In the EU (and further afield) the growth of right-wing populism and tides of anti-democratic feelings are being observed. Depending on the national context, refugees, migrants or other minority members serve as a target and justification for violent and misanthropic arguments and assaults. This is also reflected in an increase in the electorate of EU-hostile and right-wing populist parties such as the PiS in Poland, UKIP in the UK, AfD in Germany amongst others. Simultaneously, deficits in the education system are becoming visible and there is an increase in the criticisms made of pedagogical university structures and curricula.In light of these challenges, the goals of the project are:1) To empower students to take a differentiated position and critically question current events. 2) Enable students to become part of an active and informed citizenship. 3) To assist teachers with the implementation of research-based learning during the delivery of their subject.4) Appropriate socio-scientifically inspired teaching/learning laboratories developed in conjunction with ICT-based methods. 5) and therefore combining a didactically innovative seminar structure with the concept of student research-based learning. With these goals in mind, five Universities have co-operated:1) The Institute for Didactics of Democracy of the Leibniz University, Hannover, which specialises in teaching political education in formal and non-formal educational contexts; they lead the project. 2) The Department of Psychology and Educational Science of the Alexandria University Ionana Cuza Din Iaşi. Iaşi, Romania, was the first university in Romania to introduce research-centred teaching with the introduction of the Bologna Process.3) The Faculty of Political Sciences and International Studies of the Universytet Mikolaja Kopernica in Torun, Poland, an important centre for political education and research in northern Poland with a focus on learning in heterogeneous groups.4) From Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies, the Faculty of Education and the Centre for Teaching and Learning have participated in this project. The university has experience in innovative teaching of challenging topics such as racism and violence.5) The Faculty of Education of the Universidad de la Laguna, Tenerife, Spain, which develops innovative courses and degrees for future teachers, as well as the Institute for Didáctica e Investigación Educativa.The central activities of the project include:1) The development of six outputs (IOs); 2) the implementation of a training course for teachers; 3) Events with stakeholders, ensuring the project’s results are communicated to the decision-makers in the field of education; 4) Activities to disseminate the project’s findings and the products as well as 5) a sustainability strategy. Die IOs include a needs analysis in the participating countries (IO1), the development of webinars and a manual for teachers (IO2), the selection of appropriate stimuli material, a guide to their selection and development, and a guide/handout for students (IO3), the conceptual design and implementation of blended-learning courses (IO4) and the development of a platform for teachers (IO5) as well as Easy-to-Implement Kits (IO6). Teachers from all participating universities participated in a training course at the Institute for Didactics of Democracy, Hannover, which was documented with a video, along with other forms of documentation. The joint implementation of these activities was supported by transnational partner meetings, online conferences, an internal internet platform and additional communication via e-mail and Skype. The results and impact of the project include1) The six developed outputs. All manuals are available in the languages of the project partners; webinars and videos have been developed in English and are available online. 2) Teacher’s Professional Development: All teachers who took part were able to expand and deepen the methods they used in their teaching. Depending on the university culture, this meant a different degree of innovation or extension of teaching topics. The feedback from the teachers was extremely positive. 3) Great Interest and Progress in Learning from the Students: The teachers involved in the project used their newly-acquired knowledge in university courses and also exchanged information regularly. The students benefitted from this the most. The longer-term benefit of the project is a positive teaching and learning experience that serves as a role model and inspiration for further implementation. The website for the project and the project’s platform – and thus all project outcomes – will be online and maintained for at least five years. The Reflect Lab Project began in November 2016 und ended in April 2019.

"The CORETEV project aims to modernize education systems by using the leverage of evaluation to improve the quality of training. It is part of an innovative approach of co-construction and empowerment of HEIs in a North-South configuration.The project responds to the most urgent needs in the field of evaluation expressed by Moroccan universities which increasingly require the use of new technologies. It aims to create 4 Support Centres for Evaluation (CEDAPE) in 4 Moroccan universities. The CEDAPE will interact within the iCEDAPE network, which will promote the sharing and contextualisation of common tools as well as a dynamic transfer of North-South-South expertise in the areas of evaluation engineering and docimology.The consortium includes 6 institutions including 4 from Morocco and 2 from the EU. With the support of European institutions and evaluation experts from the South (Bolivia, Mexico), the HEIs in the South will be the actors in the modernization of their education systems through: 1) the transfer of North-South-South experience; 2) the creation of 4 CEDAPE in Morocco; 3) collaboration within the iCEDAPE network and 4) support of 4 spin-offs (to be created) which will deploy their activities there.CEDAPE teams will be autonomous in the use of their automatic data acquisition chain. They will have been trained in the construction and evaluation quality management platform (DOCIMO) which will facilitate collaboration within iCEDAPE.In terms of dissemination, a ""Create a CEDAPE"" manual and a website that can be transposed to each CEDAPE will be developed. The acquired expertise, the creation of 4 spin-offs, the support of the iCEDAPE network, the empowerment of the teams, the support of the Ministry and the National Agency for Evaluation and Quality Assurance, the quality of the contextualized services that meet the needs of Moroccan HEIs will ensure the sustainability of the project."

Financial literacy among the adult population remains one of the unsolved questions in European Union. As per recent statistics, more than half of the adult population of certain EU countries (Poland, Romania, Portugal, Spain or Italy) is financially illiterate (https://howmuch.net/articles/financial-literacy-around-the-world). Financial literacy and entrepreneurial intention are interrelated, as explained by Trunk and Dermol (2015). It is widely accepted that effective entrepreneurship is impossible without proper competences in finances, which are essential for correct financial decisions making(Calcagno, Alperovych, & Quas, 2019). It also helps to reduce entrepreneurial risk aversion level (Riepe, Rudeloff & Veer, 2020).Besides that, effective entrepreneurship tackles other relevant problems in EU as youth unemployment, social inclusion and equal opportunities. As one of the solutions, entrepreneurial education should be enhanced and extended to more groups. Considering that its main goal is to create financially literate entrepreneurs since it improves the economic security of all (Arthur, 2018), it is urgent to create and spread specific better trainings in such critical areas as financing management. It will surely improve the capacities for self-employment, to face the current socioeconomic crisis and contribute in a certain manner to the domestic economies. [Arthur, C. (2018). Financial Literacy and Entrepreneurship Education: An Ethics for Capital or the Other? The Wiley Handbook of Global Educational Reform, 435-465.]In this context, only students of business in HEIs/VET/adult education have access to entrepreneurial financial education. Specific courses, although available, are usually too short, too theoretical or rather expensive. Even more, this access should not be limited to face-to-face trainings, and must be extended online and granted to cope with the challenge of online learning, and prevent the practical education from being the first to close in pandemic periods.Considering all this, the main proposal of this project is to create digital interactive tools that will help the end-beneficiaries (potential and current entrepreneurs) to develop skills and acquire necessary practical knowledge to effectively apply for funding and manage their financial situation.From the general perspective, our project is expected to contribute to the improvement in financial literacy, especially, among HE students, as potential entrepreneurs, through an effective method of learning by doing. The project aims at covering the gap of practical financial competences considered as a critical barrier for entrepreneurship. Possible solution goes through cooperation between financing actors and educational sector. Thus, common training will be complemented with real practice, which includes individual and collaborative work, very different from traditional school assignments, since it will connect funding agents (banking professionals, investors, mentors and similar) with entrepreneurs and students. This DIGITAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT BASED ON COLLABORATIVE LEARNING with financial agents is the core of our innovative proposal. Besides that, the project will deploy actions to empower HE teachers and entrepreneur coaches. Thus, the project will reach the following segments of people: university students, entrepreneurs, teachers, start-up incubators, financial agents for an estimated total of 840 direct participants and 14600 additional reached online.The main project activities will be oriented to the production of four intellectual outputs:1) Practical cases in entrepreneurial finance for training purposes.2) Digital Simulator for entrepreneurial finance (trainer’s tool). 3) Digital Simulator for entrepreneurial finance (self-learning tool). 4) Report on recommendations for entrepreneurial finance stakeholders and policy makers.The project implies cooperation of different type of organizations. The HE institutions and Banking/Financial sector will collaborate closely to ensure that we use appropriate content. Representative institutions will incorporate the tools into their trainings and will disseminate the project results properly. Entrepreneurial institutions will support the outputs creation attracting the attention of practitioners and professionals in the entrepreneurial field.The project pursues long term impact by providing HE lecturers, VET/adult training providers and Entrepreneurial institutions with innovative tools in order to spread the practical knowledge on entrepreneurial funding. It is of special interest to raise awareness on the different alternative sources of funding besides the traditional bank loans, such as crowdfunding, business angels, capital venture and so on, and offer current and future entrepreneurs practical training since it will also generate significant impact measured over time.

"The aim of the project is development of strategic partnership among universities and creation of barrier-free environment for mobilities of students and teachers. The output will be preparation of complex materials for accreditation and implementation of a new course ""Methodology of Interpretation of European Cultural Heritage through Attractions in Tourism"" at all universities. The need of such a project is based of the survey, which showed a lack of compatible courses in the field of tourism for exchange students, and the need to improve interpretation of European cultural heritage. The content of the course will also reflect the mission of the European Commission concerning Europe as a cultural destination and 2011 EU Modernisation Agenda's priorities, particularly in respect of links to internationalisation, innovation and modernization of education and needs of labour market. The project will be implemented in partnership of 6 universities representing different European regions, capital and regional cities, and countries with diverse cultural heritage and its potential. (VSE Praha, CZ: architecture, monuments; University of Economics Bratislava, SK: local traditions and customs; Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iasi, RO: religious and ethnography attractions; University of Applied Sciences-Fachhochschule Burgenland, A: attractions connected with music; Universidad Europea, Madrid, ESP: fine art; Fachhochschule des Mittelstands, Schwerin, GE: gastronomy). Such partnership is an opportunity for complex elaboration of the topic ""Interpretation of European Cultural Heritage"" and may motivate students for international mobility to universities which might be otherwise out of their interest. The Guidelines for the industry will enhance the opportunity for heritage managers to improve attractivity of cultural heritage. The project has a detailed action plan which will be regularly monitored and evaluated according to quantitative as well as qualitative indicators. The main activities of the project are: - Compillation of materials for syllabus, textbook and their didactic elaboration, examples of good practice, case studies, cooperation with the industry, analysis and definition of needs of the segments of visitors and setting the appropriate methods for interpretation of cultural heritage. - Transnational project meetings for networking, coordination of project implementation and evaluation. - Short term joint staff training events for detailed familiarization with elaborated subtopics and case studies by all partners. - Dissemination activities: organization of lntermational Conference, web pages, articles, papers, lectures at conferences outside the project, etc. - Project management: communication with partners, monitoring, budget monitoring, evaluation. The planned project outcomes are: Syllabus of a new course, with all necessary prerequisites for accreditation (detailed content of the course, time allocation of lectures, methodology, time requirements on students, assessment of students, planned integration into the study programme, operational organization of the course). Textbook of the length aprox. 400 pages (a survey of cultural heritage of Europe, detailed characteristics of subtopic investigated by individual partners, methodology of interpretation of the cultural heritage through attractions in tourism, examples of good practice and a case study for each subtopic). Guidelines designed for experts in the industry (informing about main methods of interpretation of individual parts of cultural heritage through attractions in tourism). Results of this project will bring benefit to students and teachers of the participating universities and to experts in the industry. In long-run the outputs of the project will indirectly bring benefit to teachers and students of other schools and to all visitors of cultural attractions in Europe. Preparation of the new course by an international team will have the advantage, that various approaches based on intercultural aspects as well as experience from different cultural backgrounds will be incorporated in the study materials. This will be a unique experience for all beneficiaries. The project outpus will be published in full (in English) on open webpages all partner universities and will be freely accessible. They will be technically user-friendly. The use of the material will be free of charge, will not be limited nor conditioned at all. Long-term utilization of project outputs is expected. The new educational course prepared within this project will become an integral part of study programmes taught in English at all universities involved. This means it will be available for all students including foreign students participating in student mobility. Most study and didactic materials prepared within the project will have unlimited, sustainable time utility and will be used also in ensuing years after the end of the project."

The need for a better skilled and creative workforce for the European labour market has been identified as one of the strategic goals in EU policy statements and recommendations. The aim is to raise the level of education throughout Europe and to foster forward-looking and innovative citizens with ability for divergent and visionary thinking. The best result for enhancing these skills would be proactive game-changers able to explore and create new opportunities and jobs. Among transversal competences needed for lifelong learners and “workers 2020”, the sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, as ability to turn ideas into action, includes the capability to assess themselves, owned competences and talents, and the context of work to seize opportunities that arise. Self-awareness on owned skills and self-development skills are a key competence that is to be acquired by young people. Both educational guidance – in the choice of studies, and career guidance – in the choice of professions and labour market field, can greatly contribute to improve employability of young people. Career centres at the higher education institutions provide support and guidance to this respect, both as educational guidance and career guidance: transition periods, particularly between university and the labour market, should be supported, and the effectiveness of this support would be enhanced if the students have already acquired career development skills. ICARD aimed therefore at developing a European Career Development Programme, addressed to individual students in higher university, by designing and developing a programme tailored on the European educational and cultural system.Results of ICARD include:- an update state of the art of the available programmes, modules or practices fostering self-awareness and self-learning of higher education students on professional development, including education guidance, ongoing guidance and career guidance, covering then the entire study cycle at the university;- the European Career Development Programme, a transversal learning programme aimed at fostering acquisition of professional awareness and career management skills in higher education students which will include the learning architecture (programmes composed by modules, learning materials, evaluation and assessment tools);- 4 learning pathways carried out in real settings, at least covering one full programme, in four countries in Europe;- guidelines and recommendations for the adoption of the programme by further universities;- a raised awareness on the need of a more aware and skilled young workforce.