"<< Background >>Vocational Education and Training (VET) plays an important part in personnel qualification and is an opportunity for company employees to develop continuously. For more than 25 years, there has been an internationally recognized qualification system for professions and activities in the field of adhesive bonding technology, which is cross-industry product-neutral and target group-oriented. It is generated for employees who use adhesive bonding technology in their jobs. The personnel qualification system addresses the different occupational groups in the companies. The one-week European Adhesive Bonder course (EAB) was designed for the personnel who carry out the entirety of the adhesive bonding process on their own. For supervisory staff and quality assurance, the three-week European Adhesive Specialist course (EAS) has been developed and for the technical decision-making level there is the European Adhesive Engineer course (EAE). The established international personnel qualification system is increasingly referenced in national and international adhesive bonding standards and regulations - as has been the state of the art in welding technology for decades. These adhesive bonding standards - analogous to welding technology - require sufficiently qualified personnel for the quality-assured implementation of adhesive bonding technology in the company, depending on the above-mentioned area of responsibility of the respective personnel. As a result of this development, the topic of adhesive bonding technology personnel qualification is gaining cross-industry relevance, namely within railway, automotive, wind energy industry, transport industry, machine and plant construction industry, general industry. However, it becomes apparent that for certain industries or production structures, training is not optimally applicable at the EAB level. In many industries there is a very small-scale supply chain culture. For instance, in the automotive industry many suppliers only do one adhesive bonding step (e.g., surface treatment) and the semi-product (e.g., metal parts for the white body which are cleaned and primed with an adhesion promotor) are delivered to the OEMs, which do the remaining bonding steps. As such, a five-day training course to become an EAB addressing all work steps to be carried out professionally, has been rejected by the industry, as the qualification level would result in over-qualification. In addition, there is no possibility within the EAB qualification just to train an extract of knowledge and skills that are necessary to conduct limited bonding related activities as they are being required within their specific workplace. Therefore, a new ""entrance door"" for the EWF qualification system needs to be developed: workplace specific training courses that provide selected knowledge and skills to conduct the required activities at the workplace of the participants. The new training courses had to be designed in line with the existing comprehensive EAB qualification in such a way to enable that people who have acquired the new skills will have easier access to further learning and specifications as they are being required, thus introducing a cumulative system for the EAB curricula, where the already proven knowledge can be credited. A prerequisite for the individualization of the EAB learning paths is the modularization of this curricula and the increased use of online learning units. Only by making available online learning units and contents that were not part of the workplace-based training, participants can work through the missing knowledge. This is the only way a VET provider can further qualify adhesive bonding operational staff and facilitates their skills development as required by companies and diversity of industries.<< Objectives >>With the implementation of KNOWBOND, project partners aim to update of the EAB curricula in order to enable the certification of individual skills related with specific professional activities. Through the project, the target groups composed by operational staff at the executive level will have the opportunity of developing knowledge and skills as they are being required in their workplace in a lifelong perspective. The goal is to qualify these staff fundamentally and exclusively focused on their specific activities in the adhesive bonding workshop. The modularization of the EAB level course and the development of personalized learning paths will improve the permeability of further training in adhesive bonding technology, thus introducing the possibility of having a cumulative system which facilitate trainees access to the qualification level and will sustainably increase the acceptance of the EWF qualification system in the industry. In the already published as well as in the soon to be published standards for adhesive bonding technology process assurance (DIN 2304/ISO/DIS 21368, DIN 6701/prEN 17460, TL A0023), these exclusively activity-related EWF qualifications developed in the project will be recognized - analogous to the other European qualification and training system.<< Implementation >>Based on industry of needs of having qualify operational staff to perform specific /individual activities in the field of adhesive bonding application, the EAB curricula will be updated and implemented. This will enable target groups at the executive level to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills tailored to their adhesive bonding activities as they are being required. In the scope of KNOWBOND, four (4) Project Results (PRs) will be developed, comprehending the updated EAB qualification (PR1), the digital learning and assessment tools (PR2), the operational steps for the integration of PR1 and PRs onto online platforms (PR3) and a policy recommendation for the implementation of the updated EAB curricula in other countries (PR4), so that the adhesive bonding operational staff can objectively certify acquired technological skills. At the same time, the qualifications will be integrated into the EWF system in such a way that participants can use them to access to more flexible and cumulative qualification for the European Adhesive Bonder Profile. Additionally, during the project, the following activities will be undertaken including: -A learning activity aiming at trainers and teacher staff (inside KNOWBOND partnership) to transfer knowledge on how to implement the EAB updated curricula and flexible tools;-Piloting events in each country to test the usability and adequacy of the updated EAB curricula and tools; -4 National Conferences for the promotion of KNOWBOND results and engagement with national key stakeholders; -1 European Conference for the promotion of the project results and engagement with key stakeholders.<< Results >>Due to the fact of a growing market of adhesive bonding applications (B. Mayer, A. Gross (Ed.) In Circular Economy and Adhesive Bonding Technology; Fraunhofer-Verlag: Stuttgart (Germany), 2020; DOI: 10.24406/ifam-n-603186, p. 56 - 57, Chapter 1.8: Adhesive bonding – economic significance of this joining technology.), (Information Industrieverband Klebstoffe e.V., 2020), it is fundamentally necessary to further increase the industry's acceptance of the EWF system for adhesive bonding personnel qualification. With the re-design of the EAB training profile to enable operational staff to acquire the new skills with easier access to further learning and specifications as they are being required. The further training modules will be integrated into the existing three level EWF qualification system for Adhesive Bonding Technology, the contents, the temporal scope, the learning outcome and the procedure for checking the acquired knowledge and skills will be described and specified in a further European harmonized training guideline. The regulations for the creditability of the education modules with the already established courses for EAB are described and exemplary innovative teaching/learning materials for presence and online training. Moreover, KNOWBOND, project’s expected results are fully aligned with the New Skills Agenda for Sustainable, competitiveness, social Fairness and resilience actions, namely concerning innovative practices in a digital era, transparency, recognition of skills and qualifications and promotion of upskilling / reskilling pathways through the development of: -The EAB training guidelines restructured into a modular and learning outcomes approach to enable to certify individual skills related with specific professional activities within the qualification; -The toolkit for flexible learning and assessment, containing blended learning exercises, cases studies, videos, among other tools.-A user-guide to assist trainers and teachers to promote the integration of the updated European Adhesive Bonder competence units and flexible learning tools into online platforms; -The recommendation to promote the recognition and benchmark of the EAB profile within other countries and qualification systems underpinned by EQAVET and quality assurance principles."