"<< Objectives >>With ""Powered by Reuchlin"", employees in international work are qualified in didactic, technical and content-related aspects of communicating European values and enabling active participation. (Mostly digital or blended) formats are developed and tested, especially with young people/migrants. The projects are evaluated and successful aspects are incorporated into the repertoire of the organisations in order to make them sustainably fit for the future.<< Implementation >>Through inputs and support from experts, employees receive theoretical knowledge in value transfer, digitalisation and agile working, which they can then implement in the practical trial phases. In the further course of the project, the practical experiences will be presented and evaluated in an international context. Finally, the findings and formats proven in the project will be processed in order to make them available to other organisations active in international work.<< Results >>The project qualifies us to place critical topics such as human rights or active participation in international cooperation. In addition, the repertoire of methods will be expanded by transferring existing encounter formats into online/blended formats. These formats are to be used further by the organisations and ideally also beyond, in order to sustainably adapt the international work to the demands of society."

In the Vocational Education and Training and Adult education sectors, initiatives supporting the Europeanisation and internationalisation of the stakeholders remain rare. In 2009, the European Commission envisioned education and training systems and institutions to become “more European and international” (COM(2009) 329 final). The Erasmus+ programme 2014-2020 sustains this vision through the support to projects whose goals are to “increase the capacity and professionalism of education and training institutions to work at EU/international level, and to improve the management competences and internationalisation strategies”.In this context, the project “Europeanisation” has been initiated to create an online self-assessment tool that helps education and training organisations “find out how well prepared they are for working internationally”. This tool is freely available here: www.europeanisation.eu. This tool has for objective to help educational organisations identify and remove the obstacles preventing their institutions from successful work at the EU/international level. We indeed observed in the past that educational organisations were often unable to gauge their fitness or “institutional readiness” to work at this level. In the absence of evaluation tools, many organisations overestimated and some underestimated their organisational capacities. The tool is therefore an eye-opener. Managers and other teaching and non-teaching staff members can freely and confidentially assess their organisation with regards to 7 capacity areas: (1) Mission, Vision, Culture, (2) Strategy and Management, (3) Human Resources, (4) Project Management, (5) Financial Capacity, (6) External Communication, (7) European Dimension. In these 7 capacity areas, the user navigates through 42 issues within which s/he discovers 4 situation descriptions per issue and is invited to select the description which reflects the best his/her organisation. Depending on the answers, the user finally gets an assessment report describing the readiness of the organisation to work at the EU/international level. The assessment report includes concrete recommendations of actions in the short- and long-term. Some “success stories” of internationalised organisations and tips from practitioners complete the tool. In the academic and practitioner fields, this kind of tool is usually called “Organisational Capacity Assessment Tool” (OCAT). This tool is the first European OCAT specifically targeting education institutions with the goal to assess their international capacity. The approach of the tool is not to create a hierarchy between organisations. Users do not have to reach the top level to be successful at the EU/international level. The approach is to encourage an internal improvement process for all users, precisely in the organisational capacities considered more decisive in their internationalisation process. Consequently, the tool not only is a diagnosis tool but also a learning tool. It has for overall objective to contribute to the organisational development of the education institutions using it.The tool has been elaborated for the VET and Adult education sectors. But the other education sectors can benefit from it. The tool is equally valid to organisations having no international experience and to the ones already implementing European/international activities. It can for example help applicants for Erasmus+ KA1 mobility projects in their preparation of “Internationalisation Strategies” as well as KA2 applicants in preparation of their Strategic Partnerships. But the tool is also perfectly applicable outside the context of Erasmus+ as a tutor for Europeanisation/Internationalisation. The tool is totally free of charge, compatible with any device including smartphones and tablets, and available in English, Bulgarian, Croatian, German, Greek and Hungarian. The first users of the tool have reported that the tool is “forward-looking” and “inspiring”. The impact created is that the tool “makes you think of topics you take for granted”, is “a productive way to think about their institutions” and is “useful to improve European strategies”. The expected long-term benefit for these organisations is to make their Europeanisation/internationalisation strategies more efficient and more durable, and consequently raise their overall performance.The tool has been developed by a European partnership of 7 organisations of various educational sectors and with expertise in Europeanisation strategies or organisational development: emcra GmbH (Germany, Lead Partner), the EU-Fundraising Association (Germany), the European Center for Quality (Bulgaria), the Institute for Postgraduate Studies at the University for National and World Economy (Bulgaria), the Cyprus Project Management Society (Cyprus), the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Csongrád County (Hungary) and the German Association-Organisation of the Danube Swabians (Croatia).

The project „Engagiert für Europa” aims to inspire citizens for the idea of a united Europe and to make active people fit for the future in twinning work. After the end of the Second World War rapprochement between nationalities often took place through municipal encounters. This resulted in close friendships between residents, communities and nations. Today, however, more and more people see a Europe in diversity no longer as a solution, but as a problem. But for a lived and strong Europe, convinced and motivated citizens are indispensible. With this project, we would like to provide dedicated people with the oppurtunity to meet, to participate in professional collaberation and to further develop their own competences. It's about building needed skills and developing and learning new skills that are crucial for a 4.0-level engagement in Europe. The path to the future builds on the history in which our common cultural heritage plays a major and important role. As a first step, the project participants will look at history, culture and cultural heritage in order to develop strategies for twinning work of the future. The project will furthermore benefit from the existing relationships between the partners and the networks, in which the knowledge acquired can be shared and disseminated. To this day town-twinning is still a foundation throughout Europe for peaceful coexistence. Accordingly, the project results are to be extended to other twinning projects, e.g. via the CEMR.