The main objective of this project is to contribute to the implementation of the European policies in the field of innovation management capacity building in SMEs and their implementation in Bulgaria, resulting in effective and efficient investments in novelties leading to growth and quality jobs. As a major tool for improving global competitiveness of European companies, implementation of novelties in products, processes and society needs specially devoted attention and resources. This project will contribute to the better filtering and acceleration of innovation processes in Bulgarian SMEs, thus supporting growth and jobs. Supported companies are supposed to be better prepared for using Access to Finance instruments and attract investments in innovations

Project PAVETHEWAY aimed to achieve cooperation between organizations of the involved countries in order to answer the needs to improve entrepreneurial skills of the target group involved, through specific and user friendly analysis and guidelines and through development of online learning platform, simulating a working business. The main project aim was achieved through the following specific objectives:- Strengthened cooperation between the organizations from different EU countries and established exchange of practices;- Improved quality and relevance of entrepreneurial education through an innovative approach using non-formal learning tools;- Promoted development of entrepreneurial skills through development of specific guidelines and online learning platform; - Provided mentoring tools to those who wish to become social entrepreneurs.In this regard, project addressed following types of target groups:-young people;-adults;-people with disabilities;-unemployed;-workers; Project had a wide range of covered target groups. Generally target groups are every person, willing to start own entrepreneurial initiative. Additional to this, the project had indirect target groups as follow:- people who sign up and interact with the learning platform (but not directly of the partnership organizations);- all organizations belonging to the CEC network, who received regular information for the project implementation and results, through the developed e-newsletters and interactive leaflet; - people belonging to organizations involved in the mission for development of the social economy;- people belonging to organizations working in the field of social integration;- people from local public authorities and / or European policy makers. During implementation period, 160 participants were involved, as follow:-137 representatives of stakeholders participated in the 3 multiplier events;-13 trainers participated in the “How to use and administrate the learning platform” short term learning activity;-10 users, who tested the elaborated platform learning platform.During project implementation period, following results were achieved:- Elaborated 2 questionnaires - for young people and for Social Enterprises;- Elaborated SKILLS ANALYSIS report issued as a book Social enterprises and young entrepreneurs- Developed Working model FAST #SocEnt, part of the developed guidelines for the working model issued as a book Guide for preparation of business plan based on the CANVAS model- Developed LEARNING PLATFORM https://platform.igetadapt.org/platform/DEMO/ - available in English. Even it was not part of the project, the platform is being translated in local languages of all partnering countries – Bulgarian, Italian, Spanish and French, in order to achieve sustainability of the result and to reach more users;- Tested platform by different users from each partnering country. The activity was not envisaged in the approved project, but project partners decided to implement it, in order to collect user’s feedback and for final tuning and modifications of the platform, according users comments and feedback; - Organized 5 Transnational project meetings;- Organized 1 Short term learning activity - “How to use and administrate the learning platform”;- Organized 3 Multiplier events – one in Bulgaria and 2 in Brussels, where issued books were disseminated and developed platform was presented;- Developed project logo;- Developed and disseminated 7 project newsletters;- Developed and disseminated project leaflet;- Developed project facebook page;At the local and regional level, the achieved impact from project implementation was:- Target group’s skills and qualifications were increased. The developed reports, guidelines and learning platform provided to all users, in charge of preparing the business plan of a social or entrepreneurial project the following impact: shared knowledge and best practices, innovative learning tools regarding social enterprises. - Through the developed project’s outcomes, also the skills and qualifications of indirect beneficiaries was increased through the information shared and knowledge devoted. At national level, each partner worked to increase the knowledge and the focus of its policy makers about the need to upgrade the skills of young people and adults and opportunities related to social business, in order to provide a frame of reference that encourages and facilitates the use of it as a strategy in support of employability of young Europeans.Additional, the project outputs were provided to other organization (social and educational) and brought the following impact: broader understanding of practices, policies and systems in adult education across countries and in social entrepreneurship. Up to now it is calculated that at least 10 organizations (social and educational) only in Italy, tried to use the developed platform.

Soft skills OUtside of school Learning environment (SOUL Skills) is a project aimed at providing information about the effects of the current social isolation EU countries undertake as a measure to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 pandemic on children age 6-12. The partnership involves 7 entities from 6 countries (GR, ES, IT, FR IS, 2 from BG) with diverse, but complimentary, experiences, knowledge and qualification in training on different education levels. The main project idea is to give information about effects of social isolation due to Covid-19 on children’s behavior and socialization to educators and they to know how to evaluate the appearing deficits and to direct their overcome. The focus is on analyzing the development of soft (transferable) skills after relatively long and unexpected remote education. The project objectives are: 1) to identify lack of transferable skills development of children aged 6-12 years with focus on their development and proper assessment; 2) to create a mechanism (descriptors) for joint evaluation of transversal skills of children aged 6-12; 3) to design a set of methods - Toolbox for supporting development of these transversal skills. The attention is on transferable skills development as it is well known that these skills (creativity and critical thinking, curiosity, communication and collaboration skills, self-assessment and ability to evaluate social situations) are key element for children’s growth and maturity and have to be developed in parallel with acquired knowledge. Engagement in creative and cultural activities during schooling improves a child’s attention and cognition; arts are tools to teach pupils to “envision”, that is, to think about what they can’t see. Remote education in crisis which duration is hard to predict creates lack of schooling culture and environment that reflect on deficits of development of these transferable skills. The 3 project intellectual outputs provide innovative approach to soften the negative effects of social isolation by creating a Joint Evaluation Methodology (IO2) and Toolbox with set of methods based on STEAM approach (IO3), which educators to use to stimulate development of soft skills. The skills that are in the focus of evaluation are revealed in a comparative analysis about effects of different measures taken by Governments to cope with pandemic (IO1). It provides a state-of-art picture about effects of social isolation due to Covid-19 to children socialization in 6 EU countries and the comparative information could be used also for policy and decision making to cope the with pandemic.Innovative elements of the evaluation methodology are: measuring the development of transferable skills to be during non-formal training/activities outside of school during cultural and creatively oriented activities, the two educational processes: generating new academic knowledge and forming transferable skills to go in parallel but at different spaces and teaching/training to be provided by different educators, to establish long-term collaboration between schools and centers for non-formal education in order to multiply resources and acquired knowledge by children. Within the activity “SOUL Ambassadors” 14 partner organisations’ staff are trained to use the assessment methodology and work with the developed tools. The partnership will ensure free access to digital learning environment by publishing the 3 intellectual outputs on the Italian partners’ educational platform. Project branding and identity will be established, 4 newsletters published, materials on partner’s websites, social media and 6 national Multiplier events will be held with 175 attendees.The SOUL partnership has established shared responsibilities between the partners. The cooperation mechanisms include: Quality and Evaluation Board; Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation Strategy, division of tasks according to experience and expertise of the partners for each project activity, setting of working groups, risk management and conflict resolution. “Project management, organization and monitoring” will strengthen the strategic partnership among 4 non-profits (NGOs and foundations) in the non-formal educational sector and culture and 3 for profits (educational and research centers, SMSs) during four live or virtual project meetings.The outputs of the SOUL project will have a long-term impact as the evaluation mechanism for soft skills and the educational Toolbox will be made available in the foreseeable future to all relevant stakeholder groups, teachers, educators in the creative and cultural sectors and parents. The capacity of the partners’ own solid networks of training and research centers, educational institutions, cultural organizations and authorities at local, regional and national level will be enhanced within the current partnership with the innovative methodology, approaches and tools.

The project aim is to develop and present an innovative pedagogical technology based on the scientific results about the learning processes of the individuals. The methodology is intended for educators to enlarge their competences to use the quite different teaching approach. A key element of the new technology is Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI) which revealed that each individual has his own dominating profile through which he can easily learn and memorise new knowledge. There are 8 types of intelligence: linguistic, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, logical-mathematical, naturalist, intrapersonal and interpersonal and the dominating profile of the individual is a sui generis combination of them. The innovation is that the new approach allows teacher to use the 8 types of intelligence instead of only two - linguistic and logical-mathematical which are the origination of the classic style of teaching. The MI technology will create equal conditions for all learners based on their native potential for personal development. The MI technology requires additional qualifications and skills from the teacher and point out and lay stress on the competences of the teacher to provide effective education foreverybody taking in mind the different dominant profile of learners, regardless of their various social and cultural norms of behaviour. Partners are: GIS-Transfer Center (Bulgaria), TEHNOKRATI (Bulgaria), J&M Synergie (France), CSFVM (Italy), NCDP (Greece) and DEFOIN (Spain). Their missions are to find ways for improving the quality of education during constantly increasing disparities and inequality among learners. Each of the partners has different expertise but they all are looking for an innovative approach to solve educational problems like: early school leaving, decreasing motivation of children to education, graduating with insufficient knowledge and skills for active participating in today’s society. Partners have different experience to use elements of MI technology ( theoretical and practical application) but they all have experience to train different groups of children and adults, experience in transferring knowledge and creating innovation in education. The project activities are to unite their know-how and experience about MI methodology and applicable toolkits to transform the knowledge into finalized product. A Curricula for training pedagogues and a Handbook to give an essential information and guidelines for using the MI technology will be produced. They will provide information about the additional qualification the teachers have to obtain and how to increase their capacity. The focus will be on the analysis of the difficulties faced by teachers as a result of the rapidly increasing disparities between scholars, including children at risk and with special educational needs (SEN). The intellectual outputs: (1) Analysis of Contemporary Learning Problems – Readiness for Change, (2) a Model of a Curricula for the qualification of teachers and students from pedagogical majors and (3) a Handbook: Multiple Intelligence – Methodology and Instruments, will be produced in 6 languages with open access through the Internet and the EPALE. The intellectual products will be developed by formed working groups with experts from all partners. A group of experts (21 people – teachers, school principals, knowledge transfer specialists, etc.) will be aquainted, during 3 short-term joint-staff trainings, with the MI methodology and tools for its application,each partners will share achieved already results and together will collaborate for its upgrading. The trainings follows the logic of presentation of the MI technology and tookits and will integrate them with social intelligence techniques. All partners will be involved in the preparation of the trainings and the logistics for each session will be arranged by the host partner. Each partner will disseminate the project results in its own country by organising multiple events - seminars and conferences, press-conferences, publications, etc. To attain the project objectives the partners will adopt common principles for the organisation and management of the project, the project management team will perform monitoring and ensure the quality and keeping to the planned timetable, will inform the Erasmus MA in due course about any risks if necessary. An important long-term impact will be that the collaboration of the partners will increase their expertise as well as to establish a core of a network of experts oriented to improve the teaching and learning processes using the new scientific results. In the long-termn, the project results may have an impact on the educational environment in two aspects: enhancing the qualification and competences of teachers in order to improve the quality of the education process and achieving higher results of the education based on easy and friendly learning process for everybody.