Cultural and creative industries (CCIs) are at the heart of the creative economy: represent a 6.8% of GDP in Europe and 6.5% of EU workforce, approximately 14.0 million. The Ecodesign Working Plan 2016-2019 contributes to the Commission's new initiative on the Circular Economy, which promotes a transition towards a more circular economy in the EU. Product design is a key aspect in this respect and in future, Ecodesign should make a much more significant contribution to the circular economy (Ecodesign Working Plan 2016-2019.EC). CCIs, like all other industries, are dependent on the material world. Reuse, repurposing, recycling or upcycling are all examples of a broad and unstoppable movement which is reevaluating and maximising resource value through Ecodesign. At the 2nd Green Skills Forum 2014, OECD LEED-Cedefop presented some key challenges for meeting skill needs for green jobs, evidencing that there is an urgent need to support green job skills development strategies in order to prevent the emergence skills bottlenecks in our countries, supporting VET acquisition of Ecodesign and a smooth transition from brown to green jobs.There is also strong evidence that Work-Based Learning (WBL) helps to equip young people with the skills that can improve their employability and ease the transition from school to work. Nevertheless, existing analysis and policy papers in the countries of the project (France, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Malta, Spain and UK) evidence that there is still too much distance between the educational environment and the workplace in these countries. Ecodesign4EU project aims to address these challenges designing a new European ECVET Curriculum of reference on Ecodesign for sustainable CCIs, promoting innovative WBL methods and pedagogies addressed to Initial and Continuous VET students, target beneficiaries of the project, in order to acquire and apply Ecodesign principles to CCIs, contributing to lead the transition to a Circular Economy in these sectors. The project will apply also successful and innovative VET methods and tools in Ecodesign principles applied to CCIs, previously tested by the partners.8 European VET experts and providers, companies and intermediary bodies of the CCIs from 7 countries (France, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Malta, Spain and UK) will work together defining common strategies design and carry out the following Outputs:IO1 - European ECVET Curriculum of reference on Ecodesign for sustainable Creative and Cultural IndustriesIO2 - ECOdesign4EU Virtual Campus. Includes the following Open Educational Resources: (i) an Online Instructional Guide on Digital Competencies for Virtual Learning; (ii) a set of structured Training Modules (iii) Vocational Open Online Courses (VOOC) IO3 - Ecodesign4EU Mobile Assessment App IO4 - Guidelines to foster transparency and recognition of Ecodesign for sustainable CCIsTarget users and beneficiaries are: (i) VET teachers, trainers and mentors (ii) Initial and Continuous VET students. Ecodesign4EU will involve directly 109 VET and in company teachers and trainers (32 partners staff /42 experts involved / 35 target users in pilots), 175 I-VET and C-VET students (in pilots) and 535 stakeholders. At local, regional, national and European level the project will reach a minimum audience of 1000 recipients through the project dissemination activities.The project will use European frameworks of reference, such as EQF and ECVET, to promote new learning pathways and boost transparency, recognition and mobility in the CCIs sectors in Europe. Key sectorial and VET associated partners and stakeholders of the CCIs, the VET sector and the Green Economy involved in the project will support the dissemination of the project products and contribute to mainstream the final results. The project will have a direct positive impact in: (i) Partner organizations and entities involved in the project activities. They will improve their training methods and tools; the teaching skills and competencies (including digital skills) of their trainers and teachers; the quality and relevance of their VET courses and WBL programmes.(ii) I-VET and C-VET students. They will improve their Ecodesign through better WBL programmes, opening new opportunities for training, job and mobility.(iii) CCIs sectors. They will count with new training instruments to improve the competitiveness of the sector and supporting its transition towards more circular business models.The envisaged long term impact of the project will be a strengthening of the European VET systems and a more sustainable and inclusive growth in Europe.

"Good Guidance Stories 2.0 (""Guide"") brings innovation in the discourse on continuous professional development of Information Advice and Guidance (IAG) practitioners by blending a set of engaging and thought-provoking learning approaches and methodologies, which, as a whole, represents an original way of imagining new training routes for IAG professionals for more responsive and people-centred guidance provision. Throughout Guide an innovative learning approach focused on peer-led and social learning using highly participatory methods that not only formed a professional IAG network at a European level, it exposed members of the Community of Practice (CoP) to a constructive knowledge exchange with colleagues facing similar issues in their national context. Across Europe, labour markets are rapidly transforming through globalisation, migration, the impact of new technologies, and new elements of insecurity brought into the picture by a global health crisis that is shaking economic and social systems of many countries. In such a mutable, challenging and precarious working context, young people, especially those with lower levels of educational attainment, are potentially a vulnerable group that deserves specific actions, measures and policies. Today, young people are making more decisions than before - the rapidly changing demand for skills, increased labour market dynamism, the growing diversification and fragmentation of education and training provision is making decision-making more difficult. Accessible and well-informed guidance services are now, more than ever, extremely valuable.Whilst participation in the CoP and Action Learning Sets fostered self-reflection, active listening/questioning and problem solving capabilities, which are highly valued in today's guidance work, the 12 practitioners and service managers directly engaged understood, through direct involvement, the value of a co-production approach applied to real-life case studies production, appreciating the relevance and sustainability of this bottom-up approach which enables to re-think roles, relationships and mindsets. As a result of the four interrelated areas of innovation that underpinned the approach (see below) 81 young people (18-29) along with 65 IAG practitioners and 38 service managers participated in focus groups and interviews in which they exchanged good practice experiences and outlined current challenges and gaps, enabling deep insight and learning exchanges. (i) Applying the co-production approach to careers guidance delivery (ii) Using participatory appraisal for improving and co-constructing empowering development pathways (iii) Cross-national community of practice (CoP) and (iv) Action learning sets to facilitate CoP learning exchanges and case study co-production.The common thread that connects the four interrelated areas of innovation experimented in the project is the value of participation and interaction as key enabling factors of a successful learning experience, which ""spills over"" into a more proximal and empowering guidance experience. By fostering a culture of participation in guidance, young people as active participants in the guidance process, learn how to actively co-construct their own career in empowering interactions with others, while practitioners, through the experimentation of online collaborative learning opportunities have chance to review, question and update their daily practice in the light of a constructive and critical interaction with peers.Guide was implemented by a consortium of partners from six European countries, working collaboratively to generate five foundational outputs:(i) Methodological Concept: building the ground for the andragogy vision through qualitative enquiry to extract effective practice examples of how young adults are best engaged as active participants in the process of transforming IAG practice and provision.(ii) Blended Learning Curriculum: a Moodle e-learning platform develop IAG professional guidance practice competencies(iii) Facilitator Resource Pack: indepth suite of interlinking, flexible and inter-active materials focusing on co-production, action learning sets and community of practice methods.(iv) Case Study Learning Resource: dynamic online learning exchange and peer-led case study learning resources.(v) Effective Practice Services Guide: project ""log book"" accounting for the project's objectives, activities, results and insight for effective practice.Guide's comprehensive evaluation shows a clear and consistent picture; a great value has been placed upon the equitable and mutual approach that underpinned the project, resulting in a high satisfaction rate in terms of the partnership's performance; the quality of relationships, collaboration and knowledge exchanges, resulted in high-quality, highly transferable learning experiences and resources and generated wider accessibility - 114 student and 16 trainer e-learning accounts created."

Skills Swap is aimed at upgrading the efficacy and relevance of contemporary VET in the hospitality sector by designing and integrating into sector-based VET provision an innovative 'skills swap' approach to employer-facilitated learning design in work-based learning (WBL) for employees and apprentices. ‘Skills Swap' initiatives focus on skills sharing within the sector for the mutual benefit of companies, VET participants and employees. By 'skills swap', we mean structured WBL opportunities where employees and apprentices are released from their roles with one employer for a fixed duration (typically half a day to 2 weeks) to learn skills provided by another employer. At the same time, employers benefit from the skills swap from the new skill(s) and/or fresh perspectives that their employees bring to their business as a result of the ‘swap’. In support of key Erasmus+ Horizontal and Sectoral Priorities, this project is developed between the companies and VET professionals; trainers and careers specialists who understand the needs of those who are their WBL trainees (apprentices and those in a C-VET context) - in a fast-changing sector that faces many challenges with recruitment, retention and keeping up to date. The project will facilitate, through transparent occupational profiling based on tasks, transparency in WBL objectives while also providing resources and guides to employers, and in particular 'clusters' of SMEs and micro enterprises in hospitality, who struggle to offer progression routes to their employees and find it hard to undertake successful apprenticeships or retain staff. By designing a new, structured WBL methodology the project aims to enhance the VET system to promote good practices and encourage peer learning amongst companies. The benefits envisaged by the project include a new WBL methodology that will improve access to opportunities for progression and promotion by increasing the skills range of employees and apprentices in the hospitality sector. This implementation of this methodology is supported by new pedagogical and digital tools, designed to be support the mutual recognition, transparency and validation of the skills that are acquired within the hospitality industry. It is designed specifically for VET in hospitality but is highly transferable to other WBL contexts, occupational sectors and European countries outside those participating in the project. EU VET policy encourages increasing involvement from employers in VET programme design and implementation, and for providers to demonstrate how their programmes are relevant to the current and anticipated needs of specific employment sectors. Yet practical examples and new ideas as to how to do this in a genuinely innovative way are sometimes lacking. Therefore Skills Swap is a novel attempt to create employer-led and employer-needed VET solutions in WBL.

‘YCreate: Voices for respect, celebrating difference and tackling hate' is a transnational, cross-sectoral Strategic Partnership for Creativity in the field of Youth. The focus of YCreate is on equipping young people - and the youth workers who support them in a range of non-formal and 'out of school' youth work contexts - to counteract hate speech and behaviour, disinformation and misinformation targeted at minorities and vulnerable communities - through creative, arts-based and participatory activities that foster active citizenship and socially responsible actions.Hate Speech (HS) is defined by the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers’ Recommendation 97/20 as any form of expression that spreads, incites, promotes or justifies forms of hatred based on intolerance. UNESCO (June 2020) considered COVID 19 an information crisis that resulted from high quantity of misinformation available and the low capacity to understand its veracity. Unsubstantiated online information during the pandemic has led to a rise of hate speech and hate crimes targeted against minorities and vulnerable groups. This is a social challenge exacerbated by the Covid19 pandemic - UN General-Secretary, António Guterres, appealing to address hate speech, stressed that “We must act now to strengthen the immunity of our societies against the virus of hate” , highlighting that “the pandemic continues to unleash a tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scare-mongering.” Yet the Covid-19 crisis has raised alert, yet again, on the invisibility and absence of opportunities for youth from decision-making processes on matters that directly affect their lives. The YCreate methodology focuses on three tiers of participant. First, 20 youth workers and tutors from non-formal education, training and youth stakeholders with community arts and cultural sector grassroots organisations will work together transnationally to develop new participatory and learning methods on issues of counteracting hate speech and misinformation through cultural practice. Second, 50 young creatives – performers, writers and aspiring producers – aged 14-21 are capacitated and trained to act as youth leaders and mentors to their peers, addressing issues of respect, celebrating difference and tackling hate through music in a variety of genres, songwriting, drama and dance. Third, 500 children and young people, at school or in youth work settings aged 11-18 are empowered through the YCreate approach to find their own voices through sketches, songs, animations and participation designed to combat hate speech and misinformation through intercultural dialogue and exchange. Through this process, the partners will prepare new contents for testing and validation with the target groups, capturing the experiences in the UK, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Greece and Italy to produce three brand new Intellectual Outputs:- IO1 YCreate Development Curriculum Programme - improving the competences and skills of European youth workers, tutors, facilitators and community artists to empower young creatives as peer mentors counteracting hate speech and misinformation through artistic and creative participatory action- IO2 YCreate Peer Mentoring Community Action Toolkit - guidance and resources for and co-designed by young creatives – performers, writers and aspiring producers –to act as youth leaders and peer mentors. It will enable them to be innovators in cultural and artistic community interventions with children, pupils and youth, counteracting hate speech, behaviour and misinformation towards minorities and vulnerable groups- IO3 YCreate Crisis Communication Online Human Library - this output has at its core the human library concept bringing it to the digital environment by creating an OER platform for knowledge exchange and good practices in contexts of crisis.Ultimately, reinforced by a comprehensive programme of dissemination, its longer-term results are aimed at equipping Europe’s young people - and the youth work and educational organisations that support them in a range of non-formal 'out of school' youth work contexts as well as with teachers in schools - with innovative, collaborative practices and resources to counteract hate speech, behaviour and disinformation, online and offline, through creative, arts-based, social responsible actions. Therefore, the title of YCreate reflects the 2 main pillars upon which YCreate is built:- Artistic and creative practices as engines of change: ‘Why Create?’ - realising the potential of artistic and creative practices expressed by youth as catalysts of social inclusion, innovation and social change. - Creative youth as agents of change in the community: ‘You Create’ – addressing the need to empower young people through opportunities for cultural and artistic participation, for active citizenship and commitment towards community action.

The EU migrant crisis has a direct reflection on migrant employment rates. The gap in labor market participation at EU level between EU citizens and migrants has increased in 2014 (Eurostat–Migrant Integration Statistics-Employment). During the last eight years, the activity rate (% of active persons in comparison to the total population) of the EU-28 population of non-EU countries has recorded systematically lower activity rates than EU citizens. Since 2009, this gap has increased noticeably (3 % points). Also the unemployment rate per sex and educational background is higher for migrant women with low educational background (Eurostat). Cultural, social barriers, low skills and media illiteracy discourage these women from actively seeking for jobs. As a result the pressure is enormous on the welfare systems and society itself of the EU-28 countries.Emkit2 Objectives:EMKIT2 empowered low skilled migrant women by developing 42 digital tools for trainers for implementing innovative workshops to develop the social, civic, cultural and media literacy (SCM) competences to achieve active citizenship according to the Active Citizenship Scale (AC Scale).EMKIT2 was aimed to:1. Develop 3 Qualification Frameworks for the Social & Civic (S), Cultural Awareness & Expression(C) and Media Competence(M) (SCM competences) tailored for the specific target group in a specific context (see innovation elements)2. Based on the Learning Outcomes of the QFs developed enrich activities offered at each stage by designing 42 new workshops for the development of the SCM competences. The activities developed in EMKIT did not tackle the social and cultural capacity of the migrant women which is vital for the succession from one stage to the next on the AC ladder. Also, EMKIT did not deal with the media literacy, a skill that is becoming increasingly important as a result of digital media expanding into the realm of human communication. The ability to use media well is crucial to a person’s participation in the society and active citizenship.3. Develop 42 digital tools for the newly developed workshops for trainers for the development of the SCM competences and incorporate then in the existing EMKIT online tool.4. Introduce & develop a digital assessment tool and incorporate it on the existing EMKIT toolkit. EMKIT was developed for women who live in isolation and need to progress through all stages to reach active citizenship. Through the use the EMKIT (for 6 years now) it has been evident that a) a systematized method is needed for an impartial assessment of the stage a woman is in and to avoid unnecessary activities that are tailored for women who are at a lower stage of the scale b) validate the results of the empowerment process. Therefore this project suggested the development of an assessment tool in order to identify the stage of the woman and validate the Learning Outcomes of the activities implemented at each stage.The direct target group was trainers/mentors who work with migrant women (i.e. trainers in Adult Education Providers imple-menting projects funded by Integration Funds/Daphne & Justice Projects and volunteers/mentors working at NGOs and associ-ations providing guidance and training services to migrants). Trainers have benefited by a more complete EMKIT tool that also developed 3 important context specific competences.The elaborated deliverables were:IO1: A Context Specific Qualifications Framework for the Social and Civic Competence Linked to the Active Citizenship ladder IO2: A Context Specific Qualifications Framework for the Cultural Awareness and Expression Competence Linked to the Active Citizenship ladder IO3: A Context Specific Qualifications Framework for the Media Literacy Competence Linked to the Active Citizenship Ladder IO4: 42 Experiential & Innovative Workshops for the SCM Competences IO5: A Digital Assessment Tool and Guide for trainers on implementation of digital workshops IO6: EMKIT2: 42 Digital Tools in 5 Languages incorporated in a new EMKIT2 toolkit About 20 participants took part in the focus group, which allowed the partners to develop IO1, IO2 and IO3. About 21 low-skilled migrant women attended the pilot training which allowed the partners to develop and finalize IO4, IO5, IO6.