these external relationships. In addition, many suppliers are no longer of domestic, but of European and global origin. Firms struggle to find effective and efficient ways to cope with the emergent challenges of network economies with a low depth of production and high reliance on international suppliers. At the same time, an increased expectation of the professionalism and wider skill and competence set of PSM staff were put forward as important performance drivers. Despite this importance, unlike other disciplines, PSM does not have a harmonised higher education curriculum. Contemplating existing programmes shows that there is a mismatch between supply and demand for PSM education and that there is no equality of opportunity to study across Europe. For students, a significant challenge lies in finding appropriate university courses, a problem heightened when trying to match them to their course portfolio during international exchanges. For companies the circumstances in PSM education make it necessary to hire university graduates with other specializations and spend time bringing them up to the required skills level. Consequently, higher education institutions face challenges in the developing of new study programmes to cover future skills requirements for PSM.Recognizing this gap and opportunity, the overall objective of project PERFECT (Purchasing Education and Research for European Competence Transfer) was to develop an empirically validated harmonised European curriculum at Bachelor’s and Master’s levels in PSM and lay the foundations for establishing international study programmes for higher education in PSM at participating universities and beyond.In order to achieve these objectives, a consortium with five project partners and an advisory board was formed bringing together leading universities: TU Dortmund University (Chair of Enterprise Logistics) and Hochschule Mainz (School of Business), Germany, University of Twente (Department Technology Management and Supply), Netherlands, Staffordshire University (Business School), United Kingdom, and Lappeenranta University of Technology (Supply Management at School of Business and Management), Finland. The evaluation and dissemination of project results was conducted with national and international PSM associations, such as IPSERA (International Purchasing and Supply Education and Research Association) and IFPSM (International Federation of Purchasing and Supply Management), as well as regional representatives and associations.To find out which skills and competences to incorporate in a PSM curriculum, project PERFECT followed an integrated approach. Firstly, the project mapped the PSM skills landscape by performing a literature review, an analysis of courses in universities and of 300 European PSM job advertisements. Based on a conceptual skills model developed by research in various sources, the project conducted 46 expert interviews with representatives of various purchasing functions and job roles from 16 companies analysing best practice examples from corporations in various industries and of various sizes and types of companies. The insights gained from this output were validated by a survey with European firms with more than 500 completed questionnaires, in order to identify those skills and competencies that account for successful PSM activities.As the central project output, based on this comprehensive competence assessment, project PERFECT designed an empirically validated, harmonised European PSM curriculum, which draws on the skills and competencies required by PSM practitioners and maps them to a range of relevant modules. It provides opportunities for students to gain international experience and increased employability in PSM related jobs. For the academic organisations, the project results provide an opportunity to strengthen their PSM curricula and reflect the requirements of industry.In order to promote fast and broad dissemination as well providing useful tools for a broad target group, PERFECT developed a PSM skills self-assessment tool and installed an introductory Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) for PSM fundamentals, which can be used by students and organisations to gauge and raise their PSM skills. The tools support a long-term exploitation of the project outcomes resulting in sustainable benefits for users and providers.All the outputs are useful standalone and the results are published as in-depth white papers, which provide additional and more detailed insights. Detailed descriptions of the project, partners and results can be found on the project website www.project-perfect.eu.

The proposed new network will generate interdisciplinary research collaboration and bring together mechatronics/robotics researches from the UK and Japan, to share experiences and formalise discussions for defining a common strategy for future R&D and collaborations at all level of research, teaching and technology transfer. Such a network is vital if the different communities in Japan and UK are to work together for mutual benefit. The network will also act as a knowledge base from the existing mechatronics/robotics community to create a new research community in human adaptive mechatronics able to address the many common challenges (e.g. Pollution / CO2 issue, Aging population issue, etc) in UK and Japan. In particular, the network will explore a number of key challenges: such as a) Investigating the modelling of a man-machine system that explicitly includes all necessary functions of humans as machine operators with sufficient accuracy; b) Implementation of human adaptive behaviour in autonomous systems; c) Application of human adaptive mechatronics to upgrade UK high-tech products; d) Development of human adaptive mechatronics into biomedical applications; e) Development of mathematics to model and analysis human adaptive mechatronic processes in productions.

"BACKGROUND There are a number of frameworks, standards and protocols to assist companies adopt and implement the sustainability practices. However, those frameworks, standards and protocols can be complex, especially for SMEs, and are designed as “one size fits all” with large enterprises in mind (Tutterow, 2014). SMEs today, lack important knowledge regarding sustainability problems (many SMEs admit to confusion over what sustainability is and which programme to follow to introduce sustainability into their businesses). At the same time accountants need to know more about the principles of sustainability if they are to take an independent proactive approach to their work. Report-ASAP concerns the lack of specific experts and expertise in relation to sustainable accounting and reporting practices and techniques. OBJECTIVES - A useful first step to implement sustainability for SMEs. - Encourage the spread of a CSR culture among SMEs operating in the six EU countries of the partnership. - Make sustainability easy to implement while delivering business benefits in terms of cost savings, marketing and employee engagement. - Practical sustainability advice: cover key topics such as energy efficiency, waste and recycling, travel, food, water, health and well-being. - Develop policies/practices to make it easier for SMEs to adopt sustainable practices in their day to day business. PARTICIPANTS [7 partners from 6 countries] The partnership comprises a university actively supporting the up-skilling of SMEs from the region, a software house with significant experience in bespoke web applications, a HEI Foundation which promotes the development of collaboration channels within its socioeconomic environment, a business school and business incubator, a consultancy offering accounting and training services to SMEs, a chamber serving SME members and an educational technology specialist with experience in personalised learning. ACTIVITIES - An analysis of the current awareness of target groups in relation to sustainable accounting and the benefits of corporate sustainability practices in terms of cost savings, marketing and employee engagement. - The design and development of an online training course and supporting tools addressing the missing knowledge and expertise for the adoption of sustainable accounting practices by SMEs. - The establishment of a framework for the recognition of skills and achievements by learners. - The validation of the training course through training sessions. - The dissemination of the training course through multiplier events and its sustainability through the growth of a network of adopters facilitated by a virtual space providing infrastructure, resources and assistance. METHODOLOGY - Identify and depict the existing approaches to ""Sustainable Accounting"" and determine the missing knowledge and skills - Compare national approaches from a critical viewpoint leading to ""Sustainability Reporting Literacy Levels"" across participating countries - Derive a set of recommendations to help even out the ""Sustainability Literacy"" levels - Design & Develop a Training Course addressing the identified shortage in knowledge and skills. - Model the course inside a Learning Motivation Environment (LME) - Design a dynamic demonstrator to visually explain key concepts of the course. - Create a virtual space as the single entry point to all outputs and provide the necessary infrastructure to support and grow a network of adopters. RESULTS - Set of recommendations for addressing the shortage in knowledge and skills related to sustainable accounting - Training Course and Trainer's Guide - Online Delivery Environment and Dynamic Demonstrator - Open Badges Framework for skills and achievements recognition - A virtual space providing the necessary infrastructure to support an international network of adopters. IMPACT - Increased awareness about Sustainable Accounting practices and reporting systems - Acquisition of Sustainable Accounting skills. - Mobility through ECVET provisions and the Skills and Achievements Recognition Framework. - Improvement of current training opportunities and tools in support of sustainable accounting and reporting practices and techniques. - Increased trust among investors and consumers. - Promotion of Sustainable Accounting practices as part of a Corporate Social Responsibility policy. - Accessible training opportunities of high quality and value. - Improvement of company image and positive impact on balance sheet. LONG TERM BENEFITS The diffusion of the CSR culture among SMEs operating in the six European countries of the partnership. Benefits of sustainability reporting for SMEs include increased appeal to environmentally conscious customers, strengthening relationships with suppliers, positioning their brand as a good corporate citizen, generating greater loyalty and commitment from employees, and reducing operating costs resulting in improved profitability."