"“Dual ECOsystems – EU Alliances for ICT” project is promoted by a consortium of 7 partners from 4 different EU countries.The project partners, within the regional/statal Dual System in which they operate, have more or less informally created virtuous local ""ecosystems"" in the ICT sector to ensure effective local cooperation between the VET actors involved in the delivery of Dual training programmes, for the success of all (student/worker, companies, VET institutions).Such ecosystems normally involve:•VET institutions•Companies, Chambers and companies’ representation bodies•Workers' associations / Trade Unions•Universities •Accreditation and Certification bodiesThe project starts from the premise that within the partnership the partners have identified some cases of apparent good practices, that are success factors in the different Dual Systems of the countries involved, which guarantee the proper functioning of the ecosystems, in terms of: high quality of VET paths; raising the employability rate; effective work-based learning system; efficient skills certification system.“DUAL ECO” project will let partners observe and share good practices adopted in the 4 local “ecosystems”, confront together on them and evaluate which good practices have the potentiality to be transferred at European level; then, the partners will conduct an experimentation on some selected good practices, importing them into their local ecosystems and applying to existing VET Dual programmes, in order to evaluate the transferability of each good practice at a larger scale.To achieve this goal, the project will be articulated in 5 Short-term joint staff learning and training events:•one for each country involved (Italy, Spain, Germany, United Kingdom) – for staff of partners organizations (managers, teachers/trainers, tutors, researchers) - organized as Study Visits, combining on-site visits to relevant organizations, presentations, discussions, workshops and/or training courses. These activities will be aimed at studying the good practices implemented by each ecosystem, at sharing ideas and confronting on the models in place;•one in Italy - for staff of partners organizations (managers, teachers/trainers, tutors, researchers) – organized as Training in participatory technique, managed by professional facilitators, that will combine peer discussions and workshops.This activity will let the partners exchange the good practices and confront among them on lessons learnt through the four study visits. At this stage, the partner organizations must learn from each other in order to create a “Dual ECOsystems” model, including a set of good practices that can be transferred at EU level, taking into account the different national contexts.The model will be reported in an Handbook, drafted by the partner organizations and containing “good practices and methods for effective Dual ECOsystems”.Each local ecosystem selects the good practices to import. To evaluate their transferability, the good practices chosen will be applied in each partner “ecosystem” on a local Dual VET ICT programme (involving associated partners from the countries):•In Italy on “Junior System Administrator - IFTS in Apprendistato” (level IV EQF) – duration 1-year course, at Engim Lombardia – starting in October/November 2022•In Spain on “Specialization VET Programme on Cybersecurity” (level VI EQF) – duration 1-year course, at Maristak - starting in September 2022•In Germany on 2nd-year training of “Higher Education Apprenticeships Programme” on ICT (level VII EQF), at ITB Bremen – starting in September 2022•In United Kingdom on 1st-year training of “Higher Education Apprenticeships Programme” on ICT (level V EQF), at Belfast Metropolitan College – starting in September 2022Once set the good practices to be evaluated, the partnership will agree on general and specific “evaluation indicators”.Each local ecosystem will run an on-going evaluation on the effectiveness of the good practices applied.At the end of the programmes, a “Final evaluation on the effectiveness of the good practices applied” will be held by each local ecosystem.On the basis of the evaluation outcomes, each local ecosystem will draft a brief report on “Evaluation on the transferability of the good practices applied”, in order to improve the final version of the Handbook.The latest release of the Handbook can be shared in all UE national context for the application of good and transferable practices of the model developed (Dissemination of the project results)."

The EU and many other countries in the world have been heavily affected by the Pandemic. One reason why the Covid-19 virus did cause so much harm to the European societies is the constant labour shortage in the care service sector. Indeed, it took a global lockdown to realize that care is embedded in every aspect of our life. Unlike the mainstream capitalism ideas, the functioning of social cohesion and of our economies is depending heavily on care. However, those who are working currently in the care sector have been among the lowest paid workers, and the majority of care workers caring for the elderly are migrant caregivers, who “are not licensed and sometimes work outside the oversight of regulatory bodies, and concerns about the quality of care have thus been raised.” (WHO, 2008: “Home Care in Europe). Therefore, WHO advises policy makers and care service providers to (better) qualify these migrants, in order to minimize the share of irregular workers and compensate for the educational and social disadvantages of migrants employed in the care sector.MAIN OBJECTIVES: Enhancing the employability skills, employment conditions and quality of care of migrants in the Home/Residential Care Service SectorSECONDARY OBJECTIVES: raise awareness - of the social and labor conditions of migrant care workers; - of the shortage of qualified caregivers; - enhance the skills of VET providers for training low-qualified migrants PARTICIPANTS: 243 VET providers and trainers, 118 migrant organizations, 33 migrants, 88 Home/Residential Care Service providers, 574 stakeholders of healthcare, migrant and labor policy PARTNERS: The project Consortium comprised 6 partners from 5 European countries: VET providers for adult training from the Basque Country, Germany, Italy, Greece and UK. All together, they brought experience in training migrants and refugees, in providing care training, in detecting structural barriers at the labor market. ACTIVITIES in the project were: to collaborate with care service and training providers in order to deliver the outputs; to engage with stakeholders in order to raise awareness of the need for training migrants; to exchange with other partners on best practice experience in training migrants, The tangible results of the project were: - TRAINING TOOLKIT for migrants in the Home and Residential Care Service Sector: Skills Assessment tools (e.g. Personal and Professional Development; Applying for Jobs and Interviews; Employment Rights and Responsibilities), training tools in different care aspects such as: the Role of the Care Worker, Communication in Adult Care Settings, Body Systems and Common Conditions with Aging and cultural bias (e.g. in working relationships; cultural differences in communication, well-being and respecting individual choices, respect of private space) are part of the Toolkit in different units. The Toolkit also contains a qualification description based on the ECVET methodology that describes the Learning Outcomes of the training material on EQF Level1 in 11 Units. - Online WORK-BASED LANGUAGE COURSE for training useful vocabulary and sentences based on real-life work situations placed on a Moodle platform.- ONLINE HANDBOOK for Care Service Providers with information and a set of question to guide through the recruiting process of migrants (legal procedure, work permit/residency permit, procedure to certify foreign work experience etc.) for each partner country, placed on the project webpage - COUNTRY SPECIFIC ANALYSIS on the structure of healthcare systems of partner countries- SUCCESS STORIES and GOOD PRACTICE EXAMPLES that focus on the training background of migrants, on handling discrimination at workplace and on resolving language/communication problems- research of partners on the impact of Pandemic on migrant care workers and labour shortage in the care sectorMETHODOLOGY: peer approach for exchanging work experience and work collaboratively on the delivery of the Outputs, review of the Toolkit content and identification of mistakes, in-depth exchange on structure of care services and migrant issues, IMPACT: The project raised awareness about the need for tailored training and the access to qualifications for migrant care workers, in order to promote the legal employment of migrant care workers and enhance their quality of caregiving. On a long term view, the project results are of importance for fighting the labour crisis in the healthcare service and the migrant crisis in the European societies.All results are available on the project webpage: www.migrantstakecare.eu

In the current global context of complex economic challenges, there is growing interest in how workplaces develop and use skills, and this involves understanding the nature of the skills demanded by employers, and therefore the need of VET-business win-win cooperation has become morepressing. Cooperation between businesses and VET is very important for both the quality of education and for making sure future employees have the skills which labour market needs. By organising the VET provision close to the labour market, the skills needs can be more directlycommunicated and solved and does not (necessarily) depend on skills surveys or skills forecasting models.Despite, as concluded by a recent study from EC, there exists several constraining factors to successful VET-business cooperation across Europe, and in particularly in BRIDGES’ participating countries (North Ireland, England, Ireland, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Poland and Cyprus), including: lack of effective dialogue between business, providers and government; insufficient ownership of the real needs of businesses and to a lesser degree, of providers; high costs of training making companies, in particular SMEs, reluctant to invest; lack of information about benefits of and opportunities in VET; limited business’ and learners’ participation due to still a lower attractiveness of VET (at least when compared with other educational paths).With a view to the above-mentioned challenges, partners recognise the need of upskilling their VET professionals and have an effective employer engagement internal policy and agenda. In this frame, BRIDGES project will provide a bespoke framework, blended CPD programme and digital resources to support VET providers and professionals in improving WBL through effective employer engagement. The following objectives, activities and participants are defined:-Supply VET providers with a bespoke 4-level employer engagement framework: i) Building Educational Capacity; ii) Co-designing Curricula and Career Pathways; iii) Leading and Networking; iv) Enhancing Internationalisation;-Upskill 64 VET professionals in effective employer engagement that has the required impacts, through a blended CPD course and digital resources;-Engage 40 associated partners and key stakeholders by involving them in development, validation, dissemination and exploitation actions;-Promote the excellence and attractiveness of WBL and VET among VET providers, professionals and stakeholders, through BRIDGES Community of practice and multiplier events in all partners' countries, targeting more than 210 participants (including VET providers, VET professionals, employers, but also Social Partners, HE and AE providers and professionals, chambers of commerce, employers’ associations, public bodies, decision and policy makers).Expected outcomes of the BRIDGES project are:- Knowledge acquired on efficient employer engagement pathways by partners’ organisations and other VET providers involved in the project;- Skills gained on employer engagement by VET professionals involved in the project;- Increased use of the BRIDGES virtual learning environment and community of practice;- Reinforced links, synergies and cooperation among partners’ organisations but also other VET providers and their network of employers;- Increased awareness of VET and WBL as an attractive way of education and employability;- Enhanced capacity of VET providers and professionals to proactively engage with employers to identify and respond to their specific skills needs;- Deep-rooted strategic partnerships with local, national and international employers of every size to work in designing and delivering VET solutions that meet their current and specific skills demands, whilst planning for those of the future;- Increased appropriation, transferability and scalability of the project and its outputs (available as OER is six languages - english, portuguese, german, spanish, polish and greek) by VET providers and professionals, but also by other educational players, such as AE and HE in other European countries;- Expanded awareness of VET and WBL as an attractive way of education and employability, across Europe.

ARISE is developing a EU wide distinguishable recognition scheme of digital energy efficient BIM construction skills linked with a maturity-based digital ranking system for accounting CPD based learning transactions. The open competency based qualification scheme based on maturity levels that empower micro-learning will be the basis for making learning transactions count. The project team will be gathering and linking BIM modules, tools and materials with the aim to establish a BIM resource and skills recognition pathway that all stakeholders can utilise, deliver and stimulate. This will provide BIM Energy performance alliance (BIM-EP) partners and other stakeholders with an e-learning materials repository to contribute to, whilst also developing a CPD recognition pathway for the whole supply chain to access and utilise. ARISE will revolutionise the learning process by developing a crypto-skills exchange, monetizing the skills and learning interface with a system based on skills recognition rather than accreditation. The reward of acquiring a competence at a certain level will be CERTcoin the innovative currency of skills and learning of the construction sector embracing today’s digital transformation benefits. This reward based on skills and time credits will be stored in an Individual learning Account and can be used as digital points accumulation in a skills barometer or for exchanging it into valid micro certificates. This will be an industry driven, easier accessible, less time consuming, highly competitive way to up-skill blue and white collars and increase vocational mobility. ARISE will complement and integrate with other existing projects, instruments and initiatives to deliver increased levels of sustainable energy skills across the entire supply chain of the construction sector. ARISE will collaborate with other key actors and target groups to improve synergies and drive workforce demand for diversification in skills recognition and certification.

A Transparent Training Model and toolkit enabling and empowering industry to achieve a greener built environment. To develop a more efficient and relevant training programme materials to integrate concepts of sustainability and renewables together it practical application and integration with technology ( BIM) based on real life industry needs and limitations.