Crisis no matter if it’s financial, environmental or political, is a driving force for transformation of the economy and the businesses. Tоday the digital transformation of the businesses is more needed than ever, since the global need of preventing and managing situations that can affect the market conditions and the traditional ways of doing business. While no one can anticipate organizational, financial, environmental, technological crisis it’s important that new businesses are ready to handle these situations should they ever occur. New business models, digitalization of services and products, remote work systems, cyber security, digital channels for communication with clients and employees are key factors for sustainability of every emerging business. Being an Entrepreneur in the Digital Age means to be aware of how to run a business which is agile and prepared to react to every crisis by implementing the right technologies. The educational programs in entrepreneurship should be also adapted by taking into account the emerging need of sustainability and digitalization.The “SMART Youth” project aims:1) to identify types of crises that can arise, the needed skills and knowledge required for running entirely digital business or business which is agile and ready to respond to change in situation of crisis 2.) to address the emerging needs of the new generation of entrepreneurs by launching a new curriculum; 3.) to build on the capacity of the staff in higher education institutions and other training organisations;4.) to foster collaboration among businesses, students, young entrepreneurs, academic staff and other stakeholders; 5.) to stimulate creativity of young people and to make them think about crisis management, new business models and sustainability through digitalization; The partnership involves four universities from Bulgaria, Turkey, Romania and Ireland as well as two chambers of commerce and industry from Turkey and Bulgaria. The role of the business-support organisations is to analyse the needs, the opportunities and the successful experiences in the field of entrepreneurship during crisis, to promote the project through their network of contacts, including Enterprise Europe Network, organisations in support of start-ups and entrepreneurship.The role of the universities is to bring their experience in development of educational programs, in building entrepreneurial skills and competencies and in implementation of new online methods for teaching and learning. Before starting the creation of the new Curriculum the project foresees the conduction of a research on risks and opportunities and a research on the needed entrepreneurial skills. The Curriculum will include at least six courses focused on development of specific skills that entrepreneurs need when starting a business that is agile and can work or adapt to work during crisis. The next step will be the organisation of a short-term joint staff training in Ireland that will be attended by the lecturers from the participating countries. It aims to build on the capacity of the PPs' staff and to ensure good understanding of the topics included in the curriculum. In order to test the Curriculum and to foster the transnational interactions and the exchange of knowledge between lecturers, students, successful businesses and solution providers, the PPs will organize international pilot training(virtual boot camps). The videos from the boot-camps will also serve as an example of innovative method for interactive teaching and learning that can be implemented in HE and other training institutions. These videos will be uploaded in a virtual space “Smart business toolbox” where young entrepreneurs will also have access to different types of tools and materials that will help them to start their sustainable businesses, to find digital technologies and reliable business solutions, to assess their digital competences, to find inspiring stories and best practices. The PPs will maximize the number of the organisations implementing the Curriculum, by developing a recognition toolkit that will ensure credit transferability, sustainability and substantial impact. In order to multiply the dissemination effect and increase the project visibility the PPs will implement a communication strategy, laying down promotional instruments and multiplier events. The PPs will strive to ensure proper implementation of the planned activities and sustainability of the action and its results. To ensure the efficient management and quality control the Coordinator and the PPs will follow preliminary defined procedures for reporting, administrative and financial control. The project success will be measured by set of indicators and the PPs will follow a methodology for evaluation of the project development at every stage.

The project Mathematics on-line learning model in engineering education was successfully carried out at the very right moment as in recent two years there has been a significant increase in demand for a 100% online mathematics course with interactive learning materials and large-scale practicing opportunities as well as for a mathematics online assessment model. This has made it possible to increase student support when studying independently and teachers support when planning an online assessment. Greater support for learning and teaching in the education sector gave it a more competitive advantage as it helps to decrease drop-out behavior of students and minimize the workload of teachers. According to the New UNESCO global survey studying the impact of Covid-19 on higher education (2021) the pandemic has had an impact on higher education systems in terms of access and quality of teaching and learning. Covid-19 has caused the suspension and cancellation of teaching activities and its major impact on teaching and learning is the increase in online education. Taking into account the above, this project has successfully developed a high level engineering mathematics online course as a basis for offering output oriented education in engineering mathematics.The following activities were performed during the project: Creating the report of educational needs analysis (IO1)- Needs analysis and data gathering of partner countries and institutions were carried out. - Analysis of mathematical on-line assessment systems for partner countries and institutions were prepared.- Pedagogical analysis for on-line assessment of mathematics was made.Creating a new innovative online course in engineering mathematics in seven languages (IO2)The next activities were performed:- Analysis of subject in partner`s institutions- Development of the online course with some theoretical, practical and assessment tests- Translation of the online course- Conducting the pilot course- Asking for feedback from students- Revising on-line course- Development of the definite online course with theoretical, practical and assessment tests, engineering applications and course guidelines- Training for teachers- Asking for feedback from teachers- Conducting on-line course- Asking for feedback from students- Revising on-line courseCreating a mathematics online assessment model (IO3)- Literature review were carried out- Mathematics online assessment model was createdIn order to achieve project results, partners fields of subjects related to engineering mathematics were studied (IO1). This material enabled the team to build up the online course (IO2) and student competition (C1). In order to guarantee the quality the subject was piloted to students before carrying out the definitive course. The quality of the course was piloted to mathematics teachers (teacher training and ME). Based on the experience gained, the online assessment model in mathematics (IO3) was improved. The high quality of the online course is proven by the fact that we passed the preliminary round of the 7th e-Learning Excellence Awards at ECEL 2021.Partners of this project were 6 highly skilled HE institutions: the TTK UAS from Estonia, the Letterkenny Institute of Technology/LYIT from Ireland, the Polytechnic Institute of Porto/P.PORTO from Portugal, the University of the Basque Country/UPV/EHU from Spain, the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca/UTC from Romania and the Koszalin University of Technology/PK TUK from Poland. During the project unfolding the Spanish partner was replaced with Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya- BarcelonaTECH (UPC).This project involved various target groups, impact and benefits: - students and teachers, who benefit from a new innovative subject, which is added to the subjects of engineering mathematics. The innovative implementation makes the subject more attractive for students in each educational institution that participated in this project. The results are possible to use in other higher education institutions, secondary level schools and vocational schools.- expanding businesses, who will have a better educated workforce provided by educational institutions and by the research done by these institutions. As human resources are one of the most important resources in the company, it is important to provide high-quality education and competent employees to increase the productivity, effectiveness and competitiveness of the companies. Strategic international partnerships in the field of education and training are extremely important in order to increase the quality of education and training, which was one of the goals of this project, and it has become one of the most beneficial short and long-term outputs.The most significant indirect impact of the project was the rise of international cooperation between universities and higher qualification of the workforce of the participating institutions.

I-EAS-IT enables SMEs facing an acute business crisis to precisely determine the crisis status, identify causes and initiate appropriate countermeasures. At the same time, (future) entrepreneurs are trained to implement early crisis detection mechanisms to prevent future company crises. The project achieves a sustainable impact by directly securing jobs on the one hand and by professionalizing VET organizations, management consultants, entrepreneurship and SME support infrastructures and by providing first of its kind resources to be implemented into their curricula and services.Experts are increasingly speaking of a renewed impending economic crisis. This crisis will hit the European economy - which has just largely recovered from the previous crisis - particularly hard. This is particularly true for SMEs, often referred to as the backbone of the European economy. Various studies assume that, depending on the country, between 7% and 25% of small and medium-sized enterprises are already in advanced stages of crisis as so-called zombie companies, without having often realised this. The more advanced the stage of the crisis, the more complex and unlikely a successful restructuring becomes. While entrepreneurship support justifiably occupies a special position in European policies, the creation of crisis resilience for SMEs and start-ups must be given greater attention in future.Based on our daily experience and many projects with VET, consultants and support infrastructures, we are realising a great demand for this topic area. At the same time, it becomes clear that the people involved are often overburdened and underestimate the consequences of a looming corporate crisis.Therefore, we build on the existing phase theory on corporate crises and initially research early stage crisis indicators for SMEs. Comparable, practice-relevant studies on this subject area do not yet exist. Building on this, we will develop an app-based, interactive crisis analysis model as well as specific learning resources which will enable SMEs to develop suitable countermeasures. In order to achieve the most sustainable impact possible, we also focus on future generations of entrepreneurs by developing resources that can be integrated into the entrepreneurship curriculum and help to implement crisis prevention mechanisms. To guarantee the widest possible use, we involve VET organisations, trainers, management consultants and support structures (incubators, chambers e.g.) in our work and enable them to professionalise themselves and their services.Specifically, we will:1-Identify the most relevant early phase crisis indicators for SMEs (IO1)2-Develop an innovative curriculum and learning framework for (future) Entrepreneurs (IO2) empowering them to implement early warning systems into their organisations to become more crisis resilient (Stand-alone Online-Course as well as curricula to be implemented by trainers, consultants, VET and Entrepreneurship/SME support structures)3-Develop an interactive crisis analysis tool (IO3) that enables SME owners/managers to identify the phase, the extent and the causes of the crisis. On this basis, individual countermeasures are proposed, and the specific knowledge is provided4-To ensure wide and free access, all produced resources will be shared together with a large variety of additional information on our interactive knowledge exchange platform as OERs (IO4)In doing so, the project addresses the following needs of our target groups and will create sustainable impact for them:a) SME Owners/managers and future entrepreneurs gain a profound understanding of the importance of early detection mechanisms and indicators and are enabled to take appropriate countermeasures. b) VET organisations, trainers, management consultants and support structures such as chambers or incubators are put in a position to sustainably professionalise their services and increase their impact. c) By enabling companies to identify crises at an early stage and take appropriate measures before a crisis causes irreversible effects, we make a sustainable contribution to securing jobs at regional level. Against the background of networked value chains, this strengthens the resilience of the economy at national and EU level.d) Project partners will acquire new strategies, tools and methods for improving the effectiveness of their services. They will improve their own competences in knowledge sharing and strategic relationship building and have a clear understanding of how to sustain and grow the project in the long term.The results of the project are basically universal and, in combination with our multidimensional impact and dissemination strategy, will have a sustainable effect beyond the partner regions. The project is important because we need to ensure that local, mostly SME-based economies are strengthened to be more crisis resilient in order to strengthen the European Economy as a whole.

<< Objectives >>SDS4HEI will create the resources necessary to embed Sustainable Development Systems, aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a core component in HEI institutional vision, mission (especially their third, contribution to communities and society), value statements, strategic plans, organisational culture, research, teaching, and campus practices. SDS4HEI will equip HEI teaching staff, non-teaching staff, academics and students with the resources necessary to make this change.<< Implementation >>The Framework for Sustainable Development at HEIs will increase the number of HEIs that implement SDGs as elements of their strategy. The Self-assessment Tool for validation of Sustainable Development Practices in HEI’s and Delivery of Recommendations will Inspire HEI leaders to create solutions through sustainable development. The Massive Open Online Course for Strategic interdisciplinary Implementation of the SDGs in HEI curricula will Promote problem-based learning to implement the<< Results >>Provide 30 teaching staff from 4 HEIs with the skills to integrate the (SDGs) Equip 30 HEI non-teaching staff with the foresight and ability to make decisions about implementing SD systematically throughout a HEI campus Enllghten 30 HEI teaching and non-teaching staff their SDG awareness and identify areas of concern within their HEI’s with methods how to improve 200+ students will explore the challenges and opportunities in the SDGs so that they develop change making skills

As part of its ongoing commitment to the digitalization of the economy, the EU stated that “data-driven business models are the engine of Europe’s growth, industrial transformation and job creation”. The benefits are clear: existing and new businesses responding to smart data can improve products and services, thus generating economic growth while contributing to social progress. To address the issue of the digitalization of the economy, we brought to life the Generation Data project. The aim of the project was to improve the ability of HEI education providers to understand and teach smart data skills, thus providing Students, early stage entrepreneurs and businesses with more relevant, effective training. After the end of the project, we can say this objective was achieved. The project was actively performed by six partner institutions from five countries: •University Of Szczecin (Lead partner) - POLAND •European Universities Continuing Education Network - BELGIUM •European E-Learning Institute - DENMARK •Letterkenny Institute Of Technology - IRELAND •Feltech Software Innovations Ltd - IRELAND •Vilniaus Gedimino Technikos Universitetas - LITHUANIA University of Szczecin, Letterkenny Institute of Technology, Vilniaus Gedimino Technikos Universitetas provided academic knowledge and helped the partnership in reaching students and teachers (with help of EUCEN), while Feltech Software Innovations and European E-learning Instituted focused their efforts on entrepreneurs and business institutions. During the project realization we produced all main project outputs which are: - Generation Data toolkit (Intellectual Output no. 1) - a survey of current smart data skills in education (in Polish, English and Danish language) - Generation Data Course – Open Educational Resources (Intellectual Output no. 2) – smart data skills teaching model which contains six modules, notes, facilitators guide and glossary (in Polish, English, Danish and Lithuanian language) - Online Generation Data course (Intellectual Output no. 3) - to maximize access to the new training and reinforce classroom delivery (in Polish, English and Danish language) We assumed organization of training for the1st generation of teachers and lecturers during the international training week in Ireland, but COVID-19 outbreak forced us to change our plans. Instead of the traditional meeting, we invited teachers and lecturers to online training which turned out to be a big success (on-line LTT attracted over 40 participants).Due to pandemic restrictions we had to cancel most of the multiplier events and it was only a Lithuanian partner who had a chance to organize a successful event which brought together many interesting guests to Vilnius. Project partners are satisfied with not only the quality of project results, but also with the project impact. The toolkit was downloaded from the website more than 300 times, while the OER’s were downloaded more than 1200 times. We have reached nearly 100 000 visits on the project website, promoted the project through different medias (e-mails, newsletters, radio, journals, websites).