CONTEXTCovid-19 crisis has disrupted the education process especially in VET, where digital readiness was not uniform. While remote learning offers some educational continuity, VET sector has been hardly hit by the crisis (The impact of covid-19 on education, OECD report). However, increase is foreseen in the generated value and growth rate until 2027 in TVET in Europe (Report Ocean market research, Sept.2020). Current and next generation of trainers and workers needs to be more tech savvy, as ICT skills are required to offer & receive education & training. Digital natives are not necessarily digital literate. VET centers need to monitor and improve the quality of the provided training, in order to reach digital readiness that is becoming even more necessary today. VET centers/teachers need to adapt/act quickly, supporting learners from remote areas, offering blended teaching and promoting a safer, more responsible and ethical use of digital technology. However, everyone seems to focus on online tools, evaluation and examination methods, but there is no framework to assess the digital readiness at VET level. Even the online survey launched by the European Commission demonstrates this gap. The EFQM Model combined with the capabilities offered by the Digital Competence Framework can serve as a basis for this process. VET centers and trainers will be allowed to identify the key criteria they need to focus, according to their strategic objectives. There is already a map of the previous EFQM Model with EQAVET that can serve as a basis for this effort. The project will support opportunities for trainers and experts to acquire key competences in assessing digital education readiness. It will also support the professional development of educators and foster actions supporting high-quality and innovative assessment, combined with the deployment and evaluation of digital tools. OBJECTIVESGeneral objective: offer a methodology for a quality plan to VET centers and trainers for them to: 1) adopt a quality-centric point of view for their services and internal operations, 2) address digital education readiness issue, 3) assess training methods’ adaptability, 4) assess quality of online/distance/blended learning in the post covid-19 era. Main objectives:-understand more deeply the digital education readiness status in the VET sector;-assess a mixture of Quality Assurance (QA) methods and models and provide the novel Q4EDU framework;-prepare the ECVET curriculum for an expert and develop a novel methodology for specialised training. -develop training content, keeping in mind the quality criteria and performance indicators;-develop the Digital Readiness Assessment Tool that incorporates the proposed Q4EDU framework, perform trials and assess results, - develop Policy Recommendation/Guidelines document.NEEDS / PROBLEM TO BE ADDRESSEDVET trainers need to:-acquire key competences and be properly prepared to respond to new challenges in VET raised by the emergence of covid-19;-be able to adapt and act quickly, supporting learners from remote areas, offering blended teaching and promoting a safer, more responsible and more ethical use of digital technology; -be provided with methodologies to evaluate training methods and courses (i.e. online, blended and distance learning);-learn how to ‘value’ the use of new technologies and workflows in their trainings;-upskill with new competences.VET providers (i.e. managers and professionals) need:-updated curricula and attractive portfolios, engaging various education methods (online/distance/blended learning) adapted to emerging conditions;-to adapt/act quickly, supporting learners from remote areas, offering blended teaching and promoting safer, more responsible and ethical use of digital technology;-to employ specialised and highly trained trainers;-to provide additional courses tailored to trainees' needs.VET students need to:-be better prepared for challenging future careers enjoying inclusive nature of learning opportunities;-be provided with high-quality VET services.TARGET GROUPSVET trainers who want to be familiarised with high quality assessment of mixed/online/distance learning courses are mainly targeted and thus supported to enhance their digital readiness capabilities. Secondary target groups include VET professionals (e.g consultants, managers etc.) who want to evaluate the digital readiness of their organisation, as this is important for their competitiveness and sustainability. The project intends to outreach to more than 200 VET providers/trainers/trainees, more than 200 participants in multiplier events belonging to the defined target groups, at least 600 stakeholders at conferences/dissemination events and at least 5000 audience overall.

Smart Shrinkage Solutions - Fostering Resilient Cities in Inner Peripheries of Europe is a project that offers the best practice and most feasible solutions to the problem of urban shrinkage - a continuous population decline affecting more than 1,500 cities all over Europe. By learning from the experience of the cities that once were on the edge of an abyss but have bounced back to life, by sharing the key ingredients of their success across Europe and beyond, this project enables as many shrinking cities as possible to adapt, transform, and thrive in the face of continuously and often dramatically changing circumstances.

Europe currently spends less on R&D than the US, Japan and many other countries. Meanwhile, Europe's public authorities are major consumers of goods and services. Public procurement accounts for about 19% of the GDP in the European Union and offers an enormous potential market for innovative products and services [1].The Europe 2020 Strategy sets a target of 3% of the EU's GDP to be invested in R&D by 2020. In this way, innovation has been incorporated into the new European Public Procurement Directives approved on 26th February 2014 [2] as a new public policy, at the same level as the social and environmental one, which should be promoted through contractual instruments.The new directives open up a number of opportunities for Public Procurement of Innovative solutions (PPI), while maintaining the basic requirements of competition, transparency, equal treatment and compliance with EU state aid rules.Likewise, the European Commission establishes, among other strategic priorities, to boost innovation through public procurement, and to improve SMEs access to public tender market.On the other hand, the European habitat sector, dominated by SMEs, provides 1 million direct jobs in 130 thousand companies generating an annual turnover of around EUR 96 billion, and their purchases represent 16% of the GDP.The “Study on the EU furniture market situation” highlights that R&D and innovation are crucial factors to maintain market positions [3]. Nevertheless, only a small number of European companies carry out industrial research activities in order to develop new materials or technology for furniture.At the same time, there is an increasing demand for smart health care services, whose costs are covered by public expenditures in all EU countries. Thus, a high number of habitat companies has appeared in the last few years that implement Ambient Assisted Living technologies to offer new products related to the eHealth sector. These new products benefit patients, in the form of a more efficient treatment, and reduce the treatment costs. Hence, supporting innovative practices in the health care sector is a crucial step towards improving the services.For that reason, the main objective of the HAePPI project is to develop a new learning curriculum on PPI in line with the needs of habitat and eHealth SMEs. An innovative and open resource programme of vocational education and training, which will provide an adapted curriculum to equip professionals with the specific, basic and transversal skills currently required for the public procurement of innovation.To reach the main objective, different activities will be carried out:1. Learning outcomes definition based on a complete analysis of current best practices on PPI and SMEs´ needs2. Joint Curriculum definition3. Development of the training materials with interactive tools4. Complete learning evaluation on a developed online e-learning platformIn order to achieve such purposes, a Strategic Partnership has put 6 entities together from different countries and expertise in the different fields of the proposed project: two Universities with high expertise in public procurement policies (UNIZAR and ULO); two clusters from different sectors, habitat and eHealth (AMUEBLA and iVITA); a Technology Park and a business organisation expert in innovation management (STP); and a macro-regional hotspot for health and innovation (ScanBalt). The consortium will be completed with several associated partners (business associations, universities, development agencies, etc.) that will be involved in different tasks and will ensure wide dissemination for the project results.Although a HAePPI training course will be launched for the habitat and eHealth sectors, the final beneficiaries of the results will be a great number of SMEs and public institutions around Europe. Therefore, the HAePPI project will have a high final impact on thousands of enterprises and therefore in the European economy.The HAePPI project will achieve the following results and benefits:- The outputs obtained will strengthen the education and training paths of SMEs managers and workers, equipping them with the necessary competences and skills to participate in public tenders of innovation.- Development of specific, basic and transversal competences and skills relevant for SMEs, such as management, entrepreneurship, leadership, digital and creativity skills, and language competence in the field of VET.- Promotion of creative and innovative practices in the habitat and eHealth sectors, such as the implementation of electronic devices or internet of things technology.- Foster the PPI as an essential instrument to achieve the Horizon 2020 targets and to improve innovation in Europe.[1] Guidance for public authorities on Public Procurement of Innovation. DG Enterprise & Industry[2] Directives 2014/23/EU; 2014/24/EU, and 2014/25/EU[3] Study on the EU furniture market situation. Csil

The project Reducing housing inequalities in the green and digital transition (ReHousIn) is committed to better understand the impacts of recent crises on housing inequalities across different European regions, especially with regard to the implementation of the green transition launched by the EU. The overall aim is to explore the mechanisms affecting the (re)production of housing inequalities under recent crisis conditions, and the impacts of the EU induced green transition in different national contexts and along different degrees of urbanisation. Based on a contextualized and comparative understanding of the mechanisms (re)producing housing inequalities, ReHousIn inquiries into multi-level pathways and inclusive local housing initiatives to spark innovative EU, national and local policy solutions towards inclusionary and quality housing, mitigating the possible negative impacts of the EU induced green transition. It conducts a comparative, multi-level analysis in 9 European countries – Austria, France, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom – focusing on attractive metropolitan regions, middle-sized cities and rural areas by means of a mixed-method project design. A quantitative data analysis on recent trends in housing inequalities and their relation to crises across different levels of urbanization will provide the framework for 27 local cases studies in which the impact of multi-level trajectories of housing-system, welfare regimes and environmental policy instrumentations on the (re)production of local housing inequalities and the emergence of inclusive housing initiatives are analyzed. Based on this, ReHousIn compares mechanisms of differentiation feeding into policy labs, aiming to formulate recommendations on how to tackle negative social externalities related the EU green transition at EU, national and local levels.