Lack of innovation management capacity is recognised as an important barrier to creating economic impact (competitiveness, growth and jobs) from innovation activities in SMEs. Consulting services in that area are not available to SMEs in many European regions as a result of lack of offer, unaffordable market prices or poor quality. To address this, this action shall provide specialized consulting services addressing innovation management capacity to SMEs which possess significant innovation activities. Beneficiaries of the SME instrument shall as well receive support to enhance their innovation management capacity through this action.

The METAVET project addresses the need of developing and advancing the VET courses with the capacity building and information sharing activities. The project will facilitate the exchanges among European and South American countries - Poland, Spain, Paraguay and Argentina and will be focused on advancing vocational education and training to support the metal and energy sectors. The project includes VET providers and stakeholders active in the VET industry and labour market. The project objective is to improve regional and transnational multi-stakeholder cooperation though VET-Industry partnership framework to overcome gap between skills demand from the labour market and existing VET courses through capacity building and information sharing activities. Besides, the project aims at transferring and piloting of best practices in use of methodologies for design of curricula and multimedia resources for training based on innovative ways of delivering VET. In this regard the exchange between EU-LAC countries will be pivotal. The project will focus on capacity raising of the organisations from PY, AR while taking into account their strategic agendas. The project targets vocational education and training providers, VET centres, employers’ organisations, chambers of commerce and industries, trade unions, VET teachers and students. Notable the project will ensure the involvement of the person with disadvantaged backgrounds. It consists of entire project cycles and features 5 WPs: Project management and coordination; Multi-stakeholder cooperation; Skills needs and matching; Designing curricula and multimedia resources for training based on innovative ways of delivering VET; Dissemination, engagement, assessment. The project contributes to the achievement of the Call objectives via capacity building, training actions with the view to ensuring the sustainability of results.

As in the rest of the world, universities in Europe are increasingly concentrating on information-oriented innovation efforts and it is thought that these efforts will be intensified to ensure sustainability in this regard. In parallel with the increase of interdisciplinary studies, information continues to develop with the contribution of different disciplines under different study themes. This development process brought the requirements for adaptation to change and process in universities, industry organizations, interface organizations, civil society and public. Innovation studies that are developed under many different themes such as Food and Agriculture, Biology, Machinery, Metallurgy and many more, which are outside the fields of work that we can call digital sectors, face different problems due to technology transfer processes that are not planned in accordance with their fields. Those who are most affected by this issue are the Academicians who try to realize their studies at the University, the employees of the Technology Transfer Office, who coordinate these studies done by academics, and university students who do not have the opportunity to learn how to achieve innovation in their fields.While the scientific, technological and economic contributions of universities are increasing more and more, the Technology Transfer Offices, one of the most important tools used by universities for transferring this information to the necessary mechanisms and institutions, should improve their services and methods in order to shorten the distance between the information produced in their research institutions and the market. Information developed in different thematic and interdisciplinary fields such as Agriculture, Food, and Biotechnology, which are intended to be evaluated within the methods developed for the IT and electronics sectors, often do not receive the necessary support during the valuation of information. Because of that situation; in Universities and Innovation Infrastructures, it is deemed important that they develop these processes when necessary and to work to ensure adaptation in Technology Transfer in different themes.Strengthening Technology Transfer Infrastructures for Thematic Universities and Innovation Infrastructures (3TforUni) aims to create Thematic Technology Transfer guides, online training on Thematic Technology Transfer, and sharing experience between Technology Transfer Experts, means University Staff, practitioners, Academics and Students, to develop better practices and procedures for Technology Transfer for or Thematic Universities and Innovation Infrastructures. While achieving these aims, 3TforUni will foster effective and efficient system level funding via adaptation recommendations for current systems. And also, adaptation of procedures will enable more entrepreneurship minded Universities and Innovation Infrastructures in different thematic areas. So with the establishment of open and innovative higher education institutions in different thematic areas, partnerships with commercial and noncommercial organisations in the private sector will be much more possible, and make them ready for the digital era more than ever.The target audience of the project is universities and research centers / infrastructures, especially thematic universities and research centers / infrastructures. In addition, TTOs within these bodies or TTOs of institutions working in different sectors will take part in the project as beneficiary groups.3TforUni project has a strong partnership structure consisting of sectors, interface structures and universities, which play an active role in the process from the production of knowledge to value. With our project, the sector, interface structures and technology transfer processes in universities will be discussed, and this will be privatized in the context of the Agriculture-Food and related sub-sectors, which are the thematic areas targeted by the project. The data obtained from the studies to be carried out during the project will be transferred to all relevant structures, especially the universities where the information is produced, which is the starting point of the knowledge economy and technology transfer.

<< Background >>Work-based learning and apprenticeships are at the core of VET. European Commission published a report on the 20 guiding principles of high-performance apprenticeships and work-based learning. Systematic cooperation between VET schools and companies was one of the identified principles to ensure high performing apprenticeships and work-based learning. Some years before, Business Europe presented 12 main recommendations on how to improve quality and image of apprenticeships on three levels; the European Union, the Member States and employers’ organisations through cooperation. Latest Digital Education Action Plan (2021-2027) outlines the European Commission’s vision for high-quality, inclusive and accessible digital education in Europe for the purpose to learn from the COVID-19 crisis and to make education and training systems fit for the digital age. When we put these developments in the context of VET offer, we may observe that wide impact of crises in manufacturing posed by COVID 19 have accelerated transition to Industry 4.0 even much faster. Certain parts of the production process will be outsourced or digitalized and even more of the process will be controlled from central control rooms than on the plant floor. Thus VET should not only follow up digitalisation in the industry but has to boost further developments.Project partners from Germany, Spain, Poland, Greece and Bulgaria which represents VET centres and Association of Companies in metal and electro sector have agreed that many dimensions of the VET-Industry cooperation should be improved in order not just to respond to the demand of the sectors but also to generate change, particularly the change related to transition to Industry 4.0. which has been accelerated even faster during COVID19 pandemic. This cooperation has been seen through a) VET process b) level of cooperation.<< Objectives >>Our project seeks to active following specific objectives: a) VET process: Adapting vocational education and training to labour market needs through skills assessment demand framework which will support the project to develop European training module according to demand of SMEs in metal and electro sector occupations. b) Level of cooperation: Improving collaboration between VET teachers and company trainers/ mentors in their use of digital tools in teaching, having in mind their complementary roles and responsibilities in performance of apprenticeships and work-based learning.<< Implementation >>a) VET: Adapting vocational education and training to labour market needs Cooperation of metal and electro industry with vocational training centres in order to overcome skills shortages through:1. Development of company survey (or skills assessment tool) which is consisted of: - background information on the company- selection of a particular occupational profiles -metal and electro sector;- series of occupation-specific tasks and emergence of any new tasks- questions on major changes and innovations introduced in the organisation and their impact on the selected occupational group and selected job profiles2. Development of European training module based on survey results. - Training module will take the form of the European training module which reflects Industry 4.0. aspects of advanced analytics and artificial intelligence, robotics and automation and process digitalisation and software automation. - Training module will be structured around TOPIC (particular competency); b) SHORT CONTENT, GOALS, OBJECTIVES, LEARNING OUTCOMES, THEORETICAL INPUTS and EXERCISES (in companies).- Training module should be design in a way that each VET centre can introduce it in the core curricula for the metal and electro sector qualifications.b) Level of cooperation: Cooperation of teachers from vocational schools and companies in order to improve quality of teaching (use of digital applications in vocational schools - open source platforms, augmentative reality, internet of things etc.) 3. Blended training programme for VET Teachers and Work-place Trainers -for sharing information and knowledge on digital technologies (online learning and OER, simulation (augmented, mixed and virtual reality and digital assessment tools and credentials)- main aspect of the training is to elaborate how pedagogical innovations and digital learning technologies might be better used in VET. 4. digital JODAlab - updating and sharing educational apps applied in class or during the apprenticeship - each partner upload up-to date elaboration of use of digital tools in VET, ongoing or future projects which deals with development of digital tools for VET and sole digital tools staff will further communicate with VET teachers and workplace trainers in order to inform them about newly created platform and a way how they can make contribution and use the benefits from the JODAlab. - platform will be open to all users at their first visit. - in order to enter the JODAlab platform teachers will have to contribute to the platformOTHER ACTIVITIES:In order to support achieving the key outputs (company survey, training module, blended training and JODAlab), additional activities will be implemented: - Development of NETWORK of at least 150 companies (with focus on SMEs) in manufacturing industry from 5 EU countries – metal and electro sectors in order to participate in survey - Producing TWO DOCUMENTED ANALYSES on skills demand in occupational profiles of metal and electro sector based on survey results in order to summarise intelligible survey results - Organisation of EUROPEAN CONFERENCE - VET-Industry cooperation and introducing training module into curricula for the metal sector qualifications - challenges and perspectives, in order to train multipliers to understand and introduce Training Module in regional VET curriculums - Organization of National workshops in each partner country for VET practitioners in order to replicate European conference to a wider audience - VET practitioners and company mentors<< Results >>RESULT 1: We expect that, by the end of 2022, minimum 30 companies per country (150 in total) from metal and electro sector are involved in process of updating information about skills demand as “occupation task screening”. It means that through developed frameworks i.e.FactCheck skills assessment tool and network of companies, VET centres will have information which will be used in order to make an intervention more effective and efficient. The key success factor appears to be the presence of a committed companies that have the capacity to identify its skills needs and engage in cooperation with educational institutions to have them matched in curricula. However, such capacity is often a function of firm size and therefore it is unlikely that small companies can be expected to be able to initiate this kind of cooperation. Thus in this project we will provide framework for SMEs to imitate and participate in these activities.RESULT 2: We expect that, by the end of 2023, VET centres will have all relevant information to adapt their curriculum according to European Training Module. In order to support this projects, FactCheck project will develop training programme/module based on the survey results. This training programme will be example of good practice for all centres to refresh their modules and programmes. Training programme will take the form of the European training module constituted of identical European learning outcomes in the field of given occupations (focusing on use of innovative software, machines and digital tools used in metal and electro sector). The programme should meet the demands of industry with the VET system in targeted partners’ countries.RESULT 3: We expect that cooperation among teachers and trainers from participating countries will be improved. This cooperation will be possible through work at JODAlab and Blended training programme for VET teachers and Workplace trainers. We expect that minimum 100 teachers and workplace trainers will participate in these activities. Following outputs will be produced within the FACTCHECK project: • NETWORK of at least 150 companies (with focus on SMEs) in manufacturing industry – metal and electro sectors • SKILLS ASSESSMENT INSTRUMENT for industry (SMEs). This instrument will be used by companies to update information on skills demand and by VET Centres in order to adapt curriculums according to needs of the companies• TWO DOCUMENTED ANALYSES on skills demand in occupational profiles of metal and electro sector based on survey results • EUROPEAN TRAINING MODULE developed according to task-occupational screening for selected occupational profiles developed• EUROPEAN CONFERENCE - VET-Industry cooperation and introducing training module into curricula for the metal sector qualifications - challenges and perspectives • Digital JODALab developed. Digital laboratory will be developed for active use of VET teachers and Workplace trainers in order to share information and knowledge on digital software and open source platforms and update information on new developed modules in the sector for specific occupational profiles • BLANDEDE TRAINING COURSE for VET teachers and Workplace trainers on use of ICT tools and methods in training courses and workplace training and• National workshops organized is each partner country for companies and VET centres

EE-METAL aims to provide enterprises with innovative technical, commercial and financial tools in order to overcome the existing barriers that hinder the adoption of energy saving measures. EE-METAL actions are mainly targeted to Metalworking and Metal Articles (MMA) SMEs, given that this sector is the biggest manufacturing sector in Europe and it is mostly composed by SMEs. EE-METAL actions will focus on overcoming: Awareness, information and technical capacity barriers to identify, evaluate and implement energy efficiency actions: EE-METAL will adapt and standardize for the sector existing methods and technologies such as energy audits, the standard ISO 50.001 and the use of Energy Monitoring Systems. Commercial and market barriers to the contracting of energy service companies (ESCos): development of a benchmarking study of energy service contracts and the role of ESCOs in the MMA and other industrial sectors; networking with ESCOs Associations for fostering ESCOs-SMEs contracts. Financial barriers to the implementation of energy saving measures: benchmarking the different financial models being implemented in the partner countries for financing energy saving institutions for providing clear information on type and size of investments needed. These two last actions will allow put in place mechanisms for funding the energy efficiency projects identified in the first action. In this sector, big energy savings can be obtained by the aggregation of many smaller savings. Furthermore five out of the seven project partners are Enterprise/Trade Associations (with 7000 associated companies) that will ensure that a critical mass is achieved. EE-METAL is in line with the following EU strategies and initiatives: first priority of the EU Energy 2020 Strategy for Achieving an energy efficient Europe; Energy efficiency plan 2011 (COM (2011) 109); A strategy for competitive, sustainable and secure energy (COM (2010) 639 final) and Directives 2012/27/EU-2