Skills competition contribute to the prestige of vocational education schools and self-esteem of learners, raising public awareness of vocational education as a value and inspiring young people to choose vocational qualifications. Local competition held at school level inspire students to explore their profession deeper, check their skills and get ready for national competition. The winners of national competition have priority to take part in international competition organized by partner countries and continue for EUROSKILLS AND WORLDSKILLS. The objectives of this project is to prepare tools for national, Baltic, EUROSKILLS and WORLDSKILLS competitions in catering (cooks and pastry cooks) and food industry sectors. The partners of the project (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) are vocational education schools and have programs for cooks, pastry cooks and food industry workers. All schools are very international, they belong to Association of European hotel and catering schools. The schools have great experience in organizing national and international competitions, but there's a gap in agreement on competition requirements at national and international level. The need to organize competition at the same level, with the same requirements, goals and evaluation is of great importance. Till today we were writing competition rules, evaluation, inventory and ingredients every time we decided to organize competition (national or international) and they varied every time depending on the school, country, students competences. There's a great need to create manual for organizing competitions, create competition rules and agree on evaluation requirements in order to talk the same language and properly prepare students for local, national, Baltic competition leading to EUROSKILLS and WORLDSKILLS.Target groups- students of catering and food industry sectors and teachers who prepare students for competition.The project fullfills sectorial, national and international needs. There will be created intelectual outputs: manual; competition rules; requirements for evaluation.During the project period will be held 4 international meetings, 1 blended mobility, 3 multiplier events.Will be created project logo and Project Facebook page.The project activities are divided into three main Work Packages. WP 1) “Project Management”: all partners will contribute to the proper management of the project by carrying out the activities as foreseen in the Detailed Project Plan and providing all the necessary information for the preparation of the technical and financial reports to be submitted to the Education Exchanges Support Foundation (SMPF) Lithuanian National Agency. The lead applicant - Kaunas Food Industry and Trade Training Center (KMPPMC) will be the coordinator for WP1 and will be the interface with the National Agency for all related matters. WP 2) “Exchange of good practices and development of the competition model”: the main goal is to develop competition model according to the principles of EUROSKILLS and WORLDSKILLS. All partners will identify, study and analyse the related competition rules for catering and food industry VET students in their country and will come up with suggestions for the development of competition model. KMPPMC will be responsible for writing competition rule, VSIA Rigas Turisma un radosas industrijas tehnikums- for writing manual and Tartu LINN- for evaluation guideliness. 4 transnational meetings will take place during the project period. The 1st and the last ones will be held in KMPPMC, 2 nd in Tartu LINN and 3rd in VSIA Rigas Turisma un radosas industrijas tehnikums. The last transnational meeting will be held at the same period when blended students' mobility will take place in KMPPMC (the intelectual products will be tested during the blended mobility and international Baltic States competition for cooks, pastry cooks and food industry VET students will be organized). At the same time KMPPMC will organize multiplier event and the participants of the multiplier event will have opportunity to evaluate project results. WP 3) “Communication and dissemination of results”: Dissemination of the results will take place in 3 partner organizations. Seminars will be organized and all interested partners will be able to get acquainted with the project results.All intelectual outputs will be available for all interested parties. They will be found on partner schools webpages, will be shared also on the portal Open Education Europe, The Erasmus + dissemination platform will be also used.

"Today, in a complex and fast-changing world, as knowledge, skills and attitudes are acquired on a lifelong and life-wide basis, all kinds of learning and training outcomes deserve to be valued and validated.Every young person, studying in vocational school, participating in the world (WordSkills) or European (EuroSkills) professional excellence competitions is, and must be, an aspiration. The students learn how to do the job, and the best way to do it is to learn how to do it. express their talents in school. Exams and group assignments do not always have the ability to apply real-world problems. By participating in a professional mastery of a school, a new opportunity to show their talent and apply their skills. Usually such competitions are organized by an independent divisions in each continent.The project countries do not have much to do with the project, but the idea of ​​organizing the Baltic States. The partner is ,,Innove"", who coordinates competitions for professional excellence. Inove will also improve its existing knowledge of these competitions.The procedure and tasks of organizing and evaluating professional excellence will be prepared during the project. Tasks will be prepared for three professions: electricians, welders, joiners. It is one of the most popular professions in all partner countries. The Baltic Skills Competition “Baltic Skills Competition” will be organized by the project.Tasks and technical descriptions will be prepared for competition. They will be prepared by professional teachers-experts from all partner countries in the project.Project partners: -Coordinator: Lithuania, Alytus vocational training centre.-Latvia ( Jegava Technical School, Liepaja State Technical school )-Estonia ( Tartu vocational education centre) Project target group: profesional competition metothodoly experts, students and other staff from partners organization who will work in the frames of Project.Aims and objectives of the Project:1. Analyze good practises of professional mastery competition; in Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia particularly;2. Prepare set of tasks for electrician, welders and joiners competition ( 3 different options);3. Develop methodology for professional mastery competition organising and assesment.Project implementation Phase 1:- Analysis of every project partner profesional competition organising in their country/school;- Transnational project meeting. Clarifying strong/weak points of every partners’ country, preparing plan for tasks.- Training about profesional competition organising in Estonia: Non-official partner ,,Innove"".Project implementation Phase 2-Transnational project meeting. Setting criterius for tasks.- Preparing tasks for electrician, welder and joiner professional mastery competition. Project implementation Phase 3-Transnational project meeting. Plan for methodology, discussion.- Preparing professional mastery competition organising and assesment methodology.Project implementation Phase 4-Result pressentation - Professional mastery competition ,,Baltic skills"", dissemination and exploitationProject target group – VET experts and other staff from partners’ organization who will work in the frames of Project. Project coordinator- Alytus vocational training centre (Lithuania), partners - Jelgava Technical school (Latvia), Liepaja State Technical school (Latvia) and Tartu vocational education centre (Estonia)."

The project “Growth in the Work-Based Learning Triangle (GRIT)” was a cross sector project between VET and HE institutions developing work-based learning practices. A specific focus of the project was the interactions between the three parties: the school, the student and the employer.Project aimed at improving the interactions between the WBL parties and taking digital tools into use to support work-based learning.The project was led by Haaga-Helia UAS (HE, Finland) and the other 4 parties were Omnia (VET, Finland), HoGent (HE, Belgium), Tartu Kutsehariduskeskus (VET, Estonia) and Ikaslan Gipuzkoa (VET, Spain). The immediate target groups of the project were the teachers, students and contact persons of involved organizations.The project hold two international training events related to Service Design and Digital tools. The number of local trainings for all the target groups to involve and integrate them to the project goals was over 20. The project improved the professional competences of the teachers and boosted the digital competences of all target groups.The project took two major approaches to improve the communication between the three parties of Work Based Learning:1) Service Design (SD) thinking and methods were used as a training tool. SD offered the participants ways to improve the content of their mutual communication. All three parties (teachers, workplace coaches and students) learned and practiced how to think of others as customers (instead of seeing different situations only from one’s own viewpoint, the participants practiced the skill of understanding others and their needs). The project narrowed the generation gaps and empowered the parties to collaboratively and respectfully work for common goals.2)The project experimented the use of several digital tools (such as Slack, Padlet, Trello, Popplet..) that could be used by regular smartphones to- increase interactions in the WBL triangle and innovate, how e.g. WhatsApp could be used as a reflection tool for learning outcomes by the students. - boost the self-confidence of students and impact attitudes and develop transversal skills (e.g. ability to work collaboratively, think critically, take initiative and problem solve).Long term outcomes and benefits of the project included - Increased cooperation between the WBL employers and the schools that were sending students to the WBL period.- New and innovative methods were used in the learning materials, inspired by Service Design.- In addition, introducing innovative, rewarding and fun communication methods and evaluated digital interaction tools were demonstrated for WBL contexts.

"The future Smart Factory with the increasing degree of digitization and complexity of production and maintenance processes requires training that meets these requirements. The key element and the main aim of this project was to initiate, expand and standardize the learning cooperation between vocational colleges and companies using the example of energy management in the times of Industry 4.0. Companies can enrich education through current practical problems and their solutions as well as through technical infrastructure. This integration of theory and practice can appear highly motivating for both students and teachers. For the reality is more complex and not as predictable as the next page in a book and thus always represents a challenge for students and teachers. Thus, learning cooperation can also be considered as advanced training for all parties involved in VET.The cooperation took place both at national and European level and allowed for wide-ranging exchange of experience on technological possibilities and perspectives, as well as methodological approaches in education in general, and in particular in the area of workplace-based learning. The project involved four vocational colleges from Italy, Estonia, the Netherlands and Germany as well as cooperating companies. All students involved in the project are receiving training in electrical engineering or mechatronics. They were supported by their instructors and teachers.Through the joint launch of learning arrangements, this project collected, tested, questioned and optimized the ""best practice"" approaches in the learning cooperation of the participating European partner schools. This took place in two runs, each consisting of an operational implementation phase and a Learning Teaching Training Activity. On the one hand, it was about finding the problem and the solution. On the other hand, the task-related subject-specific content was prepared and tested by the students, before being passed on to the European partners in the form of a creative lesson sequence. The students could choose the content themselves after consulting the company. In the first run, the focus was on energy management and in the second run on company-specific contents regarding the Industry 4.0.As the students carefully and independently developed, tested and performed their company-specific work assignments and learning arrangements for the Learning Teaching Training Activity, they were able to develop their skills for coping with future practical tasks. In addition, the project language was English, so a further professional and interpersonal challenge could be dealt with. On the one hand, the teachers involved in the project were able to gain new ideas in the technological spectrum of Industry 4.0 as well as initiate a substantive discussion with regard to the future 4.0 skilled worker. This was mainly about the generation of possible work areas in the aforementioned spectrum and the creation of concrete learning situations. On the other hand, as already described, the cooperation between learning locations was initiated, tested and assessed in collaboration with the European partners. Furthermore, a methodological guideline for standardization was cooperatively developed. The following goals were thus achieved by the project:1. Method optimization regarding: a. previous approaches. b. the independence of the trainees in the sense of self-organized learning. c. cooperation between companies and educational institutions (cooperation between learning locations). 2. Exposing new relevant learning content in the context of ""Industry 4.0"". 3. Creation or strengthening of networks.Teaching in the form of a learning situation with a practical task was new in this form for the partner schools. This ""best practice"" approach in combination with ""self-organized learning"" and ""students teach students"" is innovative and requires an open educational landscape. Because only by “opening up” is it possible for students to live out their creativity, develop ideas and solutions, present and integrate them."

The Building Capacities in Innovation Procurement for Cities (BUILD) project will roll out a number of training and capacity building actions targeted at upskilling the public procurers on the topic of innovation procurement. Public procurement is a powerful instrument to drive faster adoption of innovation among public sector users while simultaneously promoting economic growth by providing innovative companies opportunity for first user references. The strategic use of procurement to boost demand for innovative goods of services has become an important part of the innovation policy agenda in many EU countries, and is at the core of the new EU public procurement directive (2014/24/EU), which underlines importance of opening opportunities for public procurement of innovation (e.g. by introducing a new innovation partnership procedure). BUILD integrates the highest-quality capacity-building tools to facilitate the roll-out of capacity building and training services to cities. BUILD will engage and train public – private procurers, SMEs and startups via both onsite and online avenues on a number of topics like; 1) Guiding Principles (Valonia) 2) Legal Knowledge and Procedures (Rotterdam) 3) Preliminary market consultation (CE) 4) Pre-commercial procurement (Turku) 5) Competitive dialogue (Turku) 6) Competitive procedure with negotiation (Tartu) 7) Innovation partnership (Valonia) 8) Legal questions and considerations (Rotterdam) and 9) Risk assessment (Valonia). Lastly, BUILD will link and establish synergies with research and innovation projects funded by the EU (via Horizon Europe or other EU funding programmes), with specific focus on EU funded projects fostering PPI, with the aim of facilitating mutual learning and knowledge exchange and will also set up a pro-active dissemination action which will facilitate outreach to key target audiences, namely; public and private buyers, public-owned enterprises, SMEs and start-ups, research institutions among others.