"PROJECT’s BACKGROUND MOVE4TRADE is a trans-regional project developed in Emilia Romagna, Piedmont and Tuscany, three Italian regions characterized by a similar economic and social system. In times of financial and economic crisis, the project aims to develop internationalization strategies for SMEs, in order to promote their survival, the growth of the local communities and the increasing of the employment rates.Despite Italian products are well known in the world, italian SMEs are the less internationalized in Europe for many reasons, among whose the lack of investments and personnel to this scope.MOVE4TRADE project aims to meet these specific needs and to offer to students and newly graduated/qualified the opportunity to acquire professional and technical skills and competences in order to support internationalization processes and to increase their employment opportunities. These students have been attending ""Administration, finance and marketing: international relations for marketing"" courses in the above mentioned regions.GOALSThe involved participants will have the possibility to develop a training and professional experience in an international learning framework, that will give them the opportunity to equip with a mix of interdisciplinary and interconnected competences.Furthermore, the project foresees the experimentation of the German dual system (training activity to be developed both in class and inside the company), planning a professional competencies learning process based on the combination of theory (school) and practice (apprenticeship).The project foresees, finally, the use of methods and instruments for credit and competencies recognition, through the use of “learning units” to be capitalized, referred and transferred into school and/or training credits, by assessing, recognizing and validating the LO through linear and transparent procedures in line with the ECVET guidelines.NUMBER AND PROFILE OF PARTICIPANTS 100 STUDENTS. BACKGROUND. 17-18/19 year-old students, attending the IV class of technical and vocational secondary schools in Arezzo, Verbania, and Reggio Emilia.30 NEWLY GRADUATED/QUALIFIED. They have received, since no more than 12 months, a vocational qualification or a degree consistent with topics related to the internationalization of SMEs.ACTIVITY. The activities of the project are the following:- Project management (structured in 4 main documents, containing the 4 fundamental aspects for the correct management of the project: Coordination and Control Plan, Learning and Evaluation Plan, Management of the Communication Plan, Dissemination and Exploitation Plan)- Preparation of the participants (linguistic, technical, pedagogic and cultural training)- Individualization and activation of work placements (as a result of the selection of the participants, the MATCHING phase candidate-company will be realized through the cooperation of EU partners that will assess the profiles of candidates paying attention to the effective availability of hosting companies- Monitoring during and after the mobility experience- Final evaluation (results, project, good practices)- Diffusion and exploitationMETHODOLOGY. The activated methodologies are, essentially practical and are finalized to achieve effective, efficient and repeatable activities.RESULTS AND IMPACT. At general level, the project will mainly have impact in the world of VET thanks to: training results of the participants to the mobility; acquired competences (soft-skills, professional, personal, cultural and ethics competences); credit recognition. The dissemination strategy will support the global objectives and the specific activities of project, mainly with reference to the publication of the Outputs of the project ( papers, etc), but also to the OUTCOMES (results) and to the OUTREACH (impact).LONG TERM BENEFITS. In the long term, the expected benefits are: a great involvement of Italian (institutional and not) partners, the improvement and the widening of the foreign partnership, in terms of territories and competencies; the opportunity to finalize exchange and cooperation projects within different other European Programmes (e.g. Progress, EaSI, others); the opportunity to become (as a Consortium) an important partner in the management of mobility and in the adoption of EQAVET and ECVET systems."

Due to changing demographics in Germany and the UK and associated retirement policies, in organisations age diversity is expected to increase. Previous research has suggested that age diversity can impact innovation on different organisational levels. On the individual level increased age is associated with a decline of fluid cognitive abilities, which are relevant for the development of innovative ideas. On the organisational level, conflicts, and age stereotypes have a negative impact on innovation. To prevent and even reverse the adverse impact of age diversity on innovation, an innovation support scheme for SMEs was developed and piloted in a previously conducted research project in Germany. This scheme included interventions for individuals and leaders. At the individual level, a cognitive ability training was introduced to reduce the decline of fluid cognitive abilities and in turn increase the generation of innovative ideas particularly for older employees. Moreover, a leadership training was introduced, which emphasizes on reducing age stereotypes and associated conflicts and enhance appreciation of age diversity. DINNOS, aims to conduct an evaluation of the effectiveness of this innovation support scheme in a sample of SMEs from Germany and the UK. In both countries, we will conduct a large scale randomized control trial involving an experimental- and a waiting-list control group with N=300 SMEs, and N=400 individual employees across both countries, which will be equally divided to both groups. On the individual level we will examine cognitive ability, individual creativity and innovation as outcomes. Whereas on the organisational level outcomes will consist of self-reported indicators, such as reduced age stereotypes and team innovation as well as objective outcomes such as number of submitted ideas and patents.

A national service in support of recipients of the H2020 SME Instrument and for the improvement of innovation management in SMEs, with the purpose of more companies with growth potential achieving global scaling Innovation is a vital ingredient of growth and an important element of the future success of the UK. With some 95% of R&D and innovation conducted outside of the UK and many major and lead market shaping companies being of non-UK origin, access to knowledge, markets, skills and partners is increasingly taking place on a global basis. To ensure UK business stays competitive it is important that it is able to effectively access and exploit the growing global investment in research and innovation. Through EEN ENIW activities we will help businesses build collaborations and partnerships and access the finance, knowledge, skills, networks and customers to more rapidly move a concept through to commercialisation and to scale their business.

A national service in support of recipients of the H2020 SME Instrument and for the improvement of innovation management in SMEs, with the purpose of more companies with growth potential achieving global scaling. Innovation is a vital ingredient of growth and an important element of the future success of the UK. With some 95% of R&D and innovation conducted outside of the UK and many major and lead-market shaping companies being of non-UK origin, access to knowledge, markets, skills and partners is increasingly taking place on a global basis. To ensure UK business stays competitive it is important that it is able to effectively access and exploit the growing trend towards global investment in research and innovation. Through our fully integrated EEN ENIW activities we will help businesses build collaborations and partnerships and access the finance, knowledge, skills, networks and customers to more rapidly move a concept through to commercialisation and to scale their business.

A national service in support of recipients of the H2020 sme instrument and for the enhancement of innovation management in SMEs Innovation is a vital ingredient of growth and an important element of the future success of the UK. With some 95% of R&D and innovation conducted outside of the UK and many major and lead market shaping companies being of non-UK origin, access to knowledge, markets, skills and partners is increasingly taking place on a global basis. To ensure UK business stays competitive it is important that it is able to effectively access and exploit the growing global investment in research and innovation. Through EEN ENIW activities we will help businesses build collaborations and partnerships and access the finance, knowledge, skills, networks and customers to more rapidly move a concept through to commercialisation.