"More than 14 million family enterprises in Europe provide for 50% of GDP and 60 million jobs. In times of crisis, family enterprise play a crucial socio- economic role as an employment buffer and pivot of growth.Despite their role, at present there are no programmes and initiatives tailored to the specific needs of family enterprises whose competitiveness is undermined by specific challenges. As highlighted by the EU Parliament:1. The EU Commission does not have a family enterprise initiative since 20102. There are shortcomings in regulation, definitions, support system and training for family enterprises, exacerbated by high fragmentation among Member States3. There is a generalised lack of operational tools and training resources for family enterprises, especially those of micro-small sizeSuch challenges and needs are best captured by>(2210(INI)) 30.6.2015, “Family Business in Europe”, European Parliament>""Entrepreneurship Action Plan 2020"" EU Commission>“Identification of Future Skills Needs in Micro-Craft-Type Enterprises up to 2020”, EU CommissionSuch policy reports are corroborated by “industry reports”, like Ernst & Young “Family Business Yearbook” 2016/2017; KPMG “EU Family Business Barometer 2018”. Such official sources provide an alarming picture: family enterprises’ sustainability and competitiveness is undermined by specific challenges and needs:>promote specific training for family enterprises in fields like governance and management models>need to establish a direct link between training and family enterprises so that they can constantly upgrade and upskill their competences to face challenges in areas like management>develop digital entrepreneurship and digital skills for family enterprises>need for tailored training on internationalisation, especialy for family businesses of small and micro sizesVESTA has the objective of supoorting the growth and sustaining the competitiveness of family enterprises so that they can strive and continue to play that crucial role of social buffer and economic engine of growth, by developing innovative operational tools and training resources.PARTICIPANTS of the VESTA project include partners from the VET system (both formal and nonformal), support system and facilitation of entrepreneurship, family enterprises and Third Sector.VESTA brings together 6 partners from 5 countries, and at implementation will engage at least 200 target groups. A set of Associated Partners complement the participants, together with a series of policy and practice stakeholders that will be involved at implementation throughout various activities.ACTIVITIES that partner will carry out include:1. Develop and maintain the VESTA OER Platform to provide visibility to project activities and promote the adoption and use of the VESTA tools and resources in their multilingual versions2. Map the ecosystem of family enterprises to extrapolate dynamics of family enterprises to bridge the gap (operational, of definitions and training) identified by EU institutions3. Develop operational tools in support of family enterprises4. Develop and deliver innnovative training specifically tailored and targeted to family enterprises5. Validate in real operational environments the VESTA tools and training involving at least 200 target groups6. Promote the adoption and replication of VESTA by mainstreaming its use across EUMETODOLOGY is operational and practical, based on a “staged methodological approach” along the following phases:Mapping => Development => Delivery & Validation => Full OER Deployment ==> MainstreamingRESULTS of VESTA are the following:IO1 VESTA OER Platform that is open,free and multilanguageIO2 Mapping of the family enterprise ecosystem and family business dynamicsIO3 VESTA Operational Tools, at least 5 products, (Innovative governance models, generational transition, executive functions transfer, etc)IO4 VESTA Training, at least 10 courses with modular approach on specific family enterprise topics and content: governance, internationalisation, digital entrepreneurship, management, strategyIMPACT of VESTA is foreseen at various layers:=> Operational: 200 family enterprises will be involved at implementation in the pilot validation of the VESTA tools and training=> Systemic: facilitators of family enterprise and the VET system at large across EU can use, adopt, adapt and implement for free the VESTA tools and training=> Policy: VESTA provides inputs and informs the “evidence based policy making” mechanism providing and up-to-date and relevant mapping of the family enterprise phenomenon and its dynamics"

"In the period 01.06.2017 - 31.05.2019, we supported 253 individual trainees / learners in initial VET nationwide. Our goal was to give our numerous in-company apprentices in SMEs the opportunity for an internship abroad. Nationwide we were successfully active as a pool project and used open-flow management for this purpose. The challenge in our pool project was that we had no concrete information on participants, length of stay or target countries when we applied for the project and could only use empirical values as a scale. In the end, however, we recorded a budget utilisation of 99.65%. Due to their knowledge of foreign languages, the trainees were mainly looking for English-speaking countries (94 x UK; 94 x Malta; 2 x Irland; 21 x France; 21 x Austria). The majority of our direct registrations were female and came from commercial apprenticeships. Among these commercial professions, there was an increasing number of participants from the industrial, tourism, marketing, logistics and trade sectors. Thanks to the mobility consultants operating nationwide, we also had numerous apprentices from the industrial-technical and craft sector in support, e.g. aircraft mechanics and electronics technicians. The general length of stay varied greatly and ranged from 14 days to 96 days, with a noticeable trend towards longer learning stays. Most participants came from Brandenburg (40%), followed by Bavaria, BW, Lower Saxony and NRW with approx. 8% each.In the project we worked according to ECVET principals. Together with our partners, we derived practicable, ""comprehensible"" units of learning outcomes from individual occupational profiles for selected commercial and catering occupations. Those were used as basis for the learning agreement and the content of the mobility. The learning experience consisted of practical work in the host company with clearly assigned tasks and a company mentor. Our local partner organisations were responsible for logistical issues and continuous on-site support. Together, clear rules for assessment and quality documentation (report book, Europass Mobility) were agreed to ensure valid learning outcomes. In addition to the increase in the individual competence of the trainees, which was confirmed by the majority of the companies, the offer of mobility during training has meanwhile also become a very good marketing instrument. In addition to the objective of improving the quality, assessment and recognition of learning outcomes, we regarded mobility as defined in the BBiG as a ""place of learning"" for dual vocational training and ensured ""training"" quality. In addition to the quality, the individual support before, during and after the learning mobility was important to us. All in all, our activities led to positive feedback from our participants. In this way, a ""snowball"" effect was created, which prompted numerous training companies to send out trainees again with our help on a regular basis. In addition, the participants carried their experiences as multipliers into their vocational school classes and social networks, so that the awareness of the project increased and we were able to reach our target numbers of participants. In addition to our proven professional project management, we also had access to a very good, long-standing European network of partner institutions, which supported us with the high-quality organisation and support in the different countries. Thus approx. 80% of our apprentices were supported by the school and the company in their efforts, but did not have any contacts to companies in Europe. Together with our project partners we organised individual, tailor-made internships (companies), supported the trip and organised reasonably priced accommodation, took over administration & project management, the proper documentation (Europass mobility, participant contract, learning agreement etc.) and the complete follow-up/accounting. IHK-Projektgesellschaft mbH provided internal personnel and material resources (databases) in order to be able to offer Azubi-Mobil also in the future as an attractive component of dual training.For more information: www.azubi - mobil.de"

Due the variety of systems, socioeconomic contexts and starting points in the education and training sector, Member States are at different levels of development in VET. However, Italy, France, Germany, Slovenia and Greece share the same need to support the empowerment of their VET providers’ actors in drawing and implementing high quality Work Based Learning schemes.To meet this challenge NEW VET project wanted to:1_Systemise national networking opportunities for VET providers to further become effective lever in supporting VET reforms at their national and EU level.2_Increase the quality of national VET systems giving effective implementation to EU recommendations and tools;3_Raise the awareness on the Work-Based Learning system to make VET a more popular and attractive system.To reach its objectives, NEW VET proposed an empowering approach for VET providers by firstly organising a capacity building programme addressing 5 hot topics strictly connected with the EU VET policy (i.e. EU funding instruments for VET; EU quality standard and tools; multi-actors WBL system at national/regional; innovation in VET for a Green and Digital Europe; digital transformation and microcredentials in VET to address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic). Then, partners translated the main lessons learnt from the capacity building into specific multilevel cooperation actions through the elaboration of 6 long term internationalisation strategies for VET providers, the implementation of 5 joint coaching programmes for VET teachers, mentors/tutors and in-company trainers belonging to partners’ networks, and, least but not last, the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding being the very multi-annual cooperation framework of the VET providers new mobility schemes. During the whole project lifetime NEW VET partners worked to spread the attractiveness of the VET system by affectively contribute to the “European Vocational Skills Week” activities of years 2020 and 2022, thus by launching yearly the “Share your Story” digital storytelling national contests and awards, by providing the winners with the opportunity to become NEW VET ambassadors and by organising yearly several national collateral Week’s events.NEW VET managed to create a peer learning community where partners experienced well-established models for VET cooperation practices and worked for new cooperation activities to be implemented within their networks - at national level - and with cross-borders partnerships at the European level. By creating this peer learning community partners not only met the objectives of exchanging experiences at EU level but also had the opportunity to change their perspectives, shaped new visions and opened to new opportunities for the internationalization of their organisations.

More than 20 million European jobs are already linked to the environment in some way and as the EU gears up for a greener future that figure is only going to increase. The EU is committed to growing the economy while protecting the earth and its precious resources. Among the priorities laid down in Europe 2020, the EU’s new economic strategy, stress the need for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. That means building a competitive, low-carbon, resource-efficient economy and safeguarding the environment by preventing degradation, biodiversity loss and the unsustainable use of resources. It is important to stress that green jobs are not just hi-tech jobs for the educated elite. For sure Europe needs scientists, researchers and engineers to develop cutting-edge technologies that will save energy and resources. However, the work is also carried out by people with intermediate level training: Vocational Education and Training, VET. It is essential therefore that these workers get the training they need to exploit the latest green technologies and applications.But according to the Communication from the Commission (COM (2010) 682 final), “An Agenda for new skills and jobs: A European contribution towards full employment”, the problem is not the lack of training, but the need of matching skills supply with labour market needs.In the Commission Staff Working Document (SWD) 2012 92 final, “Exploiting the employment potential of green growth” it is appointed that special attention has to be paid to SMEs and their needs. Often, SMEs are not aware of training schemes offered by private and public training providers and/ or are skeptical about such programs, however, are open to in-house informal training (e.g. tutorship, mentorship, apprenticeship, work-based learning, etc) as a preferential way of recruiting skilled workers.To reach this objective of bridging the gap between green education and green work, it seems more efficient working in a partnership way in order to cooperate, innovate and share good practices. And according to the programme’s guide, as regards vocational education and training, priority will be given to projects developing partnerships between education and employment. That is why we have chosen organizations linked to education (FEUZ in Spain), as training providers (INOVA+ and EEO Group in Portugal and Greece), and organizations linked to employment, as chambers of commerce and industry (COCI Zaragoza and IHK-Projekt in Spain and Germany).The work plan was structured into 8 WPs:WP.1. Management and coordinationWP.2. State of the artWP.3. Mapping green labour market needsWP.4. Mapping green skills WP.5. Strategic benchmarkingWP.6. Bridging the gap between green market labour needs and green skills supply WP.7. Quality control and monitoringWP.8. Communication, valorization and project transfer First step of the implementation phase was the definition of the state of art of policies and measures implemented by the States involved in the project towards the development of the green economy to design the conceptual framework of the same one.The second step wias to identify and gather the current green market labour needs of the companies located in the regions involved in the project. 15 green occupations from the recycling & waste management, transportation & logistics, vehicle manufacturing and agro food industry, wiere selected and their skill profile identified. The third step was to identify and gather the main courses and trainings related to green skills that are being run in each region involved in the project. Afterwards, partners exchanged experiences and identified and gather the best practices to bridge the gap between existing green skills (WP4) and green labour market needs (WP3). These practices were related to traditional training schemes or other more “informal” schemes as e-training, in-house training, a work experience, a work placement, a work-based learning, etc. And the final step was the definition and description of 15 roadmaps, which match the specific company green need with the specific green skill supply.Partnership believes that this project has certainly cotribubuted to promote mutual learning among partners and key stakeholders and enhanced transferability of the most effective strategies to match the green market labour needs with the green skills supply, as well as to support the growth of the green economy by means of adequate and effective training policies and strategies ensuring their continuous adaptation to the changing requirements of SMEs anticipating skills mismatches.

"The KA1 mobility project ""ECVET Lehrlingsmobilität 2018 - 4 Länder / 4 Sektoren advanced"" has implemented practical placements for apprentices or young people in the dual initial VET system as well as for corresponding staff from 4 economic sectors and in 4 receiving countries. In this way, young learners and expert staff from the sectors advanced manufacturing technologies, tourism, trade/retail, public administration, and furthermore disadvantaged youth, got the possibility to have a practical placement in institutions and companies of the same sector either in Germany, Italy, Ireland, Malta or the United Kingdom. The duration of the placements was between 2 and 4 weeks (one week for staff) according to the corporate frame conditions. An important focus of the project lies on the use of ECVET as method for the qualitative implementation of the mobility actions. At the beginning of the selection process we defined units of learning outcomes together with the companies and according to the professional profile which were able to be gained during the practical placement. These were agreed with the host organisations in a memorandum of understanding. A learning agreement was the basis of agreement between apprentices and companies and if needed their parents. In a personal transcript the acquired units of learning outcomes were documented at the end of the placement as basis for further recognition. Besides ECVET, the participants were issued an Europass Mobility Pass for the documentation of their practical placement. The project was implemented in a co-operation of well experienced intermediary organisations with excellent contacts and networks to companies in all four sectors. With this, we offered the possibility to reflect the conditions and requirements of companies and apprentices in a best possible way. Permanent monitoring during the implementation of the placements ensured quality, for young people under 18 as well as for the disadvantaged we offered an accompanying person. The evaluation strategy of the project focused on each single project phase and the dissemination strategy allowed dissemination of results far beyond the participating organisations and apprentices. This lead to a broad project impact in the region."