The SMART skills 4.0 project addresses the transversal skills shortage with respect to the capacity to think autonomously and creatively, to manage complex information, use resources, including digital ones, smartly, communicate effectively and innovatively, integrating digital progress into the new Business 4.0 models.The 2018 CEDEFOP Skills forecasts for tasks content of jobs up to 2030 shows the shift towards more autonomy, fewer routine tasks, less physical work, more social and intellectual tasks, and a large increase of ICT skills. Also, the 2019 CEDEFOP Skills analysis acknowledges the high-level skills mismatches, the most frequently occurring shortage being associated with high-skills level occupations for which a tertiary qualification is required.Given the challenges of workplace digitization, our project fits into the 1st priority of Renew EU Agenda for HE by tackling future skills mismatches and promoting excellence in skills development. It addresses the horizontal skills mismatches with particular regard to forward thinking skills (i.e. mix of digital, cognitive and social skills) of students, teachers and workforce in sustainability-relevant sectors posed by Business 4.0 which further enable their fully engagement in society as responsible and productive citizens working in a technology-rich environment. The project commits a series of activities which channel transformational change for a coordinated response of education to the complex social issues in a digitize world, strengthening cross–sectoral cooperation between education, training and practices. It addresses the need for shared values, personal fulfillment, sense of initiative and intercultural competences, civic and responsible behavior to drive sustainable Business 4.0 to contribute to well-being of local community.The SMART skills 4.0 project targets developing and transferring collaborative learning practices that shape complex skills for higher education students and practitioners involved in blended learning sessions to foster intelligence skills for sustainable Business 4.0 creation, and HE teaching staff trained to design and deliver future-oriented curricula for forward thinking skills needed to resolve complex social issues. It entails the involvement of a multicultural frame of transnational stakeholders in knowledge exchange for innovation in education and training for a better alignment to the skills for Business 4.0 by means of four project objectives:O1. Studying the emerging knowledge and related Forward Thinking skills required by industry 4.0, and designing future-oriented Curricula to drive innovation in business 4.0 by engaging transnational stakeholders from various sustainability-relevant sectors in survey research, and HE learners in intercultural knowledge exchanges and experience sharing.O2. Unlocking the transformative potential of education and training through developing modern learning, teaching and training resources in line with Business 4.0 trends, and exchanging of good practices, centred on the concept of forward thinking development, through the involvement of HE learners in intercultural knowledge exchanges.O3. Deploying the Educational Initiative by pilot testing the future-oriented Curricula to support the development of forward thinking skills required by business 4.0 through cross-border exchange, making the most use of ICT-based and collaborative learning practices, engaging learners in blended learning sessions and transnational teaching and training activities to foster innovation in business engineering education and training, and to enhance civic and responsible behavior.O4. Scaling-up the Educational Initiative in the area of business 4.0 by promoting synergies between education, training, and labor market, and engaging a multicultural frame of transnational stakeholders (students, teachers, practitioners, educators, managers, and entrepreneurs) in cooperation for stimulating forward thinking skills, civic and responsible behavior in line with new Business 4.0 trends. These give meaningful opportunities for collaborative learning which translates into impactful, measurable and scalable development results for students, teachers, and other practitioners which improve the capacity to take up a sustainable education culture and to make curricula more relevant to societal needs. The added value comes from cross-border cooperation opportunities which channels positive changes at the institutional level, adoption of new curricula approaches for better alignment to current technological advancement and Business 4.0 trends, strengthening cross-sectoral cooperation between education, training and practice for a coordinated response of education to the complex social issues in a digitized world.

Dynamics of the labour market force both employees and unemployed to adopt their qualifications to employers’ new needs. Part-time studies (PT) aim to provide, to mostly adult employed students, appropriate modes of study. Short cycle higher education programs (SCHE) provide mostly professional studies, lasting up to two years, aiming to prepare students for specific jobs. They are suitable to students that cannot get bachelor degrees and want to get qualifications for employment. This project aims to propose, currently missing, the legislation framework for both PT & SCHE studies in Serbia (EQF Level 5). Two project partners, authorized for HE legislation (Ministry of Education, Science and Technology Development, and National Council of Higher Education) will be actively involved in this project. As PT & SCHE adult students have different starting knowledge and skill levels, the project aims to adopt a specific personalized e-learning system, allowing each student to configure his online lessons, selecting only needed knowledge units (learning objects). Each online lesson will have a specified learning and assessment process, managed for each student separately. These innovations will optimize learning paths of students according to their current knowledge, learning styles and specified learning outcomes.The proposed concepts, legislation and pedagogical and technological approaches for PT & SCHE studies will be tested and analyzed using pilot implementations of five PT & SCHE programs, realized in both face-to-face and online modes of learning. After first year of the pilot implementations, a detail analysis of its effects will be elaborated and reported, and implementation guidelines will be offered to HEIs interested to design new PT & SCHE studies. Expected impacts: wider access to HE, increase of enrolled students, increase of employment, lower staff costs (no overqualified employees), qualifications of employees are more in line with needs of new job