The TRUST project aims to boost research excellence in the area of INDUSTRIAL SUSTAINABILITY by increasing the scientific and technical capacities. This will allow to support and engage European industries in their pathway to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. TRUST partnership brings together ISQ, a Portuguese research institution and two internationally-leading universities - University of Cambridge and Chalmers University. In TRUST, ISQ will be building upon their experience and development potential it has demonstrated in this area to address their issues related to the lack of both scientific culture to systematize/theorize of their project results (leading to poor scientific productivity) as well as lack of specialized training in emerging sustainability assessment and management tools. The TRUST concept will be achieved following an approach based on an active shared learning strategy, based on: 1) Training of staff on-campus, on-line courses and webinars; 2) joint initiatives including staff exchange, joint supervision, experience of different research & organizational cultures, scientific review, organization of biannual summer schools and joint scientific publications and 3) dissemination and communication strategy allowing the engagement of relevant stakeholders, namely by TRUST workshops and annual stakeholder exchange forums, to foster the identification of new partnerships and industrial driven research opportunities. The TRUST partnership will not only improve the scientific and technical capacities of ISQ but will also set the basis for a long lasting cooperation for the development of excellence research in service of the European industry. This initiative will create a Joint Research Agenda beyond TRUST project lifetime, aiming to contribute to a more balanced development of the European Research. This twining initiatives are aligned with the European Commission strategy for the creation of “stairways to excellence”.

"The idea for this project, submitted to the Erasmus+ National Agency in the UK, arose from the fact that there is a lack of qualified personnel in the car body repair sector. Following a report from Boston Consulting Group, ""The European Aftermarket Landscape"", which says that ""the total market volume for the five analysed focus markets (Germany, France, Great Britain, Spain and Poland) is approximately 115 billion euros"", it is easy to understand the target for the impacts of CARBOREP. From that very same report, it is worth mentioning that ""The introduction of new vehicle materials such as aluminium, carbon and UV paint require special tools, instruments and increased training requirements as well. ""Once more, it is clear the need for the ECBRT professional; for a harmonised training solution for all the personnel working in this sector: the European Car Body Repair Technician. The project aimed to resolve the skills mismatch for the employers of companies involved in car body repair processes. CARBOREP has developed a harmonized training course for personnel involved in this activity, designed to satisfy the requirements of both large enterprises and SMEs in different European countries, and creating a European Car Body Repair Technician curriculum, associated training materials and assessment scheme.The consortium consisted of 4 partners. EWF is the European Federation for Welding, Joining and Cutting, with a Training and Qualification network covering 31 member countries that was essential in the implementation and dissemination of the CARBOREP results. The remaining partners were the welding and quality institutes of the UK (TWI), Portugal (ISQ), and Spain (CESOL), which have strong knowledge and expertise in training and qualification at a sector-based level. TWI acted as the Project Coordinator, in direct contact with the National Agency in the UK.The CARBOREP project addressed the lack of specific qualifications and training schemes available for personnel working in the vehicle repair and maintenance industry (specifically for car body repair) in Europe. By creating a high quality curriculum, which features state of the art technologies and manufacturing processes used in car body repair, CARBOREP provides a methodology by which personnel can demonstrate their competence and guarantee the quality of their work and enhance motor vehicle safety. CARBOREP is a harmonised training solution for all personnel working in the car body repair sector and enables local repair workshops and other independent operators to maintain currency with advancing manufacturing techniques and ensure vehicle repair and maintenance routines are performed correctly. This project will have a significant impact across Europe, because it created a professional profile (European Car Body Repair Technician - ECBRT) that covers a specific market need. The project gains even more relevance because the skills and qualification profile development was done at a European level, with a transnational scope, aligned with the European market needs, and then transferred to the national level. This contributes to achieving the European Union's targets and the objectives of the Erasmus+ program of increasing the labour market relevance of VET and reducing skills mismatches and shortages.In addition, and based on the number of companies that work in motor vehicle repair in Europe, there is presently a high need for new VET-content for the training, qualification and certification activities in this field. Common VET-qualifications for personnel working in the car body repair industry, currently offered on a local or national level, are not able to deliver a systematic approach to VET for this occupation. CARBOREP closes this gap and delivers a European qualification standard, improves the quality of the VET-system by incorporating common European tools (e.g. RPL, Learning Outcomes, EQF, ECVET), promoting the transparency, recognition of competences and mutual synergies between I-VET and C-VET. The CARBOREP outputs are designed to boost the skills capital of this sector, important due to its market size, and support an industry-based skills network in order to promote the further need-oriented skills development. CARBOREP fostered the involvement of different stakeholders in making VET more responsive to the needs of the labour market. Having identified the above-mentioned needs, this project created a harmonised training guideline featuring a modular curriculum built with Learning Outcomes, training materials in 3 languages (English, Spanish and Portuguese) and design of the assessment for the trainees. All of these results help mitigate the identified EU market shortfalls."

EU policies to ensure food safety are based in finding effective and integrated solutions and developing better ways of assuring microbiological security in food, in this context, an essential aspect to ensure food safety is the performance of quality based analytical controls. The European Regulation for the microbiological criteria (2073/2005 and modifications) is aimed for the harmonization in most aspects of safety and health regulations within Europe, establishing safety criteria and reference official methods for testing . This regulation clearly states the need of proficiency in the performance of the analysis and as consequence testing laboratories need to adopt actions for their recognition by official bodies and entities.The implementation and the maintenance of the ISO/IEC 17025 quality assurance system in a laboratory requires of technical competence to achieve all the necessary milestones in the areas of management; training of technicians; equipment certification; systematic for methods validation and extensive documentation. The drawbacks of developing and maintaining an efficient quality assurance system, such as the time-consuming efforts, the increased expenses and the bureaucracy, impair laboratories from achieving this goal and in most cases the process is elongated from what was originally planned, increasing costs and postponing the benefits achieved by the accreditation or recognition of the laboratory proficiency.MicroQLab main objective is to develop an innovative E-learning programme on Quality Systems for food microbiological laboratories, providing knowledge acquisition and specialisation in the analytical area of food microbiology.As it has been expressed by the EU commission, there is an important need to modernize higher education and quality in VET, in order to keep up with the globalization and technological developments all over Europe. MicroQLab attends to the need of professional development for staff in line with industry and organization needs and objectives, that requires more and more, higher level of quality in their results.The methodology for obtaining the course will be first conducting a Needs Analysis at a European level, to access the level of difficulty encountered by laboratory workers when facing the implementation of a Quality System in their laboratories. This information will be analysed to obtain the specific contents of the course. In a second stage, the design of an E-learning programme will be created in an open platform, interactive and attractive for the user and before the release there will be a third stage in which a pilot study will be done with trainees from different parts of Europe, in order to evaluate the adequacy, acceptance and to implement corrections before obtaining the final version. MicroQLab will use the latest ICT tools, making more modern, attractive and flexible the process of learning, adapted to today’s preferences for the youth.The course will be presented in modules that can be obtained independently so, making even more flexible for the trainees the knowledge acquisition, with interactive exercises, practical situations that will prepare then better to apply the methods learnt in a real situation. The learning process will be aid with virtual laboratories, presenting scenarios with a particular situation (e.g. evaluation of a calibration equipment). Other audiovisual elements, such as videos and games, will encourage the trainee to complete the course.The main impact of MicroQLab, for the target groups, will be the access to a more efficient and cost-effective way of implementing a quality system in a laboratory in the analytical area of food microbiology. This will improve skills and qualifications to facilitate personal development and employability for trainees that are seeking for jobs and need to acquire practical competence to access to the labour market The course will be also very beneficial for the trainees that are already working and need the acquisition of new knowledge and skills to achieve new responsibilities in the work place, allowing to have competence in new areas that are every time more in demand. These trainees will benefit saving time and efforts when confronted to the tasks involved in the implementation of a quality system, making then more motivated and satisfied at their jobs.For the stakeholder the impact of MicroQLab will be also important and can be measured by the improvement of the competitiveness of the food sector by building the abilities of employees to better practices in food control, assurance of quality and increasing growth and internationalization.Apart from the benefits obtained by the target groups, long term result of the project can be envisaged by the transference of the concept and methodology to other sectors and by transferring the course to new or existing VET or University courses for their official recognition to public curriculum.