EIDE (Emotional Intelligence and Digital Entrepreneurship in VET) has been implemented between October 2018 and November 2020 by 7 partners (PL, BE, IT, ES, RO, UK)with different backgrounds (business/ICT field, VET providers and social partners/NGO) in order to address one of the most important nowadays priorities - entrepreneurial activity, which, due to its positive effects (fostering innovation, job creation, encouraging competitiveness) is vital for economic growth and economic prosperity.Through its activities and outputs, it proposed an innovative approach of two factors influencing entrepreneurial success: emotional intelligence and digital skills. The project’s main aim was to contribute to the common European efforts of fostering entrepreneurial skills in all fields of education and fill some specific gaps existing between formal education and training systems (especially VET) and the real world. EIDE was highly innovative and ‘pioneering’ by bringing together different and apparently unrelated ‘facets’ of entrepreneurial education. It addressed the needs of 3 main target-groups:*Needs of students within the VET systemStudents enrolled within the pre-university VET system, although the most likely to start a business after acquiring a qualification, seem to be neglected compared to those in theoretical high-schools when it comes to entrepreneurial education. Through EIDE we intended to support them and broaden their area of choices, and break the stereotype that VET education only produces workers. *Needs of VET Providers and VET TeachersEIDE created learning resources for students, teachers and schools so that emotional intelligence and digital entrepreneurship can be integrated within the existing curricula.*Needs of companiesThrough the learning resources created and activities undertaken, EIDE also supported the needs of companies for intrapreneurs – employees with a high degree of business awareness, social interaction skills and business digital skills making them able to work independently and effectively without receiving directions all the time.The objectives of the project, which we successfully reached were:To create, develop and test innovative materials and curriculum framework which allow VET providers equipping VET students with two crucial entrepreneurial success skills: emotional intelligence and digital entrepreneurship skills.*To rise awareness among VET providers and education authorities concerning the potential of digital skills and emotional intelligence skills and their role as business success factors.*To equip at least 30% of the students of the participating organizations with emotional intelligence and digital entrepreneurship skills by the end of the project.In order to reach the above-mentioned objectives, the following outputs have been created:*O 1- EIDE E-learning course for Students- Emotional Intelligence and Digital Entrepreneurship- 12 modules;*O 2 - EIDE Part I - Emotional Intelligence Training for Entrepreneurial Success Manual and Guidelines for VET Teachers and Trainers Part II - Digital Entrepreneurship Manual and Guidelines for VET Teachers and Trainers*O3 - Emotional Intelligence and Digital Entrepreneurship Curriculum Framework* O4 - EIDE Train the trainer online courseThose products were pilot tested and validated by students and teachers over the lifetime of the project. Measures for open access and sustainability were planned and implemented, to ensure the usability of the project beyond project’s lifetime. Those outputs become even more relevant and useful during the coronavirus pandemic when schooling moved online and VET schools were the least prepared for the switch, lacking online training resources, as their activity is usually more practical. Due to their digital, open, easy to use and compatible format (can be used on any devices, including smartphones), they were broadly used and highly appreciated by the beneficiaries.All the outputs are sustainable, transferrable (to other education fields/target groups), scalable and relevant, with open and unrestricted access. The project management and methodology has been tailor-made, involving development of personalized project management, quality assurance and dissemination plans, internal project documentation and monitoring/evaluation tools, with clearly defined preparation, implementation, dissemination and monitoring/evaluation phases. Due to the presence of partners with a high level of experience and multiplication potential, the project benefitted from increased visibility and impact at national and European level, being able to reach very relevant stakeholders such as EU Parliament members and large numbers of companies.EIDE had and will continue to have significant impact at the level of VET learners, VET professional and participating organizations by involving development of unique social and technical skills.

The project Smart Aspirations Future Employment+ (SAFE+) is a partnership between 6 organisations from UK, Turkey, Romania, Germany , Netherlands and Austria, who have the same institutional needs; youth inclusion for a better life opportunities. It is estimated that about 90% of jobs will require some kind of digital skills in the future (EU2020) making it necessary for education and training institutions to offer training which supports the development of such skills. SMART+ project looks to foster the provision and assessment of digital competences by supporting personalised learning approaches, collaborative learning and strategic use of ICT. The central focus is to raise recognition that Smart City’ vision of the future world by reviewing topics like the Technology and curriclum, Employment skills of the future, Migration, Inclusion in 2030 and beyond. By this year the technological revolution will be promoting artificial intelligence, virtual reality, increase web traffic, introducing hybrid generation, robots etc. Smart City’ vision is shaped by providers of big technology, who are not attuned to bottom-up innovation. For organisations internationalisation, digitalisation, modernisation can be very difficult, as inexperienced organisations, to get the big picture and apply them to work effectively. It can prove challenging to an organisation whose staff have limited opportunity to gain even the most basic skills necessary to operate effectively into the field of international cooperation (e.g. emailing etiquette or networking basics) to break through. Or for a organisation who has no specialised ICT staff (and that is the case as many organisations don't even have an ICT technician), to implement digitalisation and creativity. The aim of this project is to share best practice amongst organisations working with limited opportunities, marginalised youth, long-term unemployed from urban and rural areas, young people from migrants and refugee families. SMART+ Partners selected this theme for the topic using the following methods SWOT analysis and in country research from this it was determined that this project can develop our work for our common needs. Also, we understood that the exclusion of youth from central societal sectors generates tremendous social and economic costs to the society and may even lead to social and political unrest, and our institutions curriculum must have a real development of skills and pedagogical approaches, who are key vehicles for developing the all educational process. It was our intention to have 5 transnational meetings organised every 4 months. This included a kickoff and a closingmeeting. The partners meet to ensure smooth & continuous communication and delivery on projects objectives. At these meetings we would time to reflect discusss key topics meetings, build on previous meeting outputs and prepare the nextsteps and activities. prior to the pandemic we had 3 face to face meetings and 2 virtual meetings (due to lockdown) plus 4 in between meetings over the project timeline. From our research in country we have better awareness and understanding of the future jobs and skills landscape and where each country it at, including government plans from our observations there is more to do on this topic.Access and training is the factor that will allow more young people to become aware of the possibliites for future employment we determined we could build on the project by creating KA2 around ICT specfic jobs and entreprenuership, gender and inclusion. Future jobs are coming and in some cases already here UK gave examples of supermarkets and digital shopping devices

"Digital Skills drammmatically change the way of life and work of Europeans. At the same time they bring a number of challenges: according to the European Commission, more than 70 million Europeans suffer from low level of digital skills, and this makes them exposed to a bigger risk of unemployment, poverty and social exclusion (New Skills Agenda, 2016). Digital skills are not only about using the ICT, but also about applying competences as described in document Digital Competence Framework 2.1 (updated in 2019) in the following 5 areas:1) Information and data literacy2) Communication and collaboration3) Digital content creation4) Safety5) Problem solvingMore than 40% of Europeans have insufficient or no Digital Skills, and out of those, 42% are unemployed.As also the case of Slovakia confirms, in the area of digital skills also the gender issue is present: the OECD International Assessment of Adult Competences (PIAAC), which is a survey of adult skills, reports that Slovakia scores very well in Literacy and Numeracy, but poorly in Problem Solving in Technology-Rich Environment (the combination of ICT literacy and cognitive skills of problem solving). There is also a disproportion between the levels of men and women, to the disadvantage of women. This is the basis for project AXESS – to increase the level of digital skills of low-skilled women, through deploying the educational resources accessible through an open and free platform of the OER type (Open Educational Resources). The long-term goal is to enhance employability (through developed sense of initiative and entrepreneurship and more proactive social and civic engagement). This is why the phrase ""digital skills"" throughout the project encompasses also the civic and social competences as well as the sense of initiative and entrepreneurship. All of these competences are found among the 8 key competences of lifelong learning as adopted by the Council of the EU in its Recommendation.AXESS brought together 8 partners from 7 countries. Each represents a different approach to education of people with low skills, gender equality, ICT and digital skills. The primary target group are low-skilled women. The target groups participated in the mapping of situation/analysisi of education needs and in the phase of piloting and testing of the designed courses.The partners implemented the following activities:A)Development of OER platform AXESS – free and open access to project results and educational resourcesB)Mapping of situation in digital skills and educational needsC)Design of relevant, practical and easy to be used educational materials for face-to-face and online studyD)Pilot testing of courses with a group of more than 300 participating low-skilled women (the fplan was 150)AXESS’s methodological approach hinges on sound knowledge base and practical experience. AXESS has adopted the methodology of:analysis ==> development ==> test and validation ==> full scale OER deployment ==> exploitation.Project AXESS has achieved the following tangible outputs:Educational materials divided into 10 training modules, that cover digital competences according to the Digital Competence Framework DigComp 2.0 as well as related competences such as sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, civic and social competences. The modules are divided into 4 areas - 1. Problem Solving, 2. Digital Skills, 3. Sense of Initiative, 4. Civic and Social Competences in Digital Age. All education materials are available in 7 languages to be able to spread among wide public.AXESS has got a positive and immediate impact on all participating organisations, target groups, adult education ecosystem as well as the level of digital skills of low-skilled women:a)The portfolio of training offer of individual partners has grownb)Low-skilled women can access relevant, practical training materials that are easy to find, work with and applyc)Education providers (outside of project partnership) have got access to relevant, practical and multilingual educational resources that can be used and accommodated according to their needsThe project partners commit to maintain and develop the AXESS OER platform at least for another 2+1 years after the end of ERASMUS+ financing. The partners disseminate the use of platform among othe key player, adult education providers and digital education experts to make is sustainable. The involvement of low-skilled women, mostly of female NGOs, and private sector also strengthens the sustainability of AXESS.All the project outputs are accessible via www.axesslearning.eu"

"<< Background >>The MORE project (""Multifunctional role of women as a key driver for rural development"") aims to improve the access to, and the quality of, training opportunities and qualitifications of rural EU women. The realities of women's lives in rural areas have become more diverse in recent decades. In today's society, women assume a ""multifunctional role"" in the multi-faced context of their families (i.e. child and elderly care) and social and labour ties. This multiplicity of roles contributes significantly to improvement of their families' quality of life, as well as rural socio-economic development, civic engagement, and ways of rethinking the territorial contexts. According to the EU Parliament, the multifunctional role of women is essential to save rural areas in Europe, whose population is expected to shrink to almost 8M by 2050, in contrast with a fast-growing urban population that will reach 24M by 2050. Rural women still face serious disadvantages, compared not only to rural men, but also to urban women. Due to the structural drawbacks of local labour markets, women have to out-migrate from rural areas at a higher rate than men. Yet, for older generations, the domestic caregiver role is a significant barrier to mobility. Rural women are more dissatisfied with educational and employment opportunities in their regions. Moreover, they contribute significantly to the farming sector in terms of working time in agriculture. However, only 30% of farm holdings in the EU are officially owned by women. Most of times, official documents, rights, and representation within farm associations or local groups are at the name of their male counterparts. Although rural women's multifunctional role has been stressed by EU decision-makers, it is actually not endorsed by the policy and socio-economic sectors of national and local realities. The MORE partners have faced these challenges in first place, within the regional rural contexts in which they operate. Hence, they have decided to promote a project proposal to contribute to filling these gaps.MORE thus responds to the need for increasing rural women’s skills and capacities and making them direct actors of the social, policy and economic processes at local level. Limited research and education action have been so far undertaken on multifunctionality: MORE will overcome these limitations by conducting in-depth research analysis, developing 10 e-learning training courses and promoting the first digital community of rural women, directly supported by the feedback of target groups.<< Objectives >>Considering the challenges outlined above and the current EU rural context, MORE aims to improve and promote the multifunctional role of rural women by enhancing their wide range of skills and encouraging and motivating their participation into local ecosystems. In MORE, rural women are conceived as key drivers for their territories’ development and regeneration. The project will aim to stimulate and promote inclusive participation of rural women, including female migrants, in the project activities, along with trainers and local actors, by creating specific communities of interest, knowledge and alliances. Project core products will be co-designed with stakeholders to ensure the results are in line with their needs and interests and can be sustained in a longer term. The project will establish local “Rural Women Hubs” (RWHs) in 7 rural territories of 5 EU project countries - Spain, Romania, Poland, Italy, and Greece. The EU perspective will be ensured by a dedicated partner with long-standing expertise in EU values' advocacy and high-level connections across the EU and within EU institutions.MORE education action will strive to improve a number of capacities strictly related to multifunctionality, which have emerged from literature review, partners' direct experience and talks with local stakeholders performed at the proposal preparation stage. In a fast-changing world, key needed skills for rural women empowerment shall include digital literacy, entrepreneurial mindset to be social entrepreneurs or self-employees, multilingual competences, adaptation to climate change and ways to promote rural sustainability, work-life balance, flexibility to adapt to radical changes such as the ones imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic on our societies and economies. MORE will improve the access to these qualifications by developing high-quality educational content, easily replicable in other EU countries.MORE expects to promote new know-how and educational & digital products for EU, national and local stakeholders, to provide women with proper skills, and to advocate for better services, education and infrastructure to ensure a balanced life in rural territories and prevent further migration towards cities.<< Implementation >>The project foresees 3 main ""Project Results"", plus complementary activities including local activities with RHWs, dissemination, sustainability and project management.The core project products include:1) Development of the first training programme for multifunctional rural women. MORE will tackles different fields of multifunctionality through 10 e-courses on core skills related to multifunctionality, which emerged from partners' research and interviews with local stakeholders: professional, digital, social and personal skills. The training content and tools will be designed with the input of direct target group and local stakeholders. The courses will be then tested in a pilot and further fine-tuned based on the feedback received. At least 220 rural women, including female migrants, and 20 educators/trainers will be engaged in the pilot.2) Conduct of extensive research on multifunctional role of rural women: concept, trends & patterns, policy-framework, best practices, etc. The research study will conclude with specific guidelines and recommendations for the public and private sectors of rural territories, as well as for national and EU policy-makers. 3) Structure, launch and growth of the first EU digital community dedicated to multifunctional rural women, through the establishment of an innovative community platform for knowledge sharing, discussions, storytelling and free access to the MORE results.To complement these core technical activities, partners will promote local events such as conferences, talks, dialogue meetings, etc within their own hubs. Hubs will be conceived as a sort of living labs for knowledge sharing. Key attention will be paid to dissemination & valorisation activities, respectively to raise awareness of the project and ensure transferability and sustainability of results. A physical multiplier event in each participating country will be organised, and complemented with digital promotion actions to reach a wider impact. Finally, project management issues will also have a dedicated space to ensure smooth and efficient implementation of activities within the budget and time requirements. Three transnational project meetings have been foreseen to ensure cooperation and knowledge transfer. These have been scheduled in a way to benefit from other parallel project actions e.g. in conjunction with a multiplier event to allow all partners' attendance.<< Results >>Key expected impacts will be on project direct target group (rural women), in terms of reinforcement of capacities to explore innovative forms of social, personal and labour value creation and new opportunities of growth and competitiveness. They will be the first ones to benefit from the training and explore personal and professional growth, and business opportunities, to reinforce their multifunctional role. The project will engage rural women together with other key local actors, in the RWHs, to share experiences, deepen skills, create new partnerships and alliances and raise awareness of the multifunctionality and gender balance promotion at local level. This is aimed to contribute to the development of the sense of community and create a better environment and open new collaborations in the rural areas.Concrete results are, among others:- 7 local hubs established, whose overall activities will reach 490 people;- 1 Digital Community Platform;- 10 e-learning courses on multifunctionality, co-created with stakeholders in dedicated meetings within the hubs and tested/evaluated by at least 250 individuals;- 1 comprehensive research study, whose results will be published in relevant publications;- 6 multiplier events;- 3 transnational project meetings;- 1 call for replication launched to seek commitment from further adult education organisations to adopt the training course;- concrete policy recommendation, also summarised in a official White Paper, to advocate for policy and financial support for rural female multifuctionality in the EU;- partners sustaining project products within their institutions in the long term, along with associated partners;- a wide pool of policy-makers contacted and informed about the project outcomes."

CONTEXT & NEEDEU SMEs are the most affected by the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and related lockdown: Europe is “closed for business”, and while large companies have systems in place to implement telecommuting and Smart Work, SMEs (especially microenterprises) do not have ICT systems in place nor policies for their staff to work remotely.The EU Commission provides a worrisome picture: less than 15% of EU SMEs are ready to implement Smart Working arrangements. The most recent study Eurofound/ILO “Working anytime, anywhere” of 2017, reports that only 2.8% of employees in the EU adopt Smart Working. This means that when the pandemic stroke Europe, very few SMEs were ready and had systems in place to adopt telecommuting arrangements.EU SMEs are the most exposed to the risk of not being able to ensure business continuity and be resilient in times of crisis. More importantly, they are less prone to reaping the benefits that Smart Working can bring due to the lack of guidelines on the most suitable ICT solutions and practices to implement Smart Working and of mechanisms to manage Smart Working and telecommuting.There is a pressing need to equip SMEs and empower their staff to implement Smart Working. This is confirmed by relevant EU position papers and studies:> EU Commission, “An SME Strategy for Sustainable and Digital EU”, March 2020: calls for the swift adoption of ICT solutions to enhance the competitiveness and growth of SMEs> Eurofound/ILO “Working anytime, anywhere: The effects on the world of work” 2017: identifies the need of EU SMEs to adopt Smart Working as a means to increase efficiency, improve working conditions and reduce costs.OBJECTIVES of SWIFT are to:1) Fill the skill gaps identified by the EU and national entities to equip SMEs with skills, competences and solutions to be more flexible, responsive and efficient through Smart Working arrangements2) Provide venues for SMEs and their staff to develop competences, skills and tools to adopt and adapt Smart Working for their resilience, competitiveness and growth3) Enhance the responsiveness and flexibility of EU SMEs to ensure business continuity in times of need and crisis, while increasing their competitiveness and efficiency through effective Smart Working4) Increase the growth and competitiveness of EU SMEs through more relevant and timely training to empower them with the operational tools and equip them with the skills to be more resilient and flexibleTARGET GROUP is identified in SMEs and their staff, especially in the small-scale enterprises in the service sectors. Such target groups was selected thanks to the thorough analysis of the state-of-the-art carried out at preparation: SMEs are the most vulnerable to asymmetric shocks and uncertainty and are the least equipped to implement Smart Working to be more resilient and efficient.PARTICIPANTS are the 6 partners from 5 EU countries representing the world of VET, enterprise and ICT. Moreover, at implementation partners will engage at least 120 target groups in the delivery of the SWIFT training, more than 100 stakeholders and decisions makers in the Multiplier Events and more than 287,636 people at dissemination level.ACTIVITIESPartners will carry out the following activities:a) Develop the SWIFT OER Platformb) Develop a shared methodology for the mappingc) Consolidate findings in IO2 to map dynamics, trends and needs for Smart Working adoption, including technical, operational and human resource implicationsd) Develop the SWIFT training and tools for Smart Working adoption in SMEse) Deliver the training to 120 target groupsf) Develop guidelines for adoption of SWIFT and its mainstreaming in VET and SME ecosystems in EUg) Put forward policy options to promote Smart Working and competitiveness of SMEsRESULTS & IMPACT are1) The dedicated SWIFT Platform that is the Open Educational Resource for all SMEs across EU that can access for free, without restriction and in full Open Access mode all the SWIFT content, training, tools and resources available in multiple language versions. To ensure long-term impact, the SWIFT OER Platform will stay live for at least 2 years after the project2) The SWIFT SME training courses, handouts, operational tools and guidelines for European SMEs to adopt, adapt and implement Smart Working to be more flexible, resilient and competitive3) Enhanced competence of SMEs’ to implement Smart Working that will lead to increased flexibility, responsiveness and competitiveness. Moreover, the adoption of Smart Working will enhance work-life balance of employees while producing efficiency gains for SMEs4) Increased operational capacity of SMEs to be more responsive in the ever-changing global markets being more able to adapt to external conditions that require to adjust business processes.