<< Background >>The context of COOPERATE is represented by COVID-19 pandemic which has demonstrated the EU national health-care systems’ inability to counter it.All involved EU countries - Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, Poland – have been unprepared to manage the crisis, adopting restrictive measures on freedom, which have halted the economy while failing to contain the virus.After a year, thanks to the science, EU countries are benefiting from vaccinations and easing those measures. Nevertheless, due to the experimental nature and the scarcity of vaccines and the virus’ constant mutation, the pandemic is still far from its resolution.In particular, what emerged was the inadequacy of the protocols of health-care facilities, which failed to avoid that the virus caused thousands of deaths among the most vulnerable, like the elderly.According to the Director for Europe of the WHO Hans Kluge, in Europe, in April 2021, almost half of the people died from COVID-19 were residing in care facilities.Based on official sources, like the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, countries such as Germany, Spain and Italy have suffered a high toll in terms of deaths in these structures. In Germany, 29% of COVID-19 deaths are long-term facility residents. In Spain, more than 13,000 elderly people have died in the residences. In Italy, out of 7,300 facility residents who died, 40% tested positive to COVID-19 and presented flu symptoms. Similar situations can be found in Poland and Greece.The main criticality found in these facilities has been the scarce or absent information on the procedures to contain the infection.In light of this and considering that, a year later, it is possible to leverage on more evidence, the priority need of COOPERATE is to provide a “European” response to the pandemic from the point of view of its management in the health-care facilities. The project is based on the awareness that, despite common problems, each EU country has dealt with the virus in a specific way and presents practices on which it is necessary to leverage to equip the health-care facilities, and related professionals, with more adequate transversal and technical skills to face COVID-19 and future crises. The need is, in other words, to promote the skills improvement and professional development of health-care operators by realizing a quality, European and EQF-aligned VET training offer.<< Objectives >>COOPERATE aims at achieving, as overall objective, the improvement of the health-care system from a VET point of view and within a European framework.This objective is framed as follows:- to gather the learning outcomes that, in each country, define the health-care sector, as described by the national Qualification Frameworks. Thus, facilitating partners’ understanding of how the sector is regulated in other countries represents a key step to provide a common, European and quality training response to the pandemic;- to leverage on the best VET programs of the represented countries. In fact, each country has its quality programs which it is strategic to take into consideration;- to assess the professional gaps found in the target facilities, in order to identify potential points for improvement. Analysing the main challenges of health-care operators and facilities is extremely strategic.The project pursues other aims connected to these objectives and to partners’ needs.Partners aim at promoting a more accessible use of the training offer, in line with the contemporary trends of online realization of events. Partners intend, also responding to one of the Programme’s horizontal priorities, to favour an experimentation of digital fruition of their training offer.Secondly, partners intend to sensitize VET providers, health-care organizations and operators and policy-makers on the project and its results, to give sustainability and visibility to the action and create future partnerships, for the improvement of the activated cooperation and the creation of on-the-job schemes.Finally, partners aspire to increase the European dimension and the network with actors committed to the improvement of their structure.<< Implementation >>COOPERATE will reach its objectives through the following distribution of activities.Transnational Project Meeting 1 – Month 1: Kick-off Meeting, occurring in Germany, Dresden and lasting 1 day, hosted by BSW.Project's result 1 - Months 2-12: C-VET Professional Course on pandemic management for health-care technical and management professionals.-PHASE 1 - Months 2-4: deployment of Expert Teachers which will study the national situation in terms of Qualification Frameworks and excellence courses. Based on this, each Expert will develop a proposal of the potential contents to include.-PHASE 2 – Months 5-8: deployment of Researchers, which, with the support of project assistants, will carry out a country-based assessment targeted to health-care professionals organizations, to identify learning gaps relating to the specific country and labour market.-PHASE 3 – Month 9: Transnational Learning Activity, which will occur in Warsaw, Poland. Partners’ Managers, Teachers and Researchers will gather and share the produced evidence to define the most important learning outcomes to include in the Course.-PHASE 4 – Months 10-12: BSW will be in charge of elaborating the C-VET Course, based on the cooperation realized with the partners.Project's result 2 – Months 13-15: Technical Description of the Course, with the specification of training modules, translated in all involved languages.-Months 13-14: BSW’s Expert Teacher will edit the Description, translated in all involved languages.-Month 15: the Description will be shared within a second Transnational Learning Activity occurring in Dresden, Germany. The event will be attended by partners' managers, Expert Teachers and 3 trainers per partner, with the aim of building the capacities of local trainers to deliver and also evaluating the Course.Project's result 3 – Months 15-20: digitalization of the C-VET Course.An IT technician, incurred by FORMAC will develop, liaising with the Expert Teachers, the digital contents of the Course. This result will support the digital transition of the involved VET providers organizations. National Experts will be tasked with developing the contents of the Course in their native languages. The IT technician will also be tasked with uploading on the project website - Project's result 4 - all the developed digital contents. Each partners’ Expert will be supported by IT Technicians in the development of the Course's contents in digital format. In order to ensure the quality and effectiveness of this result, Partners’ Managers will be given additional staff costs to directly participate in the implementation of this activity.Transnational Project Meeting 2 (TPM2) – Month 21: Final Transnational Project Meeting, occurring in Madrid, Spain, lasting 1 day. It will be hosted by FAB.Project's result 4 – Months 1-24: project’s website.-Months 1-3: creation of a dedicated website for the project.-Months 3-24: communication and dissemination of project’s activities.-Month 20: uploading by the IT technician of the digitalized Course on the website which will also represent the web platform for its online delivery. Each partner's website will have a link to this website.Multiplier Events – Months 21-24: In order to facilitate the dissemination of project’s results to the national communities of stakeholders (health organizations and institutions, health-care professionals, policy makers and national authorities), each partner will autonomously carry out a country-based dissemination Conference, with the aim of involving, each, 25 national stakeholders. This activity will be led by each partner’s coordinator which will leverage on partners’ networks to reach the most valuable and strategic national stakeholders to share the results of the project, increase their sustainability and trigger their use and visibility. Conferences will be carried out in Germany, Poland, Spain, Italy and Greece.<< Results >>COOPERATE intends to achieve different outcomes, which will concern the impact of the project on the participating organizations and the involved management and technical staff and 4 specific project’s results, representing the bulk of the project.In terms of participating organizations, the expected outcome is the increased European dimension of the partners forming the consortium. In fact, the project will involve organizations from Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland and Greece. The facilitated cooperation will have the objective of increasing their ability to interact and create partnerships at the European level, developing the skills needed to manage and/or participate in transnational consortia. Furthermore, for Fondazione SMA, COOPERATE will represent the first experience at the Erasmus+ and EU level, which means that the project will represent an opportunity to make an important step in terms of internationalization for a new comer.Another related expected outcome is the improved designing skills of educational development and partnership projects at the European level, which will concern the management staff that has participated in the preparation of the project and will participate in its activities.A third expected outcome that the project aims at producing will be the improved, always within a European perspective, participating VET organizations’ training offer relating to the topic of the project. This improvement will happen in terms of both the training contents – which are expected to improve as a result of the cooperation between partners from different European countries - and the delivery and fruition methods – i.e. development, delivery and fruition of training contents in digital format.The three mentioned expected outcomes will be achieved leveraging on 4 project’s results, aligned with and functional to the same outcomes:1. Developed a C-VET Professional Course for pandemic management targeted to both technical and management health-care professionals. The expected outcome is to create, through the cooperation between training organizations from several European countries, a Course that has relevance at the European level and is aligned with the National Qualification Frameworks and the labour market needs of involved countries, as well as with the European Qualification Framework.2. Edited a Formal Technical Description of the developed Course, containing the specification of learning outcomes, training contents, required skills and qualifications and career opportunities. The Description will also include a description of the European-based cooperative learning process that has facilitated the development of the Course. The Course and the related Description are expected to be available in each involved EU language.3. Facilitated the digitization of the Course through the development of its training contents in digital format for its online delivery and fruition. The digital contents are also expected to be available in all involved languages;4. Created a website of the project which will serve as platform for both the project’s communication and dissemination and for the delivery of the Course's digital contents.The final expected outcome is the increased EU civil societies’ and relevant stakeholders’ understanding of Erasmus+ and of project’s results, as well as of the need to improve the national education and training framework through the European cooperation. The Project aims at disseminating its results to the national communities of stakeholders involved in VET training processes, in the health-care professional sector and in policy making. The aim is to encourage the sharing of the cooperation practices activated in the project, as well as to extend the visibility of Erasmus+ and the project’s results to the widest possible audience, to increase the number of actors (including VET providers) and professionals in the sector interested in the Course’s contents.