"COMPETE! has as general objective the development of relevant and high-quality skills and competences supporting graduates in acquiring and developing soft skills and key competences, to foster their employability and socio-educational and personal development, in order to help them be actively involved in work and social life and overcome also the problem of recent graduates that enrol for jobs for which they are over-qualified in order to get into the labour market.To reach this objective the consortium wants to create a serious game, that will train graduates and young people at risk of unemployment to acquire the so called ""future skills"", which are a combination of cognitive, methodological, social and digital skills. The choice has been done because different institution at international level (e.g. The New Media Consortium), that have mapped innovation processes in education and training systems, highlighted the strong potential of games in education.COMPETE! has the aim of tackling skills gaps and mismatch through design and development of an educational/serious game involving directly students and other stakeholders, mainly universities and enterprises, in the elaboration of relevant learning outcomes and design of adapted learning, teaching and assessment approach. Project activities can be divided into 4 steps:- Step 1: field research (O1). Project partners will elaborate data collected through questionnaires and interviews to students/graduates and entrepreneurs to detect which are the key soft skills for accessing the labour market;- Step 2: desk research (O2). Study on gamification and serious gaming for education and training, that will give information and indications on how to develop an effective online game with educational purpose.- Step 3: game design, development, testing and validation (O3). - Step 4: COMPETE! training package and game manual (O4), that is a toolkit dedicated to professors and trainers, to support graduates and students approaching closure of their academic carriers in acquiring ""future skills"" to enter labour market in a proper way, being them also interested in developing their own enterprise.These steps will all generate a project Intellectual Output, that will be free and accessible to everyone interested in using tools and materials produced.Some of the numbers that describe COMPETE! project:- No. of graduates/students involved in O1 and O4 - 300;- No. of professors/trainers involved in O3/O4 - 30;- No. of enterprises involved to implement O1 - 450;- No. of university and VET organisations involved - 10;-No. of public administrations, local authorities and non-governmental organisations - 9Futhermore, the following RESULTS will be achieved:- Creation of a serious/edugame that will allow a more intuitive acquisition of soft skills from graduates and teachers/trainers to have a tool that will support them in teaching this particular subject and assess the acquisition of these skills by graduates;- Create a system of work/ a best practice for the future implementation of a wider network among university, VET organisations and enterprises to make them work together and produce effective impact for quality employment and to give a contribution in the decrease of youth unemployment rates, especially in South European countries;- Increased capacity to work in European contexts, furthermore creating a network of organisations that could work beyond the lifecycle of the project itself by activating local/national and EU networks and exploit tools produced to be integrated in universities, VET organisations and enterprises daily work and stimulate research and work in the field to promote a more “good and equal” labour market especially for young people;- Enlarge the opportunity for graduates to raise their skills and as consequence get aware of what are the needs and expectations of enterprises and to enter the world of work as active participant and achieve as much independence as possible;- Favour the acquisition of soft and entrepreneurial skills by young people trying to support those who wish to make their innovative entrepreneurial ideas become a reality by increasing their skills and proximity to market.The consortium operating in this project is composed by 9 partners (plus various associated partners) and strongly enriched by their diversity, they represent different background and countries, size, type but all joining because of the willingness to support young people in finding their way in work and social life. Project partners have been selected mainly in 3 different sectors: university, VET organisations, enterprises and their representation organisations. The choice reflects the objective of developing a network to reinforce cooperation between higher education institutions, VET organisations and employers or social enterprises on real-world problems, contributing to the increase of youth employment."

The project aims to create skills on the topic of project management (PM) and intends to do so using the concept of Edutainment in depth. To do this, it was decided to unite the world of the PM and that of the Board Games: this combination aims to facilitate the learning of the concepts of the PM but intends to do it through a new model, not only through the game, but using a game in which the players interact in a common space and do it in person, ergo endowed with a very marked social component.The PM, today, is a competence that has a very strong relevance in almost all fields and is increasingly requested by people who do not have to become real Project Managers. This is because it includes skills that are transversal to all sectors and is therefore a subject that is perceived as a fundamental and basic element on which to build the rest of the expertise of a member of the organization, be it public, private or non-profit.The use of the Board Game, however, is back in the spotlight after a period of torpor and the data indicate them as a phenomenon of massive and inter-generational interest, especially for young people who discover them as a personal relationship together with the digital social networks.The PMBoG project aims to use this new renaissance of Board Games to create a game that regards the PM and legitimate the dynamics of this discipline, and intends to do this through the interaction between players/learners through the rules of a board game. The PMBoG project will address the complex nature of Project Management by allowing professional adults to manage situations where not only PM’s theory is relevant but where also a deep understanding of the structure underlying the dynamics of projects can play a crucial role for the correct management of resources and ultimately for a successful completion of an endeavor in terms of time, budget and result quality. Simultaneously, the project will extend and develop the competences of management educators and other personnel who support adult learners, with the purpose of developing a learning pathway that will certify Project Management as an essential skill with transversal value.To achieve the objectives of the project, we will combine a hybrid-style of education:- A crash-course on PM using the traditional analytical tools (e-books, papers etc.)- The development of Interactive Learning Environments (ILEs) based on simulation models that provide meaningful insights about Project Management -The development of a board game that will incorporate every element of the previous results and translate them into a scenario that will allow the participants to experience a learning process that not only delivers facts/information but allows them to understand Project Management in their own terms and find their own solutions.The strategic partnership envisages that the impact of the project will be:For the partners of the project, the impact will take the form of a strengthened cooperation and with different scopes and experiences. At the same time it will strengthen the role of the participating partners both in their respective countries and in the countries of all the participants, as the project will bring cutting-edge research and awareness campaigns closer to students and citizens. Simultaneously, the project partnership will try to address the gaps in the research: the design and implementation of a course targeted to educators of Project Management and Professionals and secondly, inform the academic community on the gap of game-based learning with regards to the assessment of the learning progress.For the participants, the new course will provide an innovative type of education, which is more student-centered and not overly reliant on the traditional style of education. This innovative education will allow the participants to achieve competences such as the ability of time management, budget management, negotiation skills, creating and delivering presentations, relationship management, risk management and using technology effectively. These competences will allow them to deal with complex decisions and decision making processes in their current and future careers in private and public organizations and provide insights into the complexity and the effort required to achieve a unique progress in a highly competitive global environment.Furthermore, the PMBoG project will provide to educators and professionals a range of tools that have high transferable value since every aspect in life can be thought and managed in terms of Project Management. Finally, the PMBoG project will bring the participants in touch with work performed by the partners and will connect them with other facets of the European culture. Last but not least, the partnership aims at bringing elements of pure fun in academic and research institutions and the corridors of professional companies.