"IPA Critical Spirit is a project that has two goals:- The importance of developing critical thinking- The importance of reflection and transformation of pedagogical actions This project brings together 9 partners from 5 different countries from the world of education:- 3 training institutes (Helmo-BE, Thomas More-BE, ICT-FR)- 2 secondary schools (Georg-Klingenberg-schule-GE, SOU Konstantin Konstantinov-BU)- 4 elementary schools (Ecole Fondamentale Libre de Chênée-BE, Ecole Sainte Thérèse-BE, Ecole Immaculée conception-FR, CEIP La Pasada-SP)The different audiences affected by this partnership were: students, teachers and trainers.At the start of this project, there is a real need for all the actors to be able to question themselves, to take a step back from the different realities at the regional, national and European levels.At a time of societal questions concerning immigration, the increased development of new technologies, climate change, and democracies that sway and/or question, it seemed important to us to allow the development of the critical spirit to all stakeholders.The whole process has been divided into two actions;- on one hand the realization of pedagogical devices elaborated during the learning and training activities between trainers, teachers, students from different institutions- on the other hand, throughout the project, the realization of a path of reflection on the evolution of one's own critical thinking through experimentation, adjustment, ... devices created and implemented within contexts different institutionsAll the partners met during 5 learning and training activities spread over the three years, each activity having a different entry point (thematic, methodological, others).Each receiving partner illustrated the gateway through training, field visits and observations. During the meetings the partners were invited to build devices centered on the “entry door between partners (students-teachers-trainer, different generations, different country). November 2016 Belgium: Memory Tools Mental Management ""One can not develop one's critical mind without knowledge of the world ...."" November 2017 Bulgaria: Methodology: suggestopedy / learning in a context ""The critical spirit takes its meaning in a culture, in a societal, cultural, generational life ... Taking into account the learning and context of these are conditions for the development of critical thinking among learners... "" March 2017 Spain: Thematic: Environment ""Reality of the partner, this theme has met the needs and challenges of our time ..."" March 2018 France: Values, methodology, project: Thinking plural - emancipation.""As we move forward, the need to question in our practices and our beliefs the notion of critical thinking around cultural and communicative objects has proved indispensable ..."" November 2018 Germany Theme: New technologies""In a digital and virtual world, take the time to question all information, actions that are just a click away. A necessity ..."" At the last meeting in May 2019 in Belgium, the partnership decided to structure its reflexive path and to restore it.Concretely, two times:- the first devoted to the dissemination of devices, videos, resources via conferences and workshops shared devices- the second devoted to a synthesis work accompanied by Bruno Derbaix, (Author of the book ""For a civic school, live the school fully"", his work is oriented towards a more sincerely citizen education in schools and elsewhere. In this fight, sociologist and philosopher, professor of religions and comparative beliefs, coach and accompanist, expert, active member of the association ""The ambassadors of citizen expression"". This work was done between partners and returned during an open conference by Bruno Derbaix. The result is materialized by the website: IPA-ERASMUS.WIXSITE.COM/MONSITE including built devices, traces, illustrations in the form of videos and writings. The notion of critical thinking is taken up in institutions within the various educational paths intended for learners.The teacher-trainers were able to question themselves individually and collectively about their practice, their belief to be critical of their posture in the face of a changing world, to profiles of today's students.We leave with more questions and questions ... it opens other possibilities."

Students from a less advantaged background, such as those with a low socioeconomic status or a native language other than Dutch, do not always fulfil their potential in terms of academic success. The project ‘Creating Equal Opportunities at School: Empowering students from less-advantaged backgrounds through teaching academic language’ wanted to contribute to bridging the gap between these students’ current academic success and their cognitive talent by means of teaching Dutch academic language. The purpose of this project was to improve the academic language skills of cognitively talented students from less advantaged backgrounds. It aimed to increase the chance that these students’ academic success is in line with their potential, because language is no longer a barrier, leading to a growth in their motivation and self-confidence. Our mission statement was: This project will uncover and develop unseen cognitive talents of students from disadvantaged social groups by improving their academic linguistic strategies. From a broader perspective, the end goal was that the influence of socioeconomic status on talent development, school results and school success will diminish. This fundamental change could ultimately lead to a more diverse and equal society. Obviously this broader ideal was not accomplished in only three years time and partly hindered by covid-19. A team was formed of partners from the Netherlands, Belgium and the United Kingdom. Rijswijks Lyceum / Van Vredenburch College and Zuider Gymnasium in the Netherlands, Lucerna College and Stedelijk Lyceum Pestalozzi in Belgium, are schools with a very diverse population. LondonG&T advised and inspired us with their REAL project, aimed at learners of English as foreign language as well as native born students for whom ‘academic’ English is essentially also a foreign language. The Centre of Psychological Assessment of the Thomas More University of Applied Sciences developed a digital intelligence test that is less culturally biased and therefore suitable for our target group. The Radboud University has expertise on giftedness and Bureau Talent is an expert on giftedness in secondary education. As a team, we formulated two questions: 1. How can we identify gifted students from disadvantaged backgrounds? 2. How can we improve their language skills in order to improve their opportunities for success in higher education levels? The first step in the Erasmus+ project was to select cognitively talented students from less-advantaged backgrounds through a culturally less biased test. Per school the 20% best scoring students from a disadvantaged background were identified by a test for cognitive abilities. There were two cohorts: the first one from November 2019 until March 2020; the second one from March until July 2021. The second step was to provide selected students with a lesson programme on academic Dutch. The selected students were randomly assigned in an intervention and control group. The students of the intervention group were invited to participate in the programme, consisting of an online programme to help them learn academic Dutch and small-group learning sessions with a teacher. Students of the control group received an alternative program or were put on the waiting list and were invited to complete the program the following year. Teachers and experts worked together to compile a list of academic words, based on previously developed lists and research. The online programme allowed students to study and use the words on their own. The small-group learning sessions with the teacher were aimed at discussing and using the words. Playing with the new words and looking for the words in new contexts were also part of these lessons. The aim of the programme was that students would be able to recognize and use academic language in formal school settings as well as in their everyday lives so that a lack of language skills no longer forms a barrier when it comes to academic success. By using the partly non-verbal intelligence test, we succeeded in finding hidden cognitive talent, which we think is a great accomplishment. Although teachers, students and parents were positive about the language lessons, we have not been able to establish hard evidence for better school results (see research report in the annex). The covid-19 period had a strong, negative influence on the project and its results, we assume.

Europe is facing important challenges such as cultural complex diversity in classrooms, early school leaving and disadvantaged backgrounds for some children. Quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) can be a bridge to tackle these challenges. Not only children’s presence in ECEC is important but also their level and quality of active participation and engagement in the social and learning activities of early childhood provision.HangingOUT! is an ambitious project that investigates the possibilities to use 'every' outdoor environment as a way to deal with the mentioned challenges. Eleven complementary strategic partners and different associated partners from five different countries (BE, LT, PT, UK, DK) want to give students, ECEC professionals and parents the confidence, tools and support to explore and create possibilities and experiments with different outdoor educational practices.Our HangingOUT! project has 4 objectives:(1) To further develop the professionalisation of educators in ECEC within our transnational network by strengthening the confidence of teachers and responsible adults in going outdoors.(2) To enhance the quality of ECEC through implementing and recognizing innovative pedagogies in outdoor education.(3) To discover the opportunities of different outdoor environments (from city streets to mindscapes and from forests over factories to school grounds) while recognizing the wide variety in local, cultural and ecological contexts by experimenting with concrete educational practices.(4) To install a culture of cooperation and co-creation between the different partners and stakeholders in early childhood education and care; deepening on the educational context of each country (care and education, formal and informal education, different stages in education,…).To reach our goals we will establish 6 associated local networks between a HEI and 2 field partners (pre-schools, kindergartens, organisations, ...). Each local network has its own focus depending on the interest, needs and expertise of the partnership: children's participation, diversity, 0-3 year old and ICT. Via this way of working we bring together a lot of expertise, co-create with the different stakeholders and have an impact that is really sustainable.The associated networks meet semi-annual F2F and online to share expertise, ways of seeing and knowing and experiment with each other's outdoor practices. Connected to the F2F meetings are international weeks where we can share and discuss our outputs and expertise with students and other lecturers from the different strategic partners and more broadly with all interested members of the Comenius Association, a European network of teacher training institutes of which all HEI's are longtime partners.The strength of working within the local networks in Belgium, Portugal, United Kingdom, Denmark and Lithuania is the diversity and quality of the intellectual outputs it will generate; 7 intellectual outputs in total. Ranging from an innovative GoPro-video database where we will gain insights in interactions between children and the material environment that can be used by teachers, parents but also policy makers, architects, etc. Over the development of inspirational flash cards showing children’s autonomy and that foster inclusion through outdoor activities. To an App that searches for (learning) opportunities in the outdoor environment (urban and rural), bridging the gap between the digital and natural environment. Or collecting outdoor inspiration for children aged 0-3 years old, overcoming the 0-3 yo & 3-6 yo divide in ECEC in many European countries.HangingOUT! has been conceived and designed with long term sustainability in mind. The consortium has the strong intention to integrate the outdoor topic in HEI curricula. This will ensure that what is implemented during the Hangout! project lifetime will endure and strengthen the profile of future ECEC professionals who will critically adopt an outdoor approach as the new normal.The dissemination and exploitation will be extended beyond the duration of the project. The transnational knowledge exchange between HEIs will be promoted and maintained beyond the completion of the project through the online platform including links to the local websites of the different partners. The project outputs will be further developed beyond the lifetime of the project and will be made available using Creative Commons licence.

Globalization and technological innovation (4th Industrial Revolution) bring long term changes in the world economy that are alternating the structure and the future of the labour market. The decision makers should realize that in the near future the job vacancies will not be reduced due to technological advances but the nature of these vacancies will change. These new vacancies will shift rapidly in favour of employees that are skilled and educated people in the fields of nanotechnology, robotics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, programming, automations, data science. Moreover the market needs request employees that have the ability to solve problems, to take the initiative, to be innovative, to have management & entrepreneurial skills in order to survive & be employable under open market globalization conditions. Moreover the business word believes that new technologies such as AI will create more jobs than it will destroy; by 2020 AI will automate 1.8 million out of the work but will create 2.3 million jobs - a net gain of 500.000 jobs. It is harder to imagine industries that do not yet exist and how they will create jobs for all types of workers. This is why data science for example is so intriguing right now: it is one of the early, emerging industries that has come into being because of AI. A direct product of data science is the field of IoT; right now 8 billion sensors are connected to collect applicable information for various human activities (e.g. track noise, track pollutants, the number of cars in a parking lot); until 2020 more than 20 billion will be connected. This is expected to create more jobs related to new technologies the 4th Industrial Revolution will introduce. The Higher Education in Europe should react fast and shape its educational programs in order to ensure that its graduate students enter the work equipped with the sort of skills firms are willing to fight over in a global base. HEIs should contribute also to the life long distance learning of the European citizens in order the latter to be able to re-skill themselves and remain employable under the new conditions the 4th Industrial Revolution have set. CRETE projects proposes a flexible curriculum of modules & training activities that addresses all the aforementioned priorities. CRETE project that will offer innovative, high quality training in all the new and interlinked emerging technologies the 4th Industrial Revolution brings and will demand an electronic engineers to know. The proposed modules in nanoelectronics, nanophotonics, artificial intelligence, robotics, data science, neural networks, machine learning, management, innovation & entrepreneurship will complete the existing conventional course curricula of the consortium Universities. The project is not envisioned to cancel the existing curricula but to make them more competitive and tuned to the forthcoming changes. This will make the proposed modules easier to be integrated and accredited by all the partner Universities. The project is not only focused on the teaching of engineering students in technical themes but empathizes the teaching of academics of the most modern educational methods in order to provide high quality education which will result in competitive graduate students. So the program will offer training in problem solving learning strategies for engineers, online teaching & assessment methods, teaching oral & written presentation skills, performing open science research. The online form (online lectures) of all the proposed modules and theirs free access through the project's educational platform, is believed will contribute towards the re-education of the adult learners all over the globe in modern technological & teaching skills (technical & soft skills) and in accordance to the modern market needs and future developments. To increase the impact of the project all modules will be developed in English, all planned Intensive courses will be live streamed in the Internet in order for more people to benefit from the CRETE project. The consortium envisions to engage more partners into the project during and beyond its lifetime. The consortium promises to make the project's objectives priorities within the consortium Universities and update the project's educational platform with new material even beyond its funding lifetime. This action is very important to be followed by the consortium and beyond it in order for the HEIs curricula to be able to respond to the fast pace change of the market requirements regarding the skills an electronic engineer should have.

The World Health Organization estimates that 15% of the global population, roughly 1 billion people, live with some form of disability. (World Disability Raport) An estimated 450 million people worldwide have a mental disorder. At any given time, approx 10% of adults are experiencing a current mental disorder, and 25% will develop one at some point during their lifetimes. Mental disorders account for 13% of the global burden of disease, and this figure will rise to nearly 15% by 2030. (WHO 2009) European Disability Forum (EDF) says that tourism is an important source of growth for the economy in Europe. However, travelling can still be a real challenge for persons with disabilities. EDF wants to raise awareness of everybody’s right to have equal access to tourism services. (European Disability Forum, http://www.edf-feph.org/)Taking Europe as an example, the accessible tourism market has been estimated at approximately 27% of the total population and 12% of the tourism market. The accessible travel market presents a great opportunity for destinations that are ready to receive these visitors, since they tend to travel more frequently during the low season, usually accompanied or in groups, make more return visits and, in some parts of the world, they spend more than average on their trips. Facilitating travel for people with disabilities is therefore not only a human rights imperative, but also an exceptional business opportunity. Yet, a change in mind-set and in the model of tourism services provision is needed in order to meet this major market demand. Supported by previous information tackles this project problems related with accessibility of tourism for mentally disordered people. Main aim of the project is to promote and support tourism entrepreneurs to value mentally disordered clients and their families as persons and costumers and to help them to design mindful tourism services accessible for mentally disordered people .Main target groups are:1.organizations which offer tourism services 2.persons with mental disabilities and their families3.participating higher education institutionsChildren, families with children and elderly are indirectly target group. Mentally disordered people have certain needs for the content and type of information, for channels and formats which help them to perceive the new information and those needs are comparable in one or another way with children and elderly as well. If project will help to design tourism services accessible for mentally disordered people, then the solutions would be suitable also for another target groups.Objectives: 1.Find out more about the specific needs and behaviors of travelers with mental disorder 2.Assess the current level of accessibility in the tourism sector and identify different approaches to accessibility within the sector 3.Identify obstacles to the introduction and implementation of accessible tourism for mentally disordered people 4.Increase the knowledge about mental disorder and needs of this target group among tourism organisations 5.Develop and implement prototypes of different services of tourism for mentally disordered people6. Develop study material how to design and implement tourism services for mentally disordered people7.Develop assessment tool how to evaluate accessibility of tourism service from mental disorder context8.Make recommendations to relevant stakeholders on how to accelerate the introduction of accessible tourism for mentally disordered peopleSocial inclusion of mentally disordered people is on different level in Europe. In this project will participate partners from Belgium (Thomas More Mechelen-Antwerpen and Museum Dr Guislain) there mentally disordered people are well integrated into the society and partners from Estonia (University of Tartu, Pärnu Museum) and Latvia (University of Latvija, SIA Hotel Zeit) where people with mental disorders have less possibilities and access into the different fields of everyday life. During the project the partners learn from each other and give important input to development of accessible tourism.Main outputs of the project will be situation scan of regional tourism services for people with intellectual disabilities; prototypes of a tourism services for people with mental disorders; implementation roadmap for creation and upscaling the prototypes; assessment tool for the evaluation of accessibility of tourism services for people with mental disorders.The biggest impact of the project is change of mindset in participating organisations and regions that tourism services could be designed accessible for mentally disordered people and this target group is valuable segment in tourism. Another big impact is increased knowledge and eagerness to use developed tools to design tourism services to mentally disordered people by tourism organisations and widened travel opportunities for mentally disordered people and their families.