Job to Stay is used as an acronym for “Sustainable Integration of Low-skilled Refugees into the Tourism Labour Market”. The project seeks to foster the long-term employment of refugees with access to permanent job opportunities. Linking their needs and wishes to work with the enormous staff shortages that Europe’s tourism industry is suffering from is the main project objective. Due to their specific disadvantaged position a particular focus was placed upon female refugees and the increase of their employability.Following this objective, the target groups and participants are quite heterogeneous. From the beginning of the project, partners were eager to use, increase and establish their networks with partners from the social sector, professional associations, labour market services, Chambers, VET providers, SMEs, initiatives dealing with refugees and refugees themselves – mainly women in this case. The project partnership reached the objective through following Intellectual Outputs (IO): • The Job to Stay Job Profiles (IO1) are job descriptions on Level 2 qualification, which is yet not comparably described for the selected job profiles in all countries. For the first time a validation, accreditation and employment model was developed for five selected job profiles in the tourism labour market (Housekeeping assistant, kitchen assistant, assistant cook, waiter in the bar area, landscape management assistance).• Existing career guidance and qualification models still insufficiently consider cultural background and gender-specific life experiences (including physical and psychological violence before or during the flight) of women and their special needs and requirements in terms of VET and placements/employment – Job to Stay developed a career guidance and mentoring model tailor-made for female refugees (IO2 and IO3)• The Job to Stay Qualification Pass (IO2) so far is the one and only truly comprehensive tool that can be used as assessment procedure for employers and refugees themselves. It is a unique combination of already existing EU-Tools such as Europass CV and CEFR and tailor-made assessment procedures for non-formal and informal learning. • Neither EQF-based description of knowledge, skills and competences nor the accreditation of informal and non-formal learning is widely known or actively applied within the partner countries (with the exemption of FR) - Job to Stay demonstrated the advantages of these instruments and methods in connection with the accreditation of refugees’ prior learning experience and with their uncomplicated and quick long-term integration into tourism labour markets.• Another core outcome of the Job to Stay project was a work placement which was closely monitored and shadowed by all partner organisations. 47 mainly female refugees were integrated into the labour market successfully, afterwards providing individual solutions for a further professional career with the majority of them. Basis for this success is the “Team of Buddies” that was created by the Job to Stay project. The project team developed a tangible product to guide employers, refugees, social associations and social workers through this project phase. This Guideline (IO3) can be used by any target group or stakeholder who is dealing with the integration of people with a migrant background. • For the last two years, the project partners established (partly) completely new networks and gained many experiences. Especially the work with the “Team of Buddies” brought forth very intimate impressions and personal perspectives on the situation of (female) refugees in the partner countries. For this reason, the partnership wanted to share all experiences and lessons learnt during project implementation and recommendation. The Job to Stay Green Paper (IO4) deducts all experiences for all parties involved, and offers recommendations for policy makers at local, regional, national and European levels in particular. It contains 23 EU projects dealing with a same approach and therefore represents the first publication of such comprehension. The official end of the Job to Stay project serves as a beginning of new activities and approaches. For example, the partnership got the feedback that especially the Job to Stay Qualification Pass (IO2) should be used on a national basis substituting the local documents and therefore ease the process of assessment (for formal, non-formal and informal learning). The project works together with the Chambers as well as other VET providers to follow this approach. Further on, the second Intellectual Output could be used for other sectors apart from the tourism industry. Especially the care sector is warmly welcoming such results and seeking for such tailor-made solutions. The partnership of Job to Stay is eager to continue the project’s idea and plans to repeat the placement phase once more as also more refugees wanted to take part in this.

The EC has within its Survey of 2011, carried out on request of DG Enterprise and Industry (DG EI), realized that the main barriers of innovation in the eyes of the SMEs, are lack of financial resources and inability to manage innovation process. Since different understandings of the term "Innovation Management System" (IMS) have been noted the EC has supported European Committee for Standardization to provide the stakeholders with a unified definition of relevant parts in the IMS. According to this definition the most important parts of IMS include company's innovation processes from idea generation to innovation result, but also leadership, management skills and other enabling factors, like the ability to cooperate with third parties like RD partners, clients, and suppliers. The objective of this project in Slovenia is to enable SMEs to bridge the knowledge gap in innovation management, get aware of shortages and improve their internal innovation management system and/or focus on achieving market value with their inventions. The consortium will achieve this objectives with providing: 1.) Enhancing the Innovation Management Capacity of SMEs. The beneficiaries will receive diagnostic of their innovation system based on the standardized IMP³rove tool. This will lead to the formation of tailored action plan to improve the SME’s capacity to better manage innovation. 2.) Key Account Managers – Facilitators for the H2020 SME Instrument. Key Account Managers will identify and source appropriate lead coaches (from predefined pool of coaches), facilitate linking the SMEs to innovation support services and to support the lead coach in delivering services to the SME. The SME Instrument participants will receive the most appropriate services and support to enhance the probability of successful exploitation of the innovation project and to leave a footprint for the future sustainable growth of these beneficiaries.

One of the most severe upcoming issues faced by Europe’s economy is the planning, organisation and implementation of effective business succession. Companies find less and less qualified aspiring people to whom the management of the business can be passed over faithfully. Experience shows that the smaller the company, the bigger this problem is. This means, that the most affected are micro and family businesses, which in fact account for 60% of all European companies. The sector most hit by this problem is tourism, where 95% of companies employ fewer than 10 people. At the same time, the tourism industry is crucially relevant to our society, as it is the third largest economic activity and the sector continues to grow. However, there are almost no concepts available for how to support these companies in their business succession process, especially not in developing appropriate profiles for qualification and in selecting those aspirants who are best qualified for taking the business forward. In order to overcome this situation, the project group of Best Boss has developed three main intellectual outputs: A) Implementation of a European Survey to obtain a clear picture of the situation in Europe and to define which knowledge, skills and competence are generally valid in Europe for taking over SME businesses successfully. From the data received, the partnership developed a detailed description of knowledge, skills and competences referring to the requirements of the EQF. Results and outcomes of this work were evaluated, analysed and published in a survey and competence description report (European Research Report).B) Based on these outcomes the BEST BOSS Assessment Procedure and Tool Box was developed, tailor-made to the needs and demands of the main target group. The result is the Best Boss Inventory (BBI), which is an online-based assessment tool based on analysing personality traits of potential successors, allowing them to be compared to the expectations of current leaders (based on the European Survey). The assessment procedure and tool box was piloted in four partner countries before all the instruments and a guideline of usage were published. The tool itself is available in all partner languages now.C) Finally, the BEST BOSS Policy Paper was published, which summarises experiences and outcomes from the project activities and provides deductions for Europe’s labour market, HRD strategies as well as the regional, economic and ecological development. It will also introduce benchmarks to be reached within the next five years at the local, regional, national and European levels and provide a list of requests to political stakeholders and policy makers concerning what is needed to improve the situation of successful company succession for smaller tourism enterprises.Through the project's activities the partnership aimed to achieve direct and indirect impact both in the short term as well as in the long term:The European Survey provides, for the first time, an insight into the status quo of company succession within Europe’s smaller enterprises in the tourism industry and it contains their demands and needs concerning this issue. Most of all, it provides a clear description of relevant knowhow, skills and competences which provide a reliable and valid basis for any future decisions and actions taken for improving the situation.The BEST BOSS Assessment Procedure and Tool Box allows VET and HE providers to offer tailor-made support and guidance to micro and small enterprises for identifying and selecting their best possible company successor. The tool is also available for all SME businesses in tourism in all partner languages. The BEST BOSS Policy Paper raises general awareness and gives all political decision makers clear guidelines and recommendation of what needs to be done next to overcome the shortage of company successors in Europe’s largest sector of the tourism industry.All project activities are embedded in a wide range of evaluation and dissemination activities. The partnership contains eight organisations; four of them are VET or HE providers specialised in the fields of tourism and tourism management; one is an association of tourism service providers, one is a coordination office for company succession, one is a Chamber of Commerce and Industry working for many years in the field of company succession and one is the largest European network for the dissemination of EU project results. They have all the skills, experience, and resources needed for implementing this project successfully. Representing DE, AT, BE, BG, SI, RO and the UK the partnership will ensure an appropriate European dimension as well as a fine split between larger and smaller countries with differently developed tourism sectors. They all have strong links with their local tourism sectors as well as to political decision makers.

The EASIP COMP project aims at reinforcing the entrepreneurship competence among students through workplace learning, in line with the European strategy on this topic.Conceptually E.A.S.I.P. COMP puts a special emphasis on further strengthening entrepreneurship as one of the key competencies in higher education curricula and provides more effective work-based opportunities to acquire entrepreneurship competency among university students. The project will increase labor market relevance of learning provision and qualifications and reinforce the links between education, training and the world of work, because the entrepreneurship training model will include close project-based cooperation between universities and local companies.The guiding principle of the project is to provide evidence based experiential teaching models to ensure long-term sustainable cooperation between universities and local business organisations.We will do that by implementing an experiential workplace-based model of teaching entrepreneurship in higher education in order to facilitate more frequent and quality cooperation between higher education institutions and local business organizations. The main objectives of the project are to:-Introduce a new practical entrepreneurship model by working on real life cases in business and industry-Deliver new entrepreneurship training materials for teachers and students to support work-based learning about entrepreneurship-Equip university teachers with skills for mentoring and guiding students towards entrepreneurship-Support cooperation between higher education institutions and local businesseswith the aim of offering more experience in developing entrepreneurial competencies of university students-Strengthen cooperation between higher education institutions and local businesses for creative solutions and product development by joint work between students, teachers and local businessesProject outputs will be strongly practical oriented, offering comprehensive support for long-term impacts on experiential teaching of entrepreneurship. Specifically, the outcomes are the following:1. An online entrepreneurship course and digital character (software). A set of tools, games and activities will be built in order to make lessons more experiential and the whole approach will be built on great user experience.The first part is a long process of research and analysis about entrepreneurship competences among university students. The second part consists in developing the entrepreneurship course: it will include activities for students, description of activities, material needed, recommendations for teachers, user-friendly explanations of theory, as necessary for students.2.Video-compendium of prototypes of business ideas created by students. The video-compendium will collect all students’ workplace business projects developed. It will present all projects prepared by students in a business environment, showing prototypes developed by students and a short presentation of all involved local companies. In addition, the project will produce also intangible results such as:-Increasing knowledge of university students about entrepreneurship, improving their employability -Training university teachers in a new approach of working with entrepreneurship competences and with the world of business-Increasing skills of entrepreneurship trainers by working with university teachers and supporting students in workplace learning-Increasing cooperation between universities and local businesses in work-based projects-Increasing internalization of the partner organizationsThe project will have effective impacts such as: increased entrepreneurial mindset and employability of university students; increased ability of teachers in mentoring students for training courses on entrepreneurship; reinforced cooperation between universities and local companies in implementing work-based project for students; increased knowledge among higher education institutions and policy makers of practical approach in teaching entrepreneurship. The EASIP COMP project results will be sustainable; methodological approach and intellectual outputs are flexible and adaptable and can be easily implemented in higher education organizations across Europe.

<< Background >>The European Green Deal sets Europe on the pathway to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, while the EU’s first-ever Gender Equality Strategy is designed to make gender equality in the EU a reality. Building synergies between these two strategies, especially in the rural area, will be crucial to improving gender equality in energy, climate, and sustainability space in Europe and harnessing Europe’s talent to support a green and sustainable recovery from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. European rural areas can be characterised by a gender-selective migration, since the number of women leaving rural areas exceeds the number of males doing so. This process results in severe demographic imbalances between and within regions, and hampers the solid economic and social development of rural areas. Although women in rural areas of the EU make up just below 50% of the total rural population, they represent 45% of the economically active population, and about 40% of them work on their family farms. Female entrepreneurs represent only one third of self-employed people in the EU and women farmers represent 30% of the total number of EU farm managers. What is more,women tend to play a greater role than men in natural resource management – farming, planting, protecting and caring for seedlings and small trees – and in ensuring nutrition and as care providers for their families. Yet, in the long run, no one – women or men, rich or poor – can remain immune from the challenges and dangers brought on by climate change. Therefore, adequate actions are needed to tackle such challenges. Greening the rural economy, as suggested by ILO guidance, should be at the heart of rural economies. It could be an engine for a sustainable economic transformation: powering the rural economy through green business initiatives; revitalising agriculture through durable and high productivity farming methods; fostering sustainable tourism; restoring ecosystems for productivity, income and resilience. Without appropriately targeted training, education, employment placement, financial tools and supportive social policies, transitioning to a green economy may exacerbate existing inequities and hinder global human development goals. Rural people’s access to education and training is often limited by financial barriers (e.g. training costs) and non-financial barriers (e.g. scarce education infrastructure, inflexible training schedules). Unequal gender relations and traditional gender roles entail specific difficulties for rural girls and women in accessing education and training. According to ILO (2019), 1.2 billion jobs (40% of total employment) depend on a healthy environment. Also, the estimations of ILO on measures tackling the environmental issues consider that taking action to address climate change can generate 24M new jobs by 2030. The EU analysis (Green Deal) showed that there is insufficient development of green entrepreneurship initiatives. In rural areas, many actions in the sustainable development area focus on agriculture and food, but these are less supported by fiscal measures or other public policies. The project addresses the need for transformation of the EU economy into a green one and the development of new skills required for both green jobs and entrepreneurship in the rural area, using digitalisation and social economy models. Fostering female social green entrepreneurship in rural areas can be crucial for the vitality of our countryside.<< Objectives >>The proposed project focuses on the adult education stream by aiming to foster social green entrepreneurship among women in rural communities through education in the form of practical local programs, which is the main objective of the project.The project aims at bridging the “gap” in the educational system between the need for new green skills and entrepreneurial skills and the lack of adequate educational content for the development of such skills, through an innovative training course for teachers in delivering green social entrepreneurship education, utilizing blended learning methodology.The specific objectives of the project are: a) Building awareness in rural areas about women and green entrepreneurship as vehicles of the empowerment of local communitiesb) Building the capacities of formal & non-formal educators in a rural area on green social entrepreneurship for women;c) Design & implementation of local programmes aiming at empowering women in rural area through green social entrepreneurship. d) Develop guidelines for stakeholders at local, national and European level about needed measures for building an enabling environment for women’s entrepreneurship in the rural area<< Implementation >>There is an important need for developing green skills in rural areas and empowering women to be more involved in social entrepreneurship. The project addresses the need for transformation of the EU economy into a green one and the development of new skills required for both green jobs and entrepreneurship in the rural area, using digitalisation and social economy models. For that purpose the consortium is going to implement the following activities: -Project Management activities: by developing a project management handbook to communicate all necessary information from the funding agency to ensure partner are following guidelines and rules regarding communication, project meetings, administration and financial arrangements.-Dissemination and Communication activities: To ensure the promotion of the project and the involvement of the stakeholders via online dissemination, multiplier and networking events, etc-Quality and Impact Evaluation activities: to measure and manage the quality of our work, understood as the congruence with the end goal of the project, the relevance to target groups and the professionalism of the execution.-Partners meetings: To help the partnership focus on how to organize the work to be done and how to complete the work done on specific results or activities that the project foresees during its completion.--Research, collecting of good practices, Learning, Teaching, Training, capacity building activities and networking. Through the collection of existing tools and experiences (PR1) will give the opportunity to better understand the European trends and especially to analyse the main gaps in supporting green social enterprises creation among women. The definition of a common online capacity building programme (PR2) tested thanks to the direct involvement of adult educators at the local level (Pr3 ) will facilitate intermediary organizations in supporting the creation of sustainability-driven activities. Finally, the Guide for stakeholders(PR4) will be developed for building an enabling environment for women’s entrepreneurship in the rural area Also an awareness-raising campaign will be designed by using the testimonies and the material collected during the different project phases. The aim will be not only to disseminate the project result to a large audience but also to sensitise communities, aspiring entrepreneurs and established entrepreneurs to the relevance of the green transformation and social impact.<< Results >>WE GREEN foresees four Project Results:PR1 Inspirational package: development of a sound and updated knowledge base repository on rural women’s green social entrepreneurship, necessary for the preparation of the upcoming activities. This repository will include reports at the national and EU level on specific needs of rural women and the exact problems they face, preventing their integration in the labour market and fostering green social entrepreneurship and a collection of best practices related to green social entrepreneurship for women in rural areasPR2. Development of the capacity building programme for formal and non-formal educators working with women in a rural area: a training programme for formal and non-formal educators working with women in a rural area. For delivering the training programme, it will be developed a comprehensive interactive online tool that will serve both the delivery of the capacity building programme for formal and non-formal educators and make available useful information for the development of green social entrepreneurial skills in rural areas. This includes the development of the capacity building programme and information material for formal and non-formal educators, along with the basic tool that will be utilized for their delivery (online platform).PR3. Implementing Capacity building programme at the transnational and local level. Delivery of the capacity building programme for formal and non-formal educators supporting women in rural areas with the upskilling path in green social entrepreneurship. It involves the training of trainers that will deliver this training, following a 3-day transnational webinar. The capacities of 40 formal & non-formal educators of rural women/social entrepreneurship/green skills in the 4 implementing countries (Romania, Cyprus, Slovenia and Serbia) will be developed in terms of implementing the developed capacity building programme in green social entrepreneurship.PR4. Guide for Stakeholders. Elaboration of a guide for stakeholders at local, national and European level with recommendations about building an enabling environment for women’s green social entrepreneurship in the rural area. For local and national level a toolkit will be developed on local policies and best practices for the inclusion of rural women at the local level having education and training as the main vehicle. In this toolkit will be highlighted the key success factors in each case, the specific skills and competencies necessary for the successful implementation of this practice, as well as dos and don’ts for future reference.5 dissemination events (4 at the national level and 1 at EU level); dissemination activities and awareness campaign in order to promote social green entrepreneurship among women in rural communities The networking activities proposed allows the creation of long-lasting relations between stakeholders at the national, regional and European level to increased synergies and linksbetween education and business; to reinforce interaction between practice, research and policy in each system; intensified use of open educational resources (OER) for continuoustraining of the teaching community; to increase the number of good practices in content and language integrated learning.The educational professionals will learn the importance of fostering green skills, especially in rural area, through methods and tools (online education platforms) to deliver high-quality education. Furthermore, they will improve their digital competencies and their understanding of green transition in a digital Europe