Literacy and numeracy are fundamental skills for the human development as it enables people to live meaningful lives and contribute to their communities and in society. Research shows that low literacy and low numeracy are often connected. These skills are all essential for learning, as learning is mediated through texts and the use of numbers. In Europe, one in five 16-65 year-olds have poor reading skills. In Europe it is estimated that around 55 million adults between 16 and 65 years old have to deal with these difficulties. Research shows that Europeans between ages 26-35 ranked highest in low literacy, followed by those aged from 16-25, than by those aged 36-45 concluded by 46 years and older. This group can be seen as a group that also has the most interest and advantage by gaining digital, literacy and numeracy skills especially. People coping with these difficulties often also lack proficiency in digital skills. They already have problems with reading simple texts, retrieve simple facts, or make straightforward judgements and they are not able to deal with longer or more complex texts. The EU representatives in this project partnership will therefore create a modern and innovative platform - The RED platform (“Reinforce Europeans Digital, literacy and numeracy skills”) which provides an individual baselinetest to detect low literacy and low numeracy, educational materials regarding these topics, materials to present (via video, audio incl. concepts) the ‘digital’ services of social and public (governmental) organisations and provides a roadmap, in which all social and public (governmental) organisations in the local region applicable for this target group are categorized, can be found and contacted. This means the RED platform will be set-up as an innovative instrument, which teaches digital skills, tackles low literacy and low numeracy to finally increase social participation and empower the target group! These materials will be put on the platform, where by means of simple icons (or pictograms), and using the 'flipped classroom' method (whereby online classical instructions are offered in videos with voice explanation, written concepts and additional materials This three-dimensional approach (a combination of a voice-over, screen recordings such as the cursor of a mouse moving across the screen or clicking on something, and reading basic language concepts) will be offered online on the RED platform for all socially relevant themes that remain inaccessible (in all completeness) for the low literate, low numerate and low digitally proficient audience. By being able to hear the explanation, see and read, but also to continuously repeat (replay), stop when necessary and use it at any time and place - the information suits this group very well and is more sustainable! Finally, the explanation of each part will also be provided in a hand-out (with the focus on the same icons, images, language concepts and narrative) presented as a download-able file on the platform. The innovative nature of the RED platform is that this platform provides information in threefold and empowers the target group namely regarding their self-sufficiency. Not one platform offers the combination of the following elements, including the focus on self-sufficiency, autonomous learning opportunities, commitment and reinforcement. A European offer for this target group, including all relevant stakeholders and information on this level is not provided yet. Eventhough this problem is recognized all across Europe and it is therefore important to develop a format throughout Europe that can be applied, offered and maintained throughout this union of course with a local / regional and national subject implementations on low literacy and numeracy and digital skills development can be used directly because they are international.

The OBJECTIVE of the project is to share good practice among (new) partners in the establishment of sustainable and mutual beneficial relations between people with a labour disability and small and medium enterprises (SME’s). The focus is on WORK BASED LEARNING; This includes workplace experience for the participants as for example the training on hard skills like knowledge on the job as well as soft skills like team work, flexibility, stress reliance, creativity etc. This project will increase the experience of people with a labour disability on the labour market demand. The project will be executed in cooperation with social partners as supplier of the participants and as local stakeholders involved in the project. So, the people with a labour disability will no longer be judged on their disability but on their competences. The main purpose is to increase the employability of this target group by a smoother and more effective move to work transition. A partnership has run a successful project in the Erasmus + called ‘Para-Skills-Competition’ with 6 EU countries in 5 professions (job types: Green Jobs, Hospitality & catering, Electro, ICT and Health & care). They disseminated the results among stakeholders among Europe. Now these stakeholders are so interested that they want to share the good practice by education among the methodology and executing pilots. This will have a great impact all over Europe. The idea is to couple the partners from the first project to a ‘buddy’ country (new introduced in the project) and transfer the knowledge (methodology) and repeat (partly) what has been performed (National and European Skills Competition), which will be described in the application. This project connects to the broader mission of the EU that inclusion and diversity are milestones of an advanced and fair society. In many countries, organisations need to comply with established quotas and must employ people with a disability. In the Netherlands for example, the Participation Law is introduced in 2015, but it seems to be difficult to reach the targets stated in this law (Rijksoverheid (2017) Beantwoording kamervragen over problemen participatiewet). Next to that, the Council of Europe created an Action Plan (2006-2015) to promote the rights and participation of people with disabilities in society. The EU has adopted the European Disability Strategy 2010-2020. But people with disabilities still face many difficulties in finding jobs, due to negative stereotypes, which make the labour market reluctant in employing such people. The Sheltered Workshops (SW) employ people with disabilities and are responsible for the development and guidance of disabled people into the general labour market. The SW need additional support from the society in this task. The SKILLS+ project supports the goals of these political priorities, and addresses some of the key issues leading to what is, in effect, an open discrimination. To realize this, we want to, again, support the SW, the employers, and peer employees in their challenge to create an inclusive society and therefor it is necessary: 1. to improve the knowledge and basic skills training of disabled people and provide them with the skills to enter the open labour market; skill assessment must become fully transparent by use of a INGOTS certificate, which is awarded by ECVET to allow flexibility on the job. People with a labour disability have many skills, but are often poorly certified or not certified at all, due to early school leaving or other social and medical reasons. This enlarges the gap with the labour market, whereas ECVET-compliant and EQF-referenced certification increases the chances on the labour market. 2. to increase the number of working people with a labour disability on the sheltered market by exchanging and sharing knowledge on methods and strategies on a larger scale in EU, preparing these people for the open labour market. This concerns skills training, and connecting and motivating employers. It means, that in all new participating countries in this project, with the help of the experienced partners (1st level), there will be a National Competition in every participating country (experienced- as 1st level and buddy country as 2nd level) and 1 European Competition in one of the participating partner countries. Both including at least 150 participants in total, 1 team existing of 4 persons; 3 participants and 1 buddy. The new participating countries will be directly involved in creating the set-up of 2-5 existing job types competitions, Green Jobs, Hospitality & catering, Electro, ICT and Health & care; at least 40 job coaches/buddies (per profession/per country) will be directly involved in pedagogical advice to the work-based learning/competition process and the assessment of the participants learning outcomes; and 20-40 SME’s/Sheltered Workshops will be involved to enable the work-based learning/competition creation and implementation (incl. judging)

Short summarywww.teachstem.eu is an initiative developed under the ARTIFEX project, co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the EU. Its aim is to provide support and resources for STEM teachers to improve their practices and methodologies, further the specific STEM partnerships at schools and communities, and provide insights to policy makers with regard to the existing models and the challenges we all face in re-shaping our education and training systems and strengthening them with STEM-competences.Description.STEM is a very large field of work and exploration. With the ARTIFEX project and through the learning platform (see link above), the project attempts to help educators identify their personal strengths and weaknesses with regard to teaching STEM, and to assist them in improving their skills and competences by providing ready-to-use practical workshops. The learning platform offers the following components.Self-assessment tool for teachers and educatorsOur ARTIFEX SAT was built and tested by university researchers of Antwerp University and Karlstad University and it helps teachers and practitioners who wish to integrate STEM in their classes and workshops better understand their strengths and weaknesses with regard to teaching STEM in relation to the 21st Century Skills. Based on a short questionnaire, the tool will recommend personalized workshop scripts and instructions tailored to the specific competences and activity areas which an educator chooses to improve. This tool is available in different languages.WorkshopsDevelopers in Belgium (Stedelijk Onderwijs Antwerpen and Artevelde Hogeschool), Italy (H-Farm), Sweden (Karlstad University, teacher learning department), Greece (Ellinogermanika Agogi) have designed and tested a collection of STEM workshops. Each workshop comes with a set of instructions - difficulty level, group size, materials, activities, timing. All workshops were peer reviewed and tested on their impact by several dozen European schools. Their comments and additions have been included in the workshops as inspiring practices for their colleague teachers. STEM is a fun way for students to learn an important set of skills and be better prepared for their future workplace. With the help of the Assessment Tool and workshops, teachers can improve their competences. Best practices, some ideas for policy makersSuccessful STEM education typically requires cooperation between schools, teachers, students, local authorities and communities, and the business. The University of Antwerp has collected on www.teachstem.eu interesting cooperation models from different EU countries to help policy makers understand the variety of possibilities when designing STEM policies on a local or a regional level. InsightsRead what people who currently hold STEM-related occupations say about their work, their vision for the future of their jobs and sectors, and the challenges ahead for education. Or go to www.teachstem.eu to read about the ARTIFEX research. In a collaboration between the University of Antwerp and the University of Karlstad, Belgian and Swedish teachers were asked about their feelings of competence, and their concerns regarding working in a high-tech informal learning environment.ReachAll elements of the tool and project are freely available on the learning platform www.teachstem.eu

Net4SocietyHE (N4SHE) is the proposed transnational network for Cluster 2 "Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society" (CL2) National Contact Points (NCPs) in Horizon Europe. NCPs are officially designated to advise researchers and other relevant, eligible stakeholders in their efforts to secure EU funding. N4SHE builds on Net4Society, the network for Societal Challenge 6 NCPs in H2020, and NCPs for Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities in FP7, and will further develop services and tools created by its predecessor to help NCPs to succeed in their work. Through its planned activities, N4SHE will ensure that all CL2 NCPs have the relevant knowledge and skills necessary to adequately and competently offer a consistently high-degree of professional, high-quality, tailor-made services to potential programme applicants. All nominated CL2 NCPs (including non-beneficiaries) will have access to information and capacity-building tools and events organised by the project, such as CL2 NCP info sessions, trainings, and network meetings. N4SHE will support prospective applicants in CL2, with a special focus on new stakeholders (e.g. CSOs, CCIs) and researchers from countries with lower-than-average results and participation in H2020. The project will facilitate multi-actor/multidisciplinary/international consortia-building through organisation of brokerages, bilateral meetings of project initiators and researchers from Widening countries, and via use of a partner search platform tool. N4SHE will also organise info days and proposal check events to encourage participation and development of successful proposals. To support SSH integration across Horizon Europe, N4SHE will organise SSH-themed brokerages, special trainings on the topic for NCPs, and publish an "SSH Opportunities" document, highlighting SSH research funding chances beyond flagged topics within Horizon Europe, including in missions and partnerships, and separately publicise opportunities in other EU Programmes.

We live in a world which is increasingly governed by information. It flows in every direction and imprints on every aspect of our professional and social lives. Information is also the key ingredient in education and training. This is why it is very important that we can rely on its accuracy so that we can make our decisions, form opinions, produce arguments, participate in positive debates. Yet there are those who, willingly, produce disinformation. Their objective is to deceive, to confuse, to spread fear and uncertainty. And there are others who, unwillingly, help them by repeating what they believe is true, spreading disinformation. And form opinions which are misinformed, and, ultimately, believe things that are not true to be true. We believe that education and training contexts should be free from misinformation and disinformation. And that we should try and find ways to avoid being consciously or unconsciously manipulated. That's why we created De Facto. It is our way of putting science in service of educators to improve the quality of teaching and learning. This is an oversimplification of very complex processes which Cognitive Science has began to understand in the last few decades, but which remain unknown to the wider audience. Cognitive science tells us how our brains receive and process information, how they decide which information to keep, and which to reject, which are the factors that weigh in when we decide whether to believe an information or its source, how our brains make a lot of decisions for us and without us even consciously knowing that this is happening. We have identified four major scientific concepts, the four pillars around which we built our project:> Frames (Batheson, Lakoff)> Systemic Causality (Lakoff)> Motivated Cognition (Hughes, Zaki)> Equivalency and Emphasis Frames (Chong, Druckman).We have developed explanatory texts and examples on these pillars to make them easier to understand, and made sure that these pillars underpinned the entirety of our work on the project deliverables. That brings consistency, reliability, validity and scientific backing to the method. Based on these 4 pillars, we developed a comprehensive resource base and a toolbox for educators which will consist of: - A full-blown Framework with classification of types of misinformation and disinformation, education-related layers, harmful impact assessment, and the Eggshell model for source- and fact-checking - A digital and an analog game demonstrating the detection algorithms challenges and limitations - Disinformation case studies, a rich collection of around 40 individual ready-to-use lesson plans in 7 major categories - Disinformation production kit for leading learners through the mindset and techniques of those who produce disinformation - Guidebook to fact-based reading and teaching with focus on the cognitive science pillars, ready-to-use examples, and a guide on how to use each of De Facto resources and tools - Blueprint for the entire project, so that other professionals can replicate and expand on our work- A set of cognitive cards (digital and printed/paper-based) to assist educators and learners in any activities under the De Facto method We have conducted 4 trainings for educators where we demonstrated the 4 pillars and how they work, and we presented the rich collection of resources and tools which we have developed. We reached directly 43 educators (a total of 87 training mobilities, with participants in C1-C2 also attending the advanced level course (C3-C4). In the Multiplier events, we reached directly a further 268 (with 140 initially planned) educators and stakeholders - 42 in 2 physical events, 226 in webinars. Further, we have started the process of sending these resources and tools directly to adult, SE, HE and VET education and training organisations. We already see that after the educators - when they set a new learning project or assignment - demonstrate how powerful they are, the learners willingly adjust their behaviors and habits with regard to information they receive and produce. We are seeing (albeit in smaller scale due to Covid-19 school closures and restrictions) cascading impact effects on their immediate contact circle (incl. family, friends, local communities). The behavioural change is also very prominent.