"The project ""Erasmus + Knowledge, Abilities & Attitudes for Profession and Life"" implemented between 03.07.2017 and 02.08.2018 by the VET consortium ""4EU.MOB"" coordinated by „Ion Mincu” Technical College, having as members Decebal Technical College and Banatean Highschool,represents the first stage of the strategic approach proposed in the application form for the Erasmus + VET Charter, submitted by this consortium in 2016. Through it, in full consensus with the joint action plan on internationalization established by the three partner institutions, mobility opportunities were provided to a number of 78 VET trainees, 57 in Technological Secondary Education,15 trainees in vocational high school, qualification level 4 and 7 in vocational education,qualification level 3.Because a number of 72 participants were under age, they benefited of accompanying persons,8 speciallity and / or general knowledge teachers who provided support and guided them throughout their mobility.As planned for the first year of accreditation , through the provision of mobility grants,the project contributed to the achievement of the overall objective of the Internationalization Strategy, to improve the skills acquired by the students attending these education units, either through compulsory curricula or by mobility, in order to facilitate their integration into the globalized labor market and the specific objectives: O1. Development of international mobility, recognition of the results acquired abroad and O4. Enhancement of the inter-institutional cooperation between training providers and the development of partnerships with foreign companies.The main activities carried out, the traineeships in foreign companies of the 78 participants (A1),were divided into:Flow 1,14 VET trainees from Decebal Technical College, Environmental Protection and 2 accompanying teachers,between 20.11-08.12.2017 at INSA, the Environmental Protection Department of LisbonFlow2,15 VET trainees from LBOR, Tourism and Nutrition and 1accompanying , between 29.01-16.02.2018 at Sabor Mineiro restaurants in Lisbon.Flow 3, 14 VET trainees,7 from LBOR and 7 from Decebal Technical College, Mechanics and 2 accompanying teachers, between 19.03-06.04.2018 in Germany, Potsdam, receiving partner being HWKFlow 4,15 VET trainees, from CTI Mincu, Architecture,between 23.04-11.05 2018 at Darq2, a company that provides architectural and design services in Lisbon, Portugal.Flow 5, 10 VET trainees from CTI Mincu,Construction and public works and Wood products manufacturing and 10 VET trainees from CT Decebal, Manufacture of wooden products, between 19.03-06.04.2018 in Poland, Wroclaw, at Vega System furniture company and Merbau Studio construction company .All participants have benefited from the OLS to assess their foreign language skills as well as to attend an online English / Portuguese course and have found out plenty of spectacular places in host countries in the framework of their cultural preparation.For this first year, ther were no VET staff mobilities carried out, as they were involved in organizing the mobility of VET trainees.We believe that the project was successful in terms of the results achieved during and after the end of mobility:-all the 78 participants have acquired the competences and professional skills foreseen in the Learning Agreements, the certification of these competences and skills through the Europass Mobility document and their recognition through ECVET by the school units where they learn. After the final evaluation and the transfer through ECVET it was found that 75,6% of the participants received grades between 9 and 10 for practical training modules carried out in mobility and 24.4% grades between 7-8, all progressing in further learning.-47 participants who completed the final OLS evaluation showed an improvement of at least 1 level on the CEFR frame (eg from A1 to A2 or A2 to B1), and 10 of them achieved an improvement of 2 levels (most from A1 to B1).Impact:after completing mobility, 96.8% (30 out of 31) participants in the Xth and 100% (47 out of 47) of those in the XI th grades, technological, vocational and vocational learning have chosen to continue their studies in their target area, in order to obtain the level 4 qualification,100% (7 out of 7) of those in the vocational schools completed their studies, enrolled in the 3rd -level of qualification examination and 4 signed employment contracts with companies from the Otelu Rosu area. It is worth mentioning that the 15 participants from Tourism and Food were offered part- time jobs in the restaurants of the Otelu Rosu pensions and 3 participants in construction companies in Timisoara, employers considering them well prepared.Since the internships had such an impact on the participants' competences, on the internationalization of their training path, we consider that the project has impact on the strategic internationalization of the schools members of the consortium."

METROFOOD-RI – Infrastructure for Promoting Metrology in Food and Nutrition - is a pan-European Research Infrastructure (RI) aimed to promote scientific excellence in the field of food quality and safety. It provides high-quality metrology services in food and nutrition, comprising an important cross-section of highly interdisciplinary and interconnected fields throughout the food value chain, including agrifood, sustainable development, food safety, quality, traceability and authenticity, environmental safety, and human health. METROFOOD-RI has been selected to the ESFRI Roadmap2018 as mature enough to be implemented within the next ten years. The Action is aimed to support METROFOOD-RI to grow from its current status (research-based network of facilities and skills) to a mature, centrally-coordinated, integrated RI, with the legal, financial and technical maturity required for implementing it. The main objective is to develop the organizational, operational and strategic framework of METROFOOD-RI. Activities include legal, governance, financial, technical, strategic and administrative aspects carried out in 15 work packages, organised in 3 blocks dedicated respectively to: the organisation of the legal entity that will manage the future RI, i.e. ERIC; define the operation and the operational standards at the level of the whole RI and for the National Nodes, as well as the role of the RI as service-oriented organisation; define the long term activities for the future RI and update the Strategic Research & Innovation Agenda, in response to the actual and future challenges in the agrifood sector and for the Society. The main outcome will be the establishment of legal and financial commitment for the future ERIC, ensuring long-term common commitment, decision-making and funding engagement. Continuous relations with stakeholders and the user community will be kept in order to ensure the addressing of their needs at the best, and to focus strategies and planned services

Pandemics have the potential to disrupt our daily lives and to affect every part of society. SARS-CoV-2 causing COVID-19 disease painfully showed how responding too late, in a fragmented mannar and/or with too little coordination across different sectors and countries, led to huge human and economic costs. ESCAPE’s main objective is to improve efficiency and scalability of early pandemic response plans by providing evidence-based guidelines, standardised research protocols, retrospective insights, and digital solutions that will support scientists in producing and integrating evidence and inform public health authorities in taking decisions to avert or reduce disease and societal burden. The project will provide knowledge and tools that will enhance Europe’s preparedness for a pandemic of pathogen X. These include a science-based blueprint for faster and better decision-making in managing pandemics, tools and frameworks to improve data availability, collection and sharing, as well as advanced analytics and models to understand and project transmission dynamics of pathogen X under candidate response scenarios. ESCAPE will also identify determinants of success and failure in managing pathogen X based on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, helping to develop effective response strategies for future pandemics. In addition, the project will contribute to fostering a multi-stakeholder intelligent community allowing improved knowledge sharing and cooperation between policy-makers, the scientific community, the media and the public, ensuring a much more effective response to future pandemics. In the long-term, by improving pandemic preparedness and the effectiveness of response to a pandemic of pathogen X, the project will contribute to reducing health burden and potential negative societal and economic consequences during pandemics, as well as increase the confidence of policy makers and the public in science-based solutions.

Over 130,000 children born in Europe every year will have a congenital anomaly (CA; birth defect). These CAs, which are often rare diseases, are a major cause of infant mortality, childhood morbidity and long-term disability. EUROCAT is an established European network of population-based registries for the epidemiologic surveillance of CAs. EUROlinkCAT will use the EUROCAT infrastructure to support 21 EUROCAT registries in 13 European countries to link their CA data to mortality, hospital discharge, prescription and educational databases. Each registry will send standard aggregate tables and analysis results to a Central Results Repository (CRR) thus respecting data security issues surrounding sensitive data. The CRR will contain standardised summary data and analyses on an estimated 200,000 children with a CA born from 1995 to 2014 up to age 10, enabling hypotheses on their health and education to be investigated at an EU level. This enhanced information will allow optimisation of personalised care and treatment decisions for children with rare CAs. Registries will be supported in using social media platforms to connect with families who live with CAs in their regions. A novel sustainable e-forum, “ConnectEpeople”, will link these families with local, national and international registries and information resources. ConnectEpeople will involve these families in setting research priorities and ensuring a meaningful dissemination of results. Findings will provide evidence to inform national treatment guidelines, such as concerning screening programs, to optimise diagnosis, prevention and treatment for these children and reduce health inequalities in Europe. An economic evaluation of the hospitalisation costs associated with CA will be provided The CRR and associated documentation, including linkage and standardisation procedures and “ConnectEpeople” forum will be available post-EUROlinkCAT thus facilitating future local and EU level analyses.

PARC is an EU-wide research and innovation partnership programme to support EU and national chemical risk assessment and risk management bodies with new data, knowledge, methods, networks and skills to address current, emerging and novel chemical safety challenges. PARC will facilitate the transition to next generation risk assessment to better protect human health and the environment, in line with the Green Deal?s zero-pollution ambition for a toxic free environment and will be an enabler for the future EU ?Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability?. It builds in part on the work undertaken and experience acquired in past and on-going research and innovation actions, but goes beyond by its vocation to establish an EU-wide risk assessment hub of excellence. To contribute to several expected impacts of destination 2 ?Living and working in a health-promoting environment?, PARC will organise the activities to reach three specific objectives: - An EU-wide sustainable cross-disciplinary network to identify and agree on research and innovation needs and to support research uptake into regulatory chemical risk assessment. - Joint EU research and innovation activities responding to identified priorities in support of current regulatory risk assessment processes for chemical substances and to emerging challenges. - Strengthening existing capacities and building new transdisciplinary platforms to support chemical risk assessment. The Partnership brings together Ministries and national public health and risk assessment agencies, as well as research organisations and academia from almost all of EU Member States. Representatives of Directorates-General of the EC and EU agencies involved in the monitoring of chemicals and the assessment of risks are also participating. PARC will meet the needs of risk assessment agencies to better anticipate emerging risks and respond to the challenges and priorities of the new European policies.