The use of wood in the construction industry has continued to gain momentum in Europe in recent years. The prospects and development opportunities are promising and far from at their peak. At the same time, the associated challenges for companies and enterprises in the construction sector have risen sharply. This has reinforced the realisation that the future development of timber construction can only be mastered with a sufficient number of well-trained employees. Raising the level of training creates positive prospects in two ways: countries with high unemployment increase the proportion of highly qualified employees who make a valuable contribution to the national economy. At the same time, countries with high economic power and a shortage of skilled labour can offer promising employment opportunities to sufficiently trained workers from countries with weaker economic power and high unemployment. In order to offer companies, workers, educational institutions and associations in the timber construction sector better starting conditions for improving the opportunities for action and exploiting the opportunities for cooperation, it was necessary to carry out a comprehensive and transparent stocktaking of the background information on vocational education and training in timber construction, which had so far been insufficient, and to significantly expand the existing individual contacts with players in vocational education and training. This would create the necessary prerequisites for an expanded cooperation in the future on the basis of a European vocational training network in timber construction.The following project partners were involved in the implementation of the project:Timber Construction Europe, Luxembourg - Coordinator Berufsförderungswerk des Baden-Württembergischen Zimmererhandwerks, Germany Alppisalvos Oy, Finland Tyrolean vocational school for wood technology, Austria Épitési Vállakozók Országos Szakszövetsége (ÉVOSZ), HungaryHolzbau Letzebuerg Asbl, Luxembourg Associated Partner: Holzbau SwitzerlandThe following main activities were carried out as part of the project:•Survey of the framework conditions for initial and continuing training in the carpentry trade•Comparison of educational systems and qualifications in European timber construction•Creation of structures for further education, promotion qualification and further education•Determination of the development of job descriptions and job profiles in the course of upgrading qualifications•Permeability of training systems •Competence fields and functions in timber construction companies in accordance with the entrepreneurial and economic requirements framework conditions•Inter-company training centres, training offers, training methods,•Lighting of exchange activities, international networks and partnerships•Future cooperation in a European vocational training Network•Follow-up projectAchieved results and effectBased on a high degree of basic transparency of education systems in the countries of the European Union and individual associated countries, typologies and education clusters could be developed that provided initial information on general system differences as well as on the type and extent of knowledge, skills and competences imparted. For the first time it was possible to make a more precise inventory of timber construction in which countries vocational training in timber construction/carpentry takes place and which knowledge, skills and qualifications are imparted in the course of further and advanced training and which are available in the curricula and course offerings of vocational training centres. The determination of the permeability of the education system could be described in individual best-practice cases. The project also provided initial insights into the dynamics of the development of vocational education and training in countries that have not yet had regulated vocational education and training.The long-term benefit of the project is that it can be expected that cooperation for the further development of VET in European timber construction, projects for the systematic acquisition of skills and competences and educational cooperation will be strengthened through the exchange of teaching and training methods and measures for the horizontal mobility of trainees, long-term employees and teachers and trainers. The partner network of European vocational education and training in timber construction established in the course of the project work could make a lasting contribution to this.

The development of the vocational training situation in individual countries may be hampered by the lack of sector-specific competence scales across Europe, which also point to prospects for further development. The lack of orientation towards competences means that the expansion of occupation-specific knowledge, skills and abilities can only be tackled with great effort and does not take place in a targeted manner. This affects the entire timber construction sector, the basis of which essentially depends on well-trained personnel. What applies to the vocational training situation of an entire country also applies to individuals in this country who have turned to training as carpenters as a career perspective. Their prospects in terms of competence development depend to a large extent on the basic conditions of the education system and the competence profiles imparted in the respective country. An overview of these profiles should therefore be available both to the companies and to the personnel employed in them for the future entrepreneurial or personal development of competences and qualifications. The aim of the project is to develop a structure in which the vocational qualifications encountered in European timber construction can be presented in a comprehensible manner. The competence framework to be developed for this purpose should link the degrees/certificates/diplomas with the underlying competences of a person with reference to the European Qualifications Framework EQF and make them visible and communicable irrespective of the country. To this end, the aim is to examine and compare existing degrees and certificates of knowledge and skills throughout Europe and to define them in validated form as competence levels. The project management for the implementation of the project is carried out by Timber Construction Europe and is supported by a consortium of the following project partners: Gemeinnütiges Berufsförderungswerk GmbH (Biberach, DE), Centre de Compétences Parachèvement (LU), Association Ouvriere de Compagnons du Devoir du Tour de France (Paris, FR), Fachhochschule Salzburg GmbH (AT), Alppisalvos Oy (FI). These are further complemented by the associated partners Holzbau Schweiz and Berner Fachhochschule Architektur, Holz und Bau ((Biehl, CH) as well as numerous silent partners from the European vocational training network. The partners make a substantial contribution to the success of the project objective in a balanced relationship of economic policy and technical expertise as well as proven technical expertise in vocational education and training. The project envisages the following development steps: Review of the EQF and various selected national qualification frameworks as reference frameworks and allocation instances for the competence framework to be drawn up, increasing understanding of the education systems available throughout Europe and their differences as a basis for the development of skills and qualifications, compilation of the learning objectives laid down in individual curricula for trainees and competences and qualifications attainable within the framework of regular further and continuing training. The work will first be carried out on a country-by-country basis, then in mixed-country working groups and thus in transnational cooperation in order to get to know the facets of country-specific competences and qualifications in their diversity. In a series of editorial conferences of the participating project partners, the findings collected and validated throughout Europe will be transformed into a European Qualification Framework for Timber Construction (EQF-Timber), which will be set up in eight stages analogous to the EQF. Vocational training centres are given a new basis for designing the range of vocational development programmes on offer. At the company level, the status and development potential of the qualifications of both the company's own workforce and applicants can be assessed much better. Employees themselves have an instrument which, in conjunction with a correspondingly expanded range of training programmes, enables them to make even better use of their personal professional development potential. The EQF timer makes a fundamental contribution to reliably demonstrating individual competences, improving horizontal and vertical vocational development potential and contributing to reducing youth unemployment and the shortage of skilled labour in the overall economic context.The results of the EQF Timber will be available for download on the Internet platform developed within the framework of the project. Further publications on European portals, including dissemination as open educational material (OER), are intended to provide a targeted stimulus for Europe-wide use.