The food industry is changing due to several driving forces, based on the consumer changes toward plant-based diets, leading to an increased share of production by the vegan food industry, that to maintain competitiveness needs to master new processes and technologies. Additionally, the food industry is subject to more demanding sustainability requirements, that together with digitalization and automatization trends, are quickly changing the required skills of its workers. Innovative trainings covering these technical issues are needed to support the quick change towards the vegan food industry adapted to Industry4.0.EQVEGAN is a Sector Skills Alliance composed by 15 institutions from 11 countries. The institutions cover diverse profiles, including VET providers from EQF levels 4 to 7, companies, associations of industries, associations of food industry professionals and of teachers and researchers, ministry of science and technology and a qualification agency. The consortium covers the necessary competences to design innovative and highly qualified training, enabling an upskilling and conversion of skills according to market needs, with the use of the EU quality and reference tools, which will accelerate the qualified growth of this sector. The Alliance will design and offer innovative trainings to professionals and students from EQF levels 4 to 7, in 7 languages (English, Croatian, Finnish, French, Polish, Portuguese and Turkish). The Alliance will develop a Skills Portal that will include a stakeholder’s database, reviewed occupational profiles, and an apprenticeship database. A European scheme for job profile certification will be devised and guidelines for recognition informed by sectoral qualifications will be prepared, promoting the trans-national mobility of professionals, that ultimately will be leading to an effective impact in the EU food industry.

he main objective of QuaRSU project is enhancing the role of higher education sector in society by supporting development of Ukrainian recognition systemThe specific objevtives are:1) Design, development and testing of recognition methodology compatible with the National Qualifications Framework2) Human Resources Development for recognition3) Establishment of Recognition Support Platform (RSP)The main outputs will be:- IRecognition manual with policy recommendations- Quality Handbook for internal QA- Recognition centres and Recognition Support PlatformDeliverables will be prepared in English, and Ukrainian.It is expected that project will contribute to improving of management and operation of partner HEIs as well as of wide range of other HEIs in UA. Project outputs and outcomes will be used by managers, administrators and teaching staff of Ukrainian HEIs. Trained administrative officers and academic staff will provide implementation of developed recognition mechanisms and tools in partner HEIs and spread their knowledge and experience both in partner HEIs and outside consortium at local and national level. Recognition centers will be used by managers, teaching staff and students and will contribute to upgrading of their knowledge and understanding of recognition aims, processes and mechanisms. The outcomes of the project will be sustainable beyond the project’s lifetime and will be institutionally and financially supported by partner HEIs as parts of institutions’ infrastructure.

Open Badges are becoming the digital standard for recognising and communicating skills acquired through informal and non-formal learning. They are increasingly being explored for use within formal education, and by employers. They are particularly valuable for supporting transitions between learning and the world of work. This is because of the verified data they can convey, including the issuing organisation, links to evidence and learning standards - all linked to the individual's identity. The other advantage of Open Badges is their portability and visibility in an electronic world - they can be shared across various online platforms. The Certificate Supplement was designed to make vocational education and training qualifications more transparent both within, but particularly between, European member states. Whilst widely issued in some member states, it is less well known in others. The reasons for this vary and are dependent on each national context. In its standard form, the Certificate Supplement is a generic document, specific to the individual, but in some member states, the Certificate Supplement is an individualised supplement - essentially an enhanced transcript - that provides a record of what a student actually achieved. ESCO is a multilingual taxonomy for skills, competences, qualifications, and occupations and provides a common language for recording skills / learning outcomes required for particular occupations and qualifications. What these tools have in common is that they were designed to support the transition between learning (formal / non-formal / informal) and the world of work. ABECS aimed to combine the best attributes of electronic transcripts, the Certificate Supplement and ESCO and incorporate them in a modern, portable, verified, shareable, visible, electronic package - an Open Badge. The project piloted these badges in specific sectors across all the partner countries with carefully selected qualifications that provided proof of concept. The six partners involved in the project, deriving from five member states, were chosen for their knowledge and experience in various areas including Open Badges, digital student data and digital credentials, ESCO expertise, development of certificate banks and Certificate Supplement databases, electronic transcripts, individualised Certificate Supplements and curriculum development, to name a few. To achieve the project aim of developing enhanced electronic transcripts in the form of an individualised Certificate Supplement, using ESCO terminology and packaged as an Open Badge, the partners utilised a phased methodology to: - Select test qualifications for which occupational information already exists in ESCO and are offered across all partner member states - in particular, in sectors with high rates of international mobility. - Establish the content for the Open Badges by reviewing existing Certificate Supplement data (where available) and cross referencing to ESCO terminology and other occupational data - Develop / adapt / utilise an Open Badge issuing platform and establish how to populate the platform / badges with the credential content. - Develop guidance information for awarding institutions / organisations and learners to guide them through the issuance process and how to share the Badges once in receipt in order to optimise their visibility and use by employers as part of their recruitment - in particular, sharing them via online media. - Test methods for populating and issuing the Certificate Supplements as Open Badges - Reviewing the information included in the badge, translations into project partner languages and consistency of the learning outcomes. - Present the results of the pilot study in a report / presentation along with guidance for up-scaling the pilot across other qualifications, awarding institutions / bodies / sectors, member states, etc. - Disseminate these results to partner stakeholder networks and more widely using appropriate media. - Hold multiplier events to share the results / guidance to stakeholders and gather feedback. The aim of ABECS was to develop a workable model for issuing enhanced transcripts in the form of individualised Certificate Supplements using ESCO terminology, in multiple languages in an Open Badge format, and for those Open Badges to be shared and distributed to employers and other end users via online media such as LinkedIn. The longer term impact that the project intends to achieve is for the pilot to have demonstrated the feasibility of this model and therefore to see the process duplicated widely across Europe, hopefully including adoption by the European Commission into the new Europass portfolio. The consortium also hoped to raise awareness of the Certificate Supplement with employers and present the value of issuing such information in the form of an Open Badge, including better reputational assessments of candidates and access to a wider pool of talent.

The wider objective of the project is to support the structural reform of the higher education system in Jordan, develop a qualifications framework for higher education in line with national priorities, and implement at different institutional levels. NQF-J shall provide a QF for higher education for implementation at institutional level and, importantly, set up the basis for a comprehensive NQF, and thus endeavours to establish an NQF model that identifies the generic expectations of all levels of higher educational programmes. These will be expressed as learning outcomes, mainly based on knowledge, skills and competences. The standards of qualifications at each level will be created and established through a number of activities in which descriptors will be determined, along with appropriate QA processes, by all stakeholders in higher education. The methodology for setting and assuring the qualification standards will be disseminated among academic institutions, government agencies responsible for QA and accreditation, and a wide spectrum of stakeholders. The project will clearly demonstrate the standards of Jordanian higher education awards and their national comparability. Additionally, through rigorous comparison with other national QFs, the project will demonstrate comparability of Jordanian higher education wider awards with international norms and expectations, thus supporting mobility and employability. In particular, its compatibility against the Framework for Qualifications of the European Higher Education Area (FQ-EHEA) and also against the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) will be demonstrated.

<< Objectives >>The objective of the project is to form a partnership, promote cooperation and exchange of good practices between the institutions coordinating the work of SECs as well as other stakeholders involved in development of VET education in the Baltic States. During the course of the project we will create a framework for a long-term partnership at national and international level to acquire new knowledge, exchange experience and thus strengthen each of the parties involved.<< Implementation >>It is planned to organize study visits to Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia to learn how the work of the SECs is structured and organized, including: (1) visits to coordinating institutions of SECs; (2) visits to educational institutions; (3) identification of common challenges; (4) exchange of information about the VET systems. Virtual mobility will be organized - project activity planning meetings, online seminars etc. Project will promote also national level cooperation between LAOCC, LNCC, LDDK.<< Results >>The main outcomes of the project are (1) Establishment of a network of non-formal cooperation between the SEC coordinating bodies of the Baltic States; (2) Preparation of a common vision on the co-operation of Latvian SEC co-ordinating institutions in order to ensure a common approach to the implementation of SEC functions; (3) Strengthening of the understanding of the role of SECs in the development of vocational education by all stakeholders.