The Prevent Bullying and Abuse project was implemented by seven organisations in six countries (Hungary, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Portugal, Romania) between 1 September 2018 and 30 April 2021. In the past, all of them had experienced that young adults or school-age children from vulnerable groups were often exposed to violence or abuse in their environment. This problem has also been recognised at national level in the participating countries. Organisations from different fields have joined forces to tackle youth violence:The National Institute for Disability and Social Policy (HU), which works on behalf of people with disabilities; the Youth School in Copenhagen (DK), which also runs five second chance schools; second chance schools from Chambéry (FR) and Matosinhos (PT), the Association of Form Masters in Hungary (HU), the Sociology Department of Babes-Bólya University in Cluj-Napoca (RO) and the Teatre Tsvete in Sofia (BG).The project partners in the consortium sought and found innovative ways to raise awareness of the problem among young adults and their peers involved in or at risk of abuse.The solution was to develop a simulation game in which different young adult characters from vulnerable groups appear and participants have to put themselves in their shoes. They have to step into their shoes and deal with different abuse situations: verbal and emotional abuse, as well as financial, physical and sexual abuse. A key element of the project was to imagine and create characters that the consortium members could meet in their immediate environment, and to make the different incidents they encounter real life. The National Institute for Disability and Social Policy (HU), which works on behalf of people with disabilities; the Youth School in Copenhagen (DK), which also runs five second chance schools; second chance schools from Chambéry (FR) and Matosinhos (PT), the Association of Form Masters in Hungary (HU), the Sociology Department of Babes-Bólya University in Cluj-Napoca (RO) and the Teatre Tsvete in Sofia (BG).The project partners in the consortium sought and found innovative ways to raise awareness of the problem among young adults and their peers involved in or at risk of abuse.The solution was to develop a simulation game in which different young adult characters from vulnerable groups appear and participants have to put themselves in their shoes. They have to step into their shoes and deal with different abuse situations: verbal and emotional abuse, as well as financial, physical and sexual abuse. A key element of the project was to create and 'invent' characters that the consortium members could meet in their immediate environment, and to make the different incidents they encounter real life. In addition, these should be real-life situations, both in the project countries and in Europe in general.Another critical point of the project was how to process this with the participants of the game in such a way that they do not experience the participation as a lesson or an overly didactic game, but as an event that is enjoyable for them, and at the same time the experiences they have had make them more aware and empathetic in recognising, dealing with or, if possible, avoiding situations of abuse.The development of the simulation game was a long process, during which each partner independently tested both the characters and the method of processing during the three phases of development, so that the final product was continuously shaped by the experience of testing. The final product is a toolkit that could be played as a board game, or using only forum theatre techniques, or a combination of the two. Elements of the toolkit: Guidelines, which explain the essence of the game and make recommendations for possible applications,A guide to using forum theatre techniques,Suggestions for a game board,17 different character space cards5 - 5 situation cards for each characterGame master booklet.The toolkit is freely available in seven languages English, in addition to the languages of the participating countries, and can be downloaded from the project website (linket beszúrni) and the EPALE website (linket beszúrni). The project participants in their national language on their own web sites will make the toolkit available.The toolkit will contribute to the development of competences of educators working with young adults and young people of school age. It will help them to educate and sensitise their students on bullying and violence without using didactic methods. It helps them to recognise when such situations occur among their students and supports them in dealing with both the victim and the perpetrator. The results of the project will be further exploited by several partners, including in university courses, disseminated to students and teachers through the project partres’ national and European networks, and developed into a teacher training programme.

"A rapidly changing global economy and concerns about the EU ability to create a competitive workforce have focused attention on Member State's education and training systems. Policy reforms have focused on improving the quality and accountability of education and training, through a shift from defining standards based on teaching inputs to learning outcomes .This has impacted on providers of compensatory education such as second chance education which find that the use of informal and nonformal learning makes success factors less easy to measure.In 2012 DGEAC commissioned research into good practices in second chance education and its success factors with a view to identifying transferability to initial education and training. The study concluded there was ""strong potential"" for transferability and lessons could be learned from second chance provision but gaps in qualitative and quantitative measures of success could not provide evidence of the longer term effectiveness of provision designed to reduce ESL. The DGEAC study recommended the development of a quality framework to underpin the active transfer of good practices from second chance education and to build the evidence base of long term impacts and outcomes of second chance education . SMART has brought together 8 partners,experts from different sectors to share best practice in self evaluation and self monitoring including higher education, adult education , upper secondary education and second chance education. The SMART project developed a quality framework as its aim, for use by providers of second chance education that can help to address the gaps identified by DGEAC, enable providers to evidence their success factors and enhance the quality and relevance of the learning offer. The objective is to raise the visibility and profile of compensatory education with policy/decision makers and encourage the adoption of compensatory measures within prevention and intervention measures through greater transparency and accountability.SMART conducted a review of existing good practices in evidencing success factors and identified training needs of teachers/trainers.An online Systematic Measurement System with accompanying quality indicators and measurement tools that facilitates ongoing monitoring and evaluation of teaching and learning has been developed through a ""bottom -up"" approach. The SMS has been tested, following 2 training events for teachers. Guidelines for implementation of a self evaluation system have been developed for policy makers and educational organisations, together with a handbook for teachers. 5 Multiplier events have enabled stakeholders to share best practice and provide input into the SMS development. In the immediate term the teacher training programme has raised awareness of the benefits of self evaluation and raised teacher expectations of learners through transparent evidencing of success. The expected long term impact will be the upgrading of the quality of informal learning through a self evaluation process. Raised aspirations drive forwards improvement in teaching and learning, impacting on methods used by professionals and ultimately benefiting disadvantaged young people at risk of ESL."

NewWorkTech engages in research-based enhancement of the work-related capacities of a) people with disabilities and b) the general workforce, with particular focus on technologically mediated tasks and interaction. The project covers the entire arc of development from empirical research into how people with disabilities – as forerunners of technology use – perform tasks and interact at work, to theoretical innovation regarding the nature of socio-material assemblages as well as what constitutes technology, to policy recommendations, and to the development of new technological solutions, including AI-based technologies. We consider people with disabilities to be experts in using technical systems to improve their work performance, and through an analysis of a variety of use cases, will identify elements of successful use as well as factors that cause problems for interaction or the performance of tasks. Empirical results will also be generated by surveys and co-creation activities. People with disabilities will be engaged in NewWorkTech in line with the principle “nothing about us without us”. NGO partners will be actively involved as facilitators in the empirical research and as drivers of application and dissemination. Through our own technological development effort, attention to the ethical use of technologies, and the dissemination of the knowledge we generate, the results will feed into improved usage methods and functionality of work-related technologies, as well as knowledge about the required skills. The smart use of technology thus achieved will help create employment opportunities for people with disabilities, improving their quality of life and reducing inequalities while also helping alleviate the current shortage of labour in Europe, and open possibilities for more efficient and creative use of technology by everyone, whether they have physical or cognitive limitations or not.

The CIRCOFIN project brings together 4 cities and regions to transition to a circular economy in the construction and buildings sector. Munich, Copenhagen, Scotland and Lisbon will prepare investment-ready circular construction hubs (CCH) and showcase how they transform local and regional markets for secondary building components and materials. CCH cover physical material banks and digital infrastructure to provide the resource basis for the EU Taxonomy requirements for construction. To date, CCH have not successfully scaled-up across Europe. The project will demonstrate that CCHs can become bankable projects at scale and provide lucrative investment opportunities for financiers. The showcases develop sound technical, business, and financial plans of more than 80 M€ total investment volume. CIRCOFIN streamlines a common project development assistance (PDA) methodology for CCH, used and validated by the showcases. The methodology results in a CCH Toolbox, which consists of customizable components for all project development stages, from pre-feasibility to due diligence and bankability appraisal. It covers all elements of CCH – physical design, digital infrastructure, logistics, business models, operation models and financial models. The results will be published as a CCH Cookbook with concrete facts and figures, ready for widespread replication by other cities and regions. Replication and roll-out aim to trigger uptake in 30 other cities and regions from the CCRI, Circular Cities Declaration and the Mission Cities of the 100 Climate-neutral and Smart Cities Mission. Investors and EU financial initiatives will gain expertise in advising CCH projects via robust technical and operational insights and learn how to review associated risks, to make better investment decisions on circular economy projects. Standardization will on CEN and ISO as well as policy recommendations improve regulation to enable business and investment cases for CCH market uptake in Europe.

In relation to the Europe 2020 strategy, the project addresses the themes of social inclusion, employability, the active participation of young people in the civil society, training and youth work. In particular, in relation to the seven flagship initiatives for the European contribution to the Europe 2020 strategy that aims to stimulate progress in terms of growth and employment, our project is based on the second flagship initiative “youth on the move”. The target of our project is made up of young people who lack of basic competences due to social, economic and geographical barriers. Hence, the target may include young individuals involved in training or young Neets. Developing mobility paths abroad and improving basic and transversal competences is particularly difficult for this specific target. The project had multiple objectives. First of all the project tried to develop the 8 key competences in the emotional, cognitive and social field among young low-skilled Neets while ensuring an intellectual, inclusive and sustainable growth. Moreover, one of the main objectives was to promote the mobility of young people aboard in order to increase their employability, allow them to have the same possibilities as the other young people, reduce the social gap between the different groups, acquire the fundamental international and intercultural vision for the development of life skills and guarantee the validity and the quality of these people’s employability. The project involved 15 partners belonging to 6 different countries with expertise in the fields of education, social inclusion, youth employment and in the relations with local businesses and organizations. Under a quantitative point of view, more than the 882 originally planned participants were involved.The main activities that were implemented are: -the creation of a network: contact and research of training entities, companies at the national level and training agencies able to organize and support the various steps -the development of a platform in order to manage the network and create a link between young people, social entities and businesses. -the organization of 14 multiplier events in the 6 countries involved in order to present the 2 IOs.-in the framework of the second IO, 11 creative meetings took place with the participation of young people and training managers in order to understand how to organize the mobility for the project target; creation of the content of the guide-the organization of 5 days of training on the content of the guide dedicated to youth workers and to those responsible of the aspects related to the training. -the organization of the mobility of 16 young people in order to put the methodologies into practice. The initially planned results were achieved. Under a qualitative point of view, we have created a working group and we have established a dynamic of exchanges between social entities and economic organizations in order to organize and plan mobility projects dedicated to low-skilled young people, thanks to European and national funds. The young people who participated in the mobility developed their life skills and triggered a mechanism of innovation and qualification that is reflected in the territory of origin. Finally, there has been a professional development of those who work or are active in the fields of education, training and youth through the training period that took place on the basis of the guide established within the project. The feedback that we received through the analysis of the resource sheets provided by the guide was very positive. The impact generated was both short and long-term. In relation to the short-term impact, the most important effect was the one on young people and on youth workers who participated in the mobility and in the training. For the social entities, being able to get in touch with other European organizations and to get to know other businesses willing to welcome a young NEET was fundamental. As far as the long-term is concerned, the impact mainly concerned the creation of a mechanism of development and activities production that aims to promote social inclusion and the employability of low-skilled people. Another impact to be highlighted is the one on the project partners since it allowed us to acquire further competences, to develop new collaborations and design new project proposals in order to ensure a follow-up and sustain the ongoing actions. The project results reflect the EU strategy for youth by 2027 as well as its priorities. Thanks to the instruments designed within the project, we can promote a youth work that promotes quality, innovation and the recognition of youth work in order to support the young Neets in their journey towards inclusion.