SMEs play a significant role in achieving the objectives of European development strategies both by impact on the overall economic growth and by creating new and maintaining existing worksites. Their approach to different types of innovations affects overall outputs of the economy and influence its competitiveness. At present it seems that digital innovations specified by Inudstry 4.0 have overwhelming impact on EU position on the global markets. Improving regional economies based on traditional industries (including manufacturing) demands effective drivers to go for digital innovativeness effecting in increased capability which eventually leads to lower overall costs. Data shows that there is a huge gap in general innovation performance between the actors of highly developed countries like Finland and countries from Central Europe like Czechia and Poliand. Most probably it is caused not only by low innovation activity of SMEs but also by unsuited policies and also insufficient engagement, lack of knowledge and skills among business environment institutions with innovation agencies on the first place. Thus implementation of common project by the Partners from Czechia, Finland and Poland will lead to dissemination of successful Finnish approach which will be enriched by experiences of countries from Central Europe. Last but not least to be considered in the context of widely defined digital innovativeness is the impact on environment since it is said that Industry 4.0 has the potential to enhance global manufacturing output to meet rising human needs without hurting the environment. In other words it can make the world more sustainable. Considering all mentioned above the project goal is to foster support digital innovations whithin SMEs manufacturing sector by delivering new apporaches for policy makers and business environment institutions in order to strenghten European economy and sustainable development.

This project is important to implement for PIKC LVT, in mechatronics, catering, commercial service workers, logistics, IT and other specialization learners in Spring period 2016. from January till May. Altogether project is planed for 65 learners aged 17 to 19 and 6 accompanied persons, which will ensure all necessary support adapting at new conditions. International practical in Finland, Spain and Portugal are organized with aim to prepare young people more successfully for labour market, to improve their practical, theoretical and linguistic skills and knowledge. Practice in international company will improve learners independence and self- confidence. It is chance to promote cooperation between entrepreneurs and educational establishments to make vocational education more attractive in point of view of young people. Practice and practical trainings will be implemented corresponding to the program. Total practical duration of each group will be 4 weeks. The content of the project match up with interests and needs of branches in the region insuring offer relevant to needs of education. Positive statement will be approved by Europass Mobility documents and certificates from receiving organizations.

"As the paradigm of the industry has changed, there is a need to change the paradigm of teaching as well. Teaching has to take into account today's youth (Z-generation) peculiarities to make them difficult subjects more easily obtainable. As the resources are more costly and competition increases in every level, cooperation is important to achieve more with less resources. Therefore development of methodologies, analysing and piloting of the novel teaching methods for modern smart learning and principles for competence and cooperation network in the field of mechatronics is the main objective of the project NEDIA.There are 5 project partners in the project NEDIA: 3 vocational education schools (Tallinna Tööstushariduskeskus from Estonia, Raision seudun koulutuskuntayhtymä from Finland and PIKC ""Liepajas Valsts tehnikums"" from Latvia) and 2 competence centres (Innovative Manufacturing Engineering Competence Centre IMECC from Estonia and KoneteknologiakeskusTurku from Finland).The project helps partner educational institutions to become aware and implement new teaching methodologies that would meet the needs of today’s youth and allow them quickly and easily to acquire knowledge that is needed in today’s industry. Also the project helps to create base to cooperation network that enables to make cooperation in designing courses and adapting new teaching methodologies and change information and knowledge. The project results are possible to broaden outside the project partners, too.Main activity fields and results of the project:1) Analysis about new needs in the industry and needed competences in the field of mechatronics today and in the future up to year 2020. Result: Report ""New needs in the industry and needed competences in the field of mechatronics"". The report gives an overview about the development trends in the mechatronics sector and type of competences (also new, key competences) that are needed in the sector today and in the near future and main bottlenecks in teaching in Estonia, Latvia and Finland. 2) Analysis about new teaching didactics – new teaching methods and possibilities for implementing them to teaching process and composing respective methodological material. The aim of using new teaching methods is to make difficult and complicated topics and subjects of teaching more easily understandable. Different didactic methods of organizing teaching process were analysed, incl. what they are and how to implement them in teaching process. Result: New training methods and their implementation in modern vocational education (methodology)3) Developing pilot lecture plan, pilot lecture materials using obtained knowledge about new teaching methods, conducting respective pilot lecture and collecting feedback by each participating educational institution. Respective report was composed about the process.4) Creating structure and concept for cooperation and competence network between regions for sharing competences and resources for securing higher efficiency and transparency. It was analysed how to realize effectively, consistently and sustainably previously described activities in cooperation network, how in integrated way would be possible to obtain better results with limited resources and how would be possible to expand the network to other institutions. Cooperation network would have an ability to develop continuously a value-added cooperation between countries and educational and supporting institutions in different countries. These main activity fields are contributed by supporting activities as project management, project homepage compilation and composing project dissemination plan.Target groups of the project are vocational education institutions, their students, teachers and other staff, companies of mechatronics field, qualification authorities and other industry associations. The aim is to turn teaching process more open, interesting and attractive, to make difficult technical subjects more easily understandable and available. Therefore students will obtain competences that the industry needs and become more competitive in labour market, companies have workforce in the future that has competences they need and as labour force is one of the most important resources of the company, the competitiveness of the companies and therefore the industries will increase. Also through improved teaching process the competitiveness of the educational institutions increases.The outputs of this project are possible to broaden also to other schools, other subjects and advanced trainings. Through concept and structure of cooperation network, new projects are initiated."

The changes in the manufacturing happen faster and faster. Nowadays manufacturing systems and processes are complicated. Sustainable and customized manufacturing are the main keywords to characterize nowadays manufacturing. For this purpose the new paradigm of manufacturing has been developed. It is called the new industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) where new business models, reconfigurable robot-based manufacturing, Internet of things, intelligent adaptable manufacturing processes, etc are the main topics. The new needs in manufacturing are interdisciplinary thinking, more complex and sophisticated workplaces and processes, new skills and complex knowledge, a lot of collaborative and cross-cultural competences, on-line support for decision making.Therefore, the INSMER project concentrated on developing a solid supportive platform for the nowadays modern manufacturing. INSMER project results consist of high level integration of educational institutions, competence centres and companies (supportive structure); the smart intellectual outputs (modular curricula in Output 1 (O1), adult training programs in O2, case books and other case-based learning supportive tools in O3) as a basic for offering output oriented education in robotics field. In the development of all INSMER outputs modern teaching methods and tools for smart education were used. The best practices, novel approaches in education, needs of partner countries' industries, possibilities and competences of partner educational organizations are considered in development of intellectual outputs. Our direct target groups were: 1) students of robotics of partner educational institutions who due to new curricula in robotics and case-book will be more competitive in labor market; 2) employees attending in adult training programs in robotics and using the case-book, whom competence will raise; 3) organizations attending in the project who gather more competence and gather more students and adults due to up-to-date programs.Indirect target groups are: companies who achieve employees with appropriate education / training and will be more competitive; other educational institutions who can use the information and experiences of the project for improving their curricula.For achieving all above-mentioned, INSMER consisted of an excellent team of educational institutions (TTK, RTK, LAMK) and competence centres, doing research and training and counseling about the needs of the industry and trends in mechatroncs (IMECC, KTK). Through this consortium, education and industry are brought closer to each other in providing education that matched industrial needs. Intellectual outputs of the project were:1) In Output 1: integrated modular curriculum for robot operator and integrated modular curriculum for robot-systems technician (based on the common structure and study outputs 3 robotics curricula on different vocational levels were developed in INSMER);2) In Output 2: different modular adult training programs (total of 17 adult training programmes in robotics accompanied with selected study materials).3) In Output 3: case-book for smart education spread together with O1 and O2 results to students and adult learners (publication version and detailed and technical long versions of 12 robotics cases). For the evaluation of the INSMER final report, the full version of the INSMER case-book is available here: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1k1V-xYAxBER1qLQHtIJk_NjcQNHKQdb4 The outputs of this project that are targeted to vocational training as well as adult training, are also possible to broaden to advanced trainings for other educational institutions and offered for employees of the companies. In addition, INSMER case-book for robotics education was developed that is possible to use for advanced training programs. Students and company employees as adult learners using the INSMER case-book can obtain more knowledge about robotics that makes them more competitive in labor market. In addition, it supports companies to increase their efficiency and profitability. As human resources (the skills of future and current employees) are one of the most important resources in the company, education that responds to the needs of the industry will provide companies with competent employees thereby increasing the productivity, effectiveness and competitiveness of the companies and the industry as a whole. All planned objectives and expected results of the INSMER project were well achieved. By the end of the project in 2019, INSMER new curricula of O1 is already adapted and implemented in 2 schools in total content (project partner Tallinn University of Applied Sciences, TTK and other cooperation partner - Tallinn Industrial Education Centre) and modularily (partly) at RTK in Latvia and LAMK in Finland. IMECC and Turku KTK are already implementing O2 adult training programs to adult learners/employees of the partner companies.

A shared learning environment for vocational and engineering students is developed, in which project-based learning methodology is implemented targeting both students’ groups in final two years of their academic track. The developed education methodology is expected to yield a new line of industry human capital (engineers and technicians), who are technically and socially competent for professional and skilled teamwork at industry, where industry-inspired project-based learning is implemented in engineering and vocational curricula engaging both in integrated teams developing a mutual product. Although partners in industry development, a significant social segregation exists among engineering and vocational man power in industry in EG. This is accompanied with lack of practical expertise, true industry exposure and lack of appreciation of the role of each group. Since the academic development stage is most appropriate to shape students’ perspective and understanding, academic courses during the last two years of engineering and vocational school are modified such that practical projects/products are introduced to different student groups comprising members from engineering and vocational schools, which map the academic learning outcomes of the courses offered in both disciplines. This shall cover Mechanical, Manufacturing, Electrical and Mechatronics tracks. A total of 28 projects mapping the ILOs for 28 Engineering and 29 vocational courses shall be designed for VET-ENG student teams to develop together at vocational-engineering schools and at industry premises. Personal skills, social and work ethics courses shall be developed and offered to the VET-ENG teams to enhance their professional interactivity and respect. VET-ENG groups shall develop one project each, for each of the targeted 4 semesters, which map the ILOs for the practical content of the engineering and vocational courses in this semester, while building on competencies acquired during previous years.