"This proposal, “Building an Applied Research facility into COVE” (BARCOVE) aims to develop an innovative and norm-setting model for school-company collaboration around VET. It focuses on ap-plied research as a lever for technical innovation in urban space and water management. Further, it responds to current challenges placed on VET e.g. the constant demand for innovative technical solu-tions, which climate adaptation and the green transition necessitate. Finally, it links to the companies' need for skilled employees and to VET’s need to attract highly motivated students committed to sci-ence, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) and entrepreneurship.After an initial mapping/analysis of existing knowledge of applied research in VET, it develops and tests a forward-looking and innovative VET setting, where VET students, professionals and educators develop innovative solutions to concrete challenges that companies face in urban space and water management. Subsequently, BARCOVE mainstreams the knowledge gained with applied research into two training modules for VET educators/employers, and into a transferable “Recipe Book”.BARCOVE involves about 50 professionals and VET trainers from 8 partners in 4 partner countries (DK, NL, ES, and RO). In addition, about 40 VET students will participate in the project's Hackathon and in the subsequent development and testing of technical solutions.The project will produce:•a mapping & analysis report on AR in VET;•a proven pedagogical-innovative development concept documented both audio-visually and in writing;•two teaching modules with a focus on the integration of applied research in the school-company collaboration;•a detailed reference framework that presents the project's results in a transferable context, and•a format for an annual ""Green Future Festival"".The produced outputs are disseminated among all European CoVEs, i.a. EPLUG and PoVE Water, both key stakeholders in future urban space and water."

"BIG InternPrize (InternPrize: Business Ideas Generation) is a Strategic Partnership for VET between 16 organisations including providers of HE, VET, Adult Education and other players in entrepreneurship education, experimentation, research and innovation in education.Under the leadership of Akdeniz University of Antalya they will:- engage at least 80 VET trainers, 120 VET students and 32 entrepreneurs in a structured Community of Practice therefore building on the successful experience and exploiting the platform and tools generated in two previous E+ KA2 Strategic Partnerships for VET,- introduce research into VET and publish at least 16 mini papers on the potential of mobile video bite size learning as a supplement to or a new form of VET and as part of a strategy to keep students at risk of ESL in education, bring ESLs, NEETs, resistant, reluctant and unlikely learners back into education through mobile, flexible and creative learning content,- publish a Joint Position Paper on the potential of bite size learning called ""VET for the Always Connected, the Disconnected and the Discontented."",- create a new trend (in style and content) in professional education of present and future VET trainers on mentoring, cultivating and supporting the generation of creative and innovative individual or joint business ideas by VET students from various disciplines,- create at least 30 bite size video lessons on the generation and presentation of creative and innovative business ideas for VET trainers and students (and professionals / entrepreneurs) from any sector and use them in a partnership wide monitored experiment to help understand the benefit and potential of the bite size learning methodology,- create a gallery of at least 80 individual or joint creative and innovative business ideas produced by students with the mentorship and support of VET trainers and after peer review by entrepreneurs and- stage a public training event in which students from all the partner education and training providers present their business ideas to entrepreneurs in a face-to-face peer review activity as part of a larger well renown start-ups bootcamp.The proposal was built after partnership wide consultation and research within the consortium that showed the need of VET becoming an education sector that is an active player in the local, regional, national and European economy. The partners built BIG InternPrize upon the premise that VET should not be a fallback form of education for students who are not keen on an academic career. On the contrary it is that sector of education that can best up the knowledge capital by opening up to closer, more creative and constructive relationships with industry. It can be the education sector able to lure people not in education and professionals into VET either as a way of getting back into education or as a form of lifelong professional development.In this way BIG InternPrize will:- bring research and innovation into VET making it more relevant in the lives of young people, the economy and the community around it,- start new trends in VET both in the professional development of trainers and in the provision of professional and personal education of students and- provoke positive change and innovation, more and higher quality knowledge capital and more social cohesion.During the project lifetime the partners will:- meet for four coordination meetings,- have a training activity for VET trainers and a training event involving VET trainers, VET students and entrepreneurs and- organise two multiplier events to share the results and outputs of the project giving BIG InternPrize visibility.There will be a strong dissemination and community building around the project throughout the project lifetime that will be a partnership wide effort to bring the results and benefits of the project to as many potential beneficiaries as possible. This will, in the second half of the project, develop into a structured exploitation strategy to take the partnership and the innovation started in this project beyond the partnership and beyond the project lifetime."

This project has been inspired by the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. Regarding sustainability issues, there are 3 key problems:1.The problems are so overwhelming that individual people feel that they have no chance to make difference. Our students are acutely aware of the problems, yet they feel helpless.2.Vast problems require concrete changes in our behaviour, which is hard. It is much easier to point the finger at someone else. Very often, the blaming finger has been pointing to the agribusiness.3.The problems are so vast that no sector nor no single country can resolve them alone; we need to take a communal approach and learn from the good practices of others.This project seeks solutions to these problems in our context: VET within the green sector. Instead of being part of the problem, the agribusiness sector needs to part of the solution. The hope lies in young people and education, but we need to develop VET and tackle real-life issues communally and in international cooperation.Therefore, this project has 3 main goals: 1.To empower students to contribute to the SDGs. For this, we need -learner-centred pedagogical approaches,-to give them a positive experience of tackling issues communally, and in international cooperation,-provide them with the skills and networks needed to continue to do so in the future.2.To empower students, teaching staff needs to be well-equipped to provide meaningful education for sustainability -with the contribution of representatives from the world of work, -using authentic, real-life learning challenges related to SDG 12 and 13, -and innovative, learner-centred pedagogical approaches.3.We need to develop innovative sustainability solutions and share them, as well as other good practices, in our own regions and in the whole field.How?The developing partners will arrange 4 workshops in which an innovative, learner-centred pedagogical approach is presented to the others in practice. During the workshops international student teams (EQF levels 3-4) tackle a real-life challenge that's related to the SDGs and provided by regional stakeholders. This enables the students to increase key competences such as communication, problem-solving, teamwork, and boundary-crossing skills, and to network with their future European colleagues while inspiring them to solving problems in European cooperation and empowering them.The workshop allows the teachers to learn the innovative pedagogical approach and evaluate how it should be localized to better fit their own context. To disseminate the pedagogical approaches wider, we will develop Manuals. The Manuals will be tested by 4 testing partners. Each will arrange a workshop in their own country piloting one approach, which will provide direct feedback on the transferability of the pedagogical approaches and on the usefulness of the Manuals.The aspect of sharing good practices will also be covered in the workshops: At least 2 innovative sustainability solutions from regional stakeholders in each of the partner countries will be shared. This will inspire the students and widen the knowledge of the teachers. We will collect these good practices to support the dissemination among regional stakeholders in each country. In addition, we will collect the real-life learning challenges tackled during the workshops and the solutions developed by the student teams. These provide good practices and inspiration to other farmers. In addition, they will serve as teaching material as such for other VET providers within the green sector. The Intellectual Outputs will be disseminated by each partner according to our carefully designed dissemination strategy. The VET providers in the green sector being very well organized both at national and European level through the Europea International network. Therefore, this project has a good chance to reach considerable sectoral impact:-Our students will be empowered to become ambassadors of sustainability engaging in active citizenship regarding sustainability issues.-The 4 innovative pedagogical approaches will spread to other schools in Europe, improving the quality of VET in the green sector.-Green VET schools will involve companies, regional authorities and other stakeholders so students can contribute to tackling environmental problems together, thus improving the labour market relevance of VET and enhancing its attractiveness in the eyes of the students.-Good practices and innovative solutions in the field of sustainability will spread between schools, stakeholders such as companies, professional bodies, municipalities, regions and countries. On a long term, this will help the agribusiness to develop in a future-proof way, in line with EU policy.All in all, this project will, for its part, contribute to the achievement of the European and global sustainability goals in the green sector and develop the quality and attractiveness of VET.

<< Objectives >>The main reasoning behind the SkillsComp project is to transfer the idea of skills competitions from the international level to the local/regional level by preparing VET teachers and professionals from various industries to use skills competitions as instruments to innovate VET and answer the needs of contemporary entrepreneurs who are struggling with the lack of qualified employees. We believe that skills competitions can make VET attractive again.<< Implementation >>SkillsComp project results intend to support institutions from the VET ecosystem to organize vocational skills competitions based on WorldSkills format. By implementing innovative educational resources, practical test projects, and new methodologies we will convince school staff and experts from various industries that it is worth investing in young people and organizing practical skills competitions.<< Results >>The intended result of the SkillsComp project is to create a synergy between VET schools and businesses to support education of young people who choose skilled careers. We would like to achieve that through organization of vocational skills competitions based on WorldSkills format. Relevant documentation, procedures and staff preparation will be delivered to achieve our goals. The driving force of the project is to increase the attractiveness of VET.

The project starts from the issue of ESL as a long term evolutionary process. Early warning signals given during time such as frequency of truancy, or gradual deterioration of academic performance, physical and psychological condition are several examples. There are ways to turn these signals into preventive actions. The teachers are the first to notice these early warning signs of ESL. Teachers are neither trained to cooperate in multidisciplinary teams nor supported to get involved in ESL prevention. The goal of the project is to capacitated the schools through teachers and comunity to trigger a cooperative reactions and action waves from the earliest warning signs of risk of ESL and effectively reached out to the other relevant stakeholders in the community in order to get them involved. Project objectives are: 1. To Determine the early warning signs and patterns of risk of ESL, 2. To Develop teachers’ skills for ESL prevention, 3.Bolster cooperation and communication between school and community, 4. Dissemination of intermediary and final project findings, best practices and experienceIn the project were participated 7 organizations: 3 non-guvernamental organization that have a very extensive experience in supporting compulsory education and supporting disadvantaged children and youth to attend school (World Vision Romania with relevant experience in rural areas and quality education for all children and high expertise in advocacy; National Network of Children from Bulgaria has a long experience and expertise in different areas of child welfare; We World from Italy has a relevant experience in promoting non formal education and peer education in the field of inclusion of disadvantage youth), one dynamic enterprise commercial Maltese entity (AcrossLimits with expertise in technology and media sector), two secondary schools from Romania ,located in rural areas (Mihai David and Cosereni Secondary Schools that has experience teaching vulnerable students, and local project on prevention of ESL), one university (Bergamo University with expertise in research, innovative curricula for teachers trainning,etc).Description of undertaken main activities: The project activities approached the ESL challenges by implementing a ESL school and coomunity based mechanism (tools) that is not only simply a formal part of the mainstream school management systems, identifiable by the stakeholders outside the school system as a mainly “school based and school owned task” easily lost in between so many other tasks, but a well-defined, community owned and shared and easily accessible, genuine ESL prevention mechanism. The main project activities undertaken in the project were: analysis of existent resources on ESL prevention, at EU level, selected the pilot schools and teachers, elaborate a School based ESL prevention and intervention mechanism,elaborate Training curricula for Improved cooperation and communication among teaching staff, elaborate Training curricula for Identification of ESL warning signs and associated Instruments., train teachers on applying School based ESL prevention mechanism, apply ESL prevention mechanism in schools with field support from partners,develop an electronic ESL tracking interactive database, train field and teachers for implementing partners on use of database, organize workshop with regional stakeholders to disseminate and multiply results.,elaborate and enforce a Community based Cooperative Intervention Workflow (CW) mechanism, train community and school stakeholders on applying the (CW), develop a community based Task Force (TF) to act immediately once students at risk of ESL have been referred by school, design and launch a project website and a Facebook account and newsletter, disseminate project related information. elaborate and disseminate an aggregated Project Case Study Report, organize a Project Closing conference .The results of the project are the intellectual outputs,that were elaborated and tested by the experts and teachers, as follow: Analysis of resources related to cooperation on ESL related issues, at the EU level, School based ESL prevention and intervention mechanism , Training curricula for improved cooperation and communication among teaching staff , Training curricula and the associated instruments for identification of ESL warning signs, Interactive database for recording information about signs of risk of ESLin students,Community based ESL prevention and intervention mechanism and Project Case Study.Am important long term results are: the skills that teachers and the other community stakeholders achieved in the field of ESL prevention and the practice of cooperation at community level, and the tools instruments on ESL created in the project for teachers