<< Objectives >>The objectives of the Skills4VET-app project are to:- Identify the knowledge gap of VET trainers and centers related to apprenticeships- Equip VET trainers with knowledge and methodological tools on how to guide,support and motivate the apprentices before the mobility- Strengthening the cooperation of VET centers with the business sector for addressing better the labor market needs - Design and implement sharing and promotion tools and activities, in order to increase the visibility of VET l<< Implementation >>Under the Skills4VETapp project partners will implement:- project management activities: administrative tasks,virtual meetings, preparation of communication materials & participants taking part- implementation activities: networking events,working sessions (Larissa), national piloting with the TGs, evaluation activities- national sharing & promotion activities:social media, website,dissemination material,national sharing & promotion events.<< Results >>Skills4VET-app resultsWP2 Digital Report: national-based Report that will identify the knowledge gap of VET trainers and providers on apprenticeships, and which skills are required to guide VET learners to pursue an apprenticeship. WP3 Digital Roadmap with methodologies to increase VET trainers’ knowledge on how to support VET learners from the preparation of an apprenticeship to the evaluation of the process after its completionWP4 Sharing & Promotion:dissemination material,national events

Sustainable growth - for a resource efficient, greener and more competitive economy is one of the pillars of EU2020 strategy. Following this challenge, major initiatives in the field of environment and climate protection, green purchase, circular economy, short circuits, the economy of the common good, and sustainable development goals of UNESCO are being developed all over Europe. Also, there is a growing willingness in society to give sense to the economic activity, that should be oriented toward the social benefice and wellbeing. SUSTRAINY has as main objective to foster sustainable initiatives undertaken by youth, providing them with comprehensive tools which will help them in the implementation of sustainable projects. Those tools are:-Sustainability guidelines, a complete didactic manual explaining what the main concepts are to be mastered regarding sustainable management-A diagnostic tool focused on sustainable competences evaluation, which will give youth a perspective of their existing knowledge.-A panorama of sustainable best practices, which will show examples of successful initiatives and intends to be a source of inspiration offering youth concrete solutions to sustainable challenges. Thanks to those tools, partners will help youth to get a better knowledge of their level of competences and encourage them in the acquisition of further competences in the field of sustainable business / project or initiatives, aligned to the EU objectives of sustainable growth. Also, youth assessors will get access to new tools to develop their activity in a qualitative way. In order to reach the project objectives, 5 partners from 4 European Countries: France, Poland, Spain and Italy, will form a strategic partnership bringing together different profiles and complementary expertise to develop a full set of activities relying on youth social entrepreneurship. Indeed, SUSTRAINY addresses any youth willing to undertake initiatives, especially those facing special challenges of insertion on the labour market, without any discrimination, and with a willingness to develop social and sustainable projects. By extension, this project will also target entities working with youth and offering youth support. These defined target groups will be involved directly all along the project during different activities, learning from the project tools and participating to their piloting, improvement and validation. In addition to the main outputs expected from this project (guidelines, diagnostic tool and panorama of best practices), a learning activity will take place in Matera and will bring together 20 participants during 5 days to work on the development of 10 sustainable projects ideas, using the different tools created. SUSTRAINY will rely on participative methodology, engaging the target groups all along the project implementation, with different events to be organised. It will also be focused on the development of tailor-made solutions, based on each one individuality and diversity, enabling different pathways adapted to the special needs identified for each one. A strong focus is given on transnational activities, being in line with an international scenario for smart growth and sustainable entrepreneurship within intercultural diversity. The project will use ICT as catalyst for the project activities impact, and all materials will be disseminated in electronic format. The main result of the project will be the creation of the guidelines, the diagnostic, the panorama and the self-assessment tool, that are expected to have a direct impact on both target groups: the young entrepreneurs and youth support organisations. They are expected to increase their awareness on social enterprise and initiative, and implement new projects in accordance with those principles that will impact positively the society on many and diverse aspects, such as social integration, environment, workers well-being, food safety, democracy, etc. At long term, SUSTRAINY has the ambition to have developed a transferable set of entrepreneurs´ support tools that could be replicated in other territories, fostering youth empowerment and business models innovation oriented toward social benefice and sustainable growth.

<< Background >>European projects often promote environmental education and sustainable development principles… But do we apply those principles to ourselves? Erasmus programme is one of the main achievements of the European integration. In 2019, this programme supported close to 940.000 learning experiences abroad and funded almost 25.500 project. What is the environmental impact of those activities and mobility? How to reduce it? This is the core subject of SUSTAIN E+ project.Many professionals are involved in the presentation and implementation of Erasmus + projects, from the conception of the project ideas to the monitoring of training activities. These professionals present a very heterogeneous group, with different professional profiles, experiences and responsibilities. Most of them have learnt how to work with Erasmus + on the ground, through the experience and opportunities presented. 2021 is a year of many changes, with a new Erasmus + programme that insists, among priorities, on the sustainable development and fight against climate change. We have experienced, with COVID 19 pandemic, a deep transformation of our working practices, turning non-essential travels into virtual. The digital tools that allow remote meetings, as well as webinars and online conferences, make it possible to reduce travel and increase the impact of projects. COVID has made possible to make an important leap in this regard, we must take advantage of the situation so that this way of working lasts as long as possible.For this, several training needs are identified:-First, a need to evaluate the contamination levels linked to the projects so to raise our awareness of our impact. Calculating the footprint of the different possible alternatives clearly reflects the options to reduce the impact and helps us make better decisions from an environmental point of view.-Then, increasing the level of knowledge and competences of project staff in the fields of sustainable transport, sustainable training activities, energy efficiency, project efficient management, digital solutions, etc. tackling the main areas of losses identified and significantly bettering our impact on environment. As a conclusion, SUSTAIN E+ arise from the need to train professionals in the implementation of sustainable and efficient Erasmus+ projects.<< Objectives >>The main objective (MO) of SUSTAIN E+ project is to develop guidelines addressed to workers involved in the development and implementation of Erasmus + projects and helping them in the design of eco-friendly project proposals, that takes into account the carbon footprint of their activities and intend to limit it thanks to more sustainable activities, especially regarding mobility. Thanks to Sustain E+, professional working with Erasmus + will be able to better evaluate their environmental impact, decrease it, and by extension will raise awareness of all Erasmus participants on their behaviours promoting sustainable actions. To go further in the achievement of this main objective, we have set 3 specific objectives, on which all the activities of this project will be focused:Specific Objective 1: Awareness raising from the professional from the sector about their environmental impact. People working with Erasmus + should get more concerned about their own impact and become more responsible at the time of planning their projects, thanks to different tools that will enable them to have a clear panorama of their different alternatives when planning an activity, and the contamination associated to each of them. Specific Objective 2: Training professionals working with Erasmus+ in the field of circularity and sustainability of EU projects, in a collective way, including:-Eco-design of a project that enable to decrease the impact since the design of the project idea in all areas of implementation.-Sustainable mobility guidelines, tackling the issue of transport, but also consumption while traveling. -Digital solutionsSpecific Objective 3: increasing the digitalisation of educational solutions. The restrictions applied during the pandemic have shown that digital solution can be effective alternatives to some activities that would have a higher footprint organised in a classic way. Thus, the digitalisation of training solution will be among the priorities of SUSTAIN E+ project.<< Implementation >>Our project will be formed by a consortium of 5 European entities from Spain, Poland, Italy and Greece and that are highly experienced in the implementation of Erasmus + projects. They are expert in environment, digital solutions, education, project management and mobility management. And they will bring those complementary experiences together to propose a set of activities designed to answer the project objectives. These activities will be: -Development of 3 main project results: an evaluation tool on Erasmus + projects and their environmental impact, training materials on sustainable Erasmus + project design and implementation, and a social based training platform that enjoin entities to form a new generation of partnerships that are more sustainable and with a reduce impact on the environment, sharing experiences and solutions. -A sustainable mobility, that will be organized at the beginning of the project and where professionals working with Erasmus + will experience in firsthand the definition of low-impact journey. During this experience, partners will have to answer the challenge of having a minimum impact while travelling and subsist in a foreign country. In the meanwhile, they will engage discussion on the definition of sustainability in a project and establish first criteria to be considered toward the certification of “green” project.-Sustainable events, that will be organized in each country at the end of the project as a way to promote the results achieved in a sustainable way. -And of course, all those activities will be supported by an efficient management system that will itself be designed with the idea of reducing the impact to the minimum, meaning fewer transnational meetings, more virtual meetings, a no-papers dissemination strategy, the optimization of online management tools, and a continuous reporting effort to spread our achievements.<< Results >>As a main result, our project has the ambition to answer to our main objective, the support of professional working with Erasmus + project to achieve the design and implementation of more sustainable – less contaminating Erasmus + projects. This will be achieved through the production of 3 main results:-An evaluation tool, called Erasmus + projects and their environmental impact. This tool will enable project staff to evaluate the impact of their initiatives. It will state criteria and levels of “acceptable” contamination, and will deliver a feedback on the evaluated project, thus providing information on the area of possible improvement to implement more eco-friendly project. It will deliver a green certificate to the good practices. -A training set, that proposes materials in different areas, such as transport, consumables, management, digital tools in order to upskills professionals working within the context of Erasmus + projects. These materials will be addressing the need of coordinating the activities in the frame of a partnership, thus taking into consideration the fact that Erasmus are projects that are implemented with different organisations requiring distance management tools. -A platform that brings together the previously mentioned materials on a digital and open format and beyond: that connect entities working with Erasmus + to share practices and learn from mutual experiences. At long term, our project expects to achieve the implementation of better and more efficient Erasmus + project on an environmental perspective, that also encourage better behaviours from all the participants to this programme, with a direct positive impact on our environment, contributing to the European Green Deal.

<< Background >>The Retail sector supposes the second largest service sector in the EU, employing 29 million people (8.6% of total employment) and contributing 11% to the EU's GDP. The sector is mainly composed by SMEs, from which 18% are self-employed. Furthermore, it is estimated that the retail sector adds value in the amount of €1 trillion to other sectors like wholesalers, transport, finance or manufacturing, a 10% of total EU amount, according to the European Commission. Retail sector is thus a key driver of economic growth in the long run for its importance boosting internal demand and consumption, as according to the European Commission, households spend one third of their budget in retail shops. Moreover, it has an impact on quality of life in EU citizens, as well as being a key driver of competitiveness, growth and innovation. However, productivity and dynamism in the EU sector has lagged behind in comparison with other sectors and other economies (for instance Japan, US or China), a situation that threatens the sector’s stability and importance. According to the European Parliament, globalization will force actors from this sector sooner or later to internationalize due to the competition and the lack of protection in the domestic markets. This trend was largely accentuated with the COVID-19 pandemy and mobility / shopping restriction, which were accompanied by the explosion of e-commerce. Thus, the internationalization process is becoming crucial for European SMEs in the retail sector, as it supposes an opportunity to obtain additional capacity, strengthen their financial position, achieve innovation, increase revenues, diversify risks and attract talented workers. Even when the EU Single Market gives access to 500 million potential consumers, still few EU SMEs decide to go international, either inside or beyond the EU, as the literature shows relatively low rates of exports (inside Europe and beyond) from EU retails, which shows that the EU still has much room for improvement. This situation is caused by barriers retailers face related to the internationalization process. As such, partners have observed among the major issues: - Disinformation of international markets. The lack of knowledge about local business practices as well as insufficient analysis of markets.- Difficulty of identifying foreign business opportunities and potentially beneficial synergies with local business.- Lack of a solid distribution channel that could guarantee optimal provision.- Limited internal structure regarding human and financial resources, managerial attitudes to growth and training.- Lack of experienced departments (marketing, logistics…) to overcome foreign barriers like culture, linguistics or legal problems.- Reluctance from local business to provide SMEs guidance and representation.From the analysis above, we deducted a clear need for training in the internationalisation field for professionals and future professionals from the sector.<< Objectives >>START- “Improve Internationalization Skills of SMEs in Retail sector” project aims to improve internationalization skills of SMEs in the retail sector in order to encourage retailers to develop their business in international markets. The project will provide experienced retailers and youth or unemployed interested in retail for career development with tools for enhancing their competences in internationalization and achieve required knowledge to be capable to develop a competitive strategy entering in a foreign market. Retailing sector is a low margin business from which benefiting from economies of purchase, supply chain investments and technologies for boosting productivity can only be achieved by large retailers. For SMEs that operate in mature national sectors of the economy, gaining productivity and competitiveness is a tough fruitless work. Reaching foreign markets present an opportunity for diversifying economic activity, decreasing risks and taking advantage of an unexplored market, widening target and market share. The main objective of START project is to help current and future professionals from the retail sector in developing an international strategy for their business, thanks to a proper training able to guide that path and the successful implementation of the internationalization process, using the latest technologies available. In the detail, partners have formulated 4 Specific Objectives that they wish to address:Specific Objective 1: Define the professional profile of an internationalization manager of SMEs in the retail sector that will support further training in this field. This profile should become a standard of reference while talking about internationalization training for retail. Specific Objective 2: Train entrepreneurs, start-ups, and decision makers from retail SMEs with key competences and skills so that they can extend their implementation internationallySpecific Objective 3: Train young and unemployed people seeking for new job opportunities in the retail sector, giving them a strong plus-value on the job market. Specific Objective 4: Increase the digital literacy of learners to ease the distance learning process and for an optimisation of the use of e-commerce technologies to further develop small retail businesses.<< Implementation >>The START project brings together 5 partners from 6 countries and regions that are particularly concerned by the fashion industry: Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Poland, Romania and Cyprus, while meeting the required skills to implement such action, with partners being business support organisations and experts in internationalisation, business management or VET education. Together, they will address: - Experienced retail entrepreneurs, needing to renew their skills and up-skills to develop further their SMEs toward international practices, integrating digital, social, and economic factors.- Youth, especially low-skilled youth or unemployed, providing them new knowledge, skills and competence in international retail business management to develop new career opportunities. - Supporting stakeholders for the exploitation and mainstreaming of the training to be developed. During this project, partners will implement the following activities:- Development of a mobile report about the skills needed by retail SMEs when deciding to internationalise according to representatives from the sector (entrepreneurs and trainers), in the view of developing a professional profile and associated standard of competences and an online training course answering to the international training needs. - Piloting activities will be implemented where the different target group will meet and increase their respective skills. At least 200 individuals will be trained during the projet life. - Dissemination events, that will be organized in each country at the end of the project as a way to promote the results achieved in a sustainable way. - ICT will be used as a catalyst for the project activities impact. - Our activities will be transnational, being in line with an international scenario for smart growth.- And of course, all those activities will be supported by an efficient management system that will itself be designed with the idea of optimisation of resources, transnational meetings and virtual meetings, online dissemination strategy, the use of online management tools, and a continuous reporting effort to spread our achievements.<< Results >>As a main result, our partnership expects to raise the level of competence of retailers and future retailers from all over Europe in the field of internationalisation, bettering our chances to deliver our products on larger territories in the context of globalized markets. This result will be achieved through the production of 2 main results: Result 1 : Mobile report about the skills needed by retail SMEs when deciding to internationalise according to representatives from the sector. This report, established on the basis of large scale questionnaires and focus groups is aimed at delivering a profile of the needed competence to properly internationalise a retail business. It will give us a better understanding of what are the training needs observed on the ground. This report will be accompanied by at least 10 best practices of retail SMEs internationalisation. It will be delivered in a digital format for a higher diffusion and impact. Result 2: START training courseThe START training course will be an online open educational resource that proposes to fill the gap observed in retailers competences profile. It will address topics such as retail sub-sectors market trends, fairs and commercial missions, e-commerce, etc. At least 4 full training modules will be developed and 20 retail entrepreneurs and 20 future professionals from the sector will be trained by each partner (total 200). Thanks to this, partners expect to achieve significant impact at local, and further national and European levels, supporting retail SMEs to open their horizon towards new market niches that were until now non-explored, making full benefits of e-commerce technologies.

Companies with a social impact take advantage of the growing awareness of society toward social and environmental problems, transforming these challenges into enormous business opportunities. From a broader point of view, the business reason should be related to the great social and environmental challenges. Entrepreneurs are the engine of economic growth in Europe. It is a well-known fact that SMEs are the most important form of business organization in Europe, representing 99.8% of all enterprises. What is much less known is the growing importance of co-working spaces, which have become a common working place for free-lancers and young entrepreneurs, with more than 14.000 operators around the world. Coworking is a multi-dimensional booming industry and a strengthening cultural movement re-modelling the very notion of what workplace is, dedicated to providing support to those entrepreneurs who wish to go beyond the traditional schemes. However, several needs are usually identified by coworking spaces, coworkers and entrepreneurs, among which the need to improve the level of social interaction in the coworking space to increase the social impact of their activitiesThe main objective of COWLECTIVE is to address the training needs of entrepreneurs in coworking spaces in key transversal skills based on new updated research, and strengthen their business activities in terms of social and environmental impact. COWLECTIVE is a EU partnership designed to develop core and innovative learning methods that best encourage success in business activities, answering the need for education and training thanks to an innovative proposal based on participation and ICTs.The main target of COWLECTIVE are entrepreneurs in a coworking context, as well as future and wanna-be entrepreneurs in VET and C-VET contexts. They are mostly aged 25-40 entrepreneurs with high creative and technological profile, but need to upskill their soft skills to increase the social impact of their projects. Other target are all organisations that provide VET and C-VET training as well as services of support to entrepreneurs (i.e. co-working spaces, schools, entrepreneurs associations, chambers, incubators; local or regional institutions), as stakeholders. For them, COWLECTIVE will answer the need of educational resources to better provide their supporting services. COWLECTIVE proposal arise from a European partnership made of 5 EU organisations from Denmark, Poland, Spain, Italy and Greece, under the leadership of COWORKING+. Together, they will implement a series of activities and expected outputs, among which: -a Mobile report about social and environmental entrepreneurs’ skills demand according to representatives from the sector, entrepreneurs, trainers, and assessors. -a COWLECTIVE training package on the main skills needed by entrepreneurs to rise the social and environmental positive impact of their companies. This training will be developed on an online platform which will include social modules for a higher degree of collaboration and interaction. -a COWLECTIVE learning method for social impact, including recommendations on the training package, collective learning tools and network. COWLECTIVE will rely on a methodology of interaction and participation of the target groups, involving representatives of the target groups since the very beginning of the project and the development of a mobile report on skills need. COWLECTIVE will bring together the entrepreneurs with supporting stakeholders to create a wide community, sharing together good practices, business ideas and pitches, support for understanding the societal main challenges, customers’ expectations, potential impact, among others.As a result, COWLECTIVE expect to increase the level of education services provided by coworking and similar collaborative working spaces, as well as the skills of entrepreneurs oriented toward the development of companies with a significant positive social and environmental impact. COWLECTIVE expect to reach at least 500 entrepreneurs during the project life. At long term, it expects to rise the local, regional and European growth thanks to a strong network of micro and small companies implementing sustainable activities, thus contributing to territorial smart growth.