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.

BackgroundWHO's European Mental Health Action Plan prioritises the rights and empowerment of service users and their families. In addition, service user partnership and involvement in education is growing in importance for the development of future and current practitioners. Despite policies placing a strong emphasis on positive approaches like recovery-orientated practices and social inclusion, service user empowerment and involvement is still a common challenge across European countries. Higher Education Institutions have a significant role to play in developing this and in developing the competencies needed by current and future practitioners, through leading the knowledge triangle of education, research and work. Across Europe there was no model in mental health whereby the contributions these groups can make could be harnessed. To this end, the project had a core objective, to strengthen competencies for people in mental health. Central to the project is the use of a participatory action research approach to develop all of the outputs, drawing on service users’ experiences and now regarded as important to the education of future and current professionals. Key to this process was the development of Communities of Practice (CoP) in each partner university, which have acted as ‘think tanks’. These CoPs comprised all of the stakeholders in mental health (service users, family members, practitioners, students and academics). Objectives The core objective was achieved by the delivery of three outputs; (i) a competency tool which can be used to develop knowledge, attitudes and skills for working in mental health, (ii) development of a tripartite logic model of working for the greater inclusion of stakeholders in mental health. The model identifies ways of working in co-produced ways and mechanisms through which greater inclusiveness can be achieved. (iii) The development of eLearning materials to strengthen competencies for mental health working. The materials were developed across five core themes following curricular evaluations. The project strengthened multi-professional competencies in mental health with nursing, social and health care students, service users and professionals in international context through blending eLearning and intensive programmes and training. Additionally, the project created an Erasmus generic competency tool.Activities undertakenThe project followed the ideas of the European Commission's Modernisation of Higher Education Agenda (2014) in developing new modes of learning and teaching in higher education. This was done both in the running of two Intensive Programmes (IP) and in development of eLearning materials for Output 1. In both processes, novel approaches have been introduced underpinned by gamification principles and in the use of problem-based learning and ‘learning by doing’ (Aldrich 2012). STRENCO’s two competency assessment tools have been developed as self-assessment tools, the assessment of which can also be done in a facilitated way with the guidance of a preceptor. They adopt a five-stage scale for assessment and are presented with guidance manuals for their use. A mapping of the development process of the mental health competency tool is presented in the output. The tool can be used both as an assessment and as a learning aid for all parties. The secondary product from this output is a general skills competency assessment for Erasmus programmes that can be used across different countries and education systems. Based on the learning encountered over the STRENCO project, Output 3 has resulted in the STRENCO Logic Model for working in mental health in more co-produced ways. The model highlights how context, process and outcomes are intertwined within co-production in mental health. It presents a visual representation of the components interrelationships that impact on working in mental health. It presents the process mechanisms that should be considered as key factors that influence co-production in MH along with the challenges that may be presented.Number and type/profile of participantsThe STRENCO Project has involved approximately 100 participants from across the spectrum of mental health, in either the Communities of Practice or Intensive Programmes across the six partners. These included MH service users and families, experts by experience, clinicians, students (57) and academics (30). In addition, two training days for a wide audience were held at the end of each intensive programme in the host country.ResultsLong term benefit of the project is manifest in the products of the three outputs. Across different formats, the project has produced 19 eLearning packages. In addition to the packages has come the skills development of the teachers and students involved in the process. The competency frameworks and tripartite model provide a foundation for practice and an avenue to develop approaches and skill sets for the future.

Multiliteracy Education in Europe generally aims to ensure that young people become competent in using multimodal representations of language capable of communicating and contributing to the development of social futures and well-being of the society in which they live in.Multiliteracy is the ability to identify, interpret, create, and communicate meaning across a variety of visual, oral, corporal, musical and alphabetical forms of communication. Beyond a linguistic notion of literacy, Multiliteracy involves an awareness of the social, economic and wider cultural factors that frame communication. Multiliteracy aims to make classroom teaching more inclusive of cultural, linguistic, communicative, and technological diverse. They advocate this so that students will be better prepared for a successful life in a globalized world.Multiliteracy Education has, in this context, a decisive role to play, as it can have a key role in creating a common and adequate response to the pressing challenges that respect fundamental European values, but also in building a more cohesive Europe.In the Project StoryLogicNet one step forward is taken towards the pedagogy of multiliteracies to support teachers and pupils as well as parents in negotiating complex and various discourses through multimodal texts constructed in the European contemporary multicultural and multilingual social context. A multiliteracy approach of creative language learning emerges from the cultural, linguistic, and technical experiences that learners bring into the classrooms and aims at the further development of a broad range and new forms of literacies.The goal of StoryLogicNet is to increase Multiliteracy Competences of children (8 to 12 yo) by developing, testing and making available to educators and parents, a new learning methodology based on online collaborative writing for communicating meaning via digital storytelling and multiliteracy for the 21st Century Creative Classroom.The project aimed specifically to:• Create an online collaborative tool for Multiliteracy education – StoryLogicNet Community - accessible in computers and mobile devices, to facilitate the process of co-creation of stories in formal, non-formal and informal learning contexts;• Create a toolkit – StoryLogicNet Toolkit – to facilitate the implementation of the new learning methodology based on the StoryLogicNet Community to develop Multiliteracy, with contents and exercises on how to create stories, how to stimulate the creativity of children to generate new stories;• Test the StoryLogicNet Community & Toolkit to get feedback from teachers, parents and children on the new learning methodology (impact on learning and ease of use);• Use the feedback from teachers, parents and children on the new learning methodology, and use the stories created by the children to validate and showcase this new approach;• Disseminate and exploit this new learning methodology for Multiliteracy.Throughout the project, about 500 children, teachers and other educators, and decision makers in education were involved in research activities, training events, pilot testing activities, in contests for children.Also, 70 schools and teachers have registered into the SLN Community, involved over 600 students and created more than 126 stories, in the last 4 months of the project.Several other project results were accessed and downloaded from the project website by close to 2.000 people.Furthermore, over 400.000 individuals have been targeted by the wide dissemination strategy set in place, comprised of social media, website, online educational communities (including eTwinning), project video, published articles, presentation conferences and other events, among other dissemination activities carried out by the project partnership at local, national and European levels.This initiative gathers the vast expertise of 5 partners from 4 different European countries, including a Regional Education Authority, 2 Primary and upper primary schools, a HEI and a private company active in education.•Advancis Business Services Lda (Portugal) - Coordinator: research company in the field of education and learning, content developer and certified training company•University of Western Macedonia (Greece): Higher Education Institution offering studies in the field of education•Inspectoratul Scolar Judetean Arad (Romania): public body that renders support to the schools in the County of Arad in Romania•Szkola Podstawowa nr 1 im. KEN (Poland): primary school located in the centre of Cracow, Poland•Scholé (Portugal): primary schools located in Matosinhos, Portugal

"""2013 has been designated the ‘European Year of Citizens’. It marks the twentieth anniversary of the entry into force of the Maastricht Treaty, which first introduced European Union citizenship into the Treaties. In the midst of the socio economic crisis that Europe finds itself in and in the face of solid trends of declining support for the European integration process and of a resurgence of divisions and narrow nationalisms across the Union, EU citizenship can reinforce citizens’ resilience and their appurtenance to a community of Europeans and thus embody a countermodel. Yet, while promising citizens novel opportunities and rights, challenges to the citizenship status in the EU continue to persist.” (Co-Creating European Union Citizenship - A Policy Review, European Union, 2013).EU citizenship has assumed constitutional importance and has apparently been embraced by many European citizens. While citizens seem more aware of their status under European law, the image they have of the European Union is in a clear decline. A recent Standard Eurobarometer survey shows that between autumn 2009 and autumn 2012, the number of Europeans holding a positive image of the EU has dropped from 48% to 30%, while the number of those with a negative image has risen from 15% to 29%. The reasons for this degradation of the EU’s image can, amongst others, be found in the perception that the recipes it proposed to deal with the economic and financial crisis have not improved citizens’ socio economic conditions over the past few years.But laws are not enough to makes us EU citizens. Despite centuries of co-living and decades of a Union shaped to bring a long lasting peace and economic prosperity to the Old Continent, we basically remain strangers to each other. This was very clear during the recent (and still prevailing economic crisis), which showed how the UE values could and can be easily questioned when put to the test, with the raise of nationalist feelings. This obviously creates a barrier to a cohesive Europe and to the ability to build on the diversity of Europe to reach higher levels of competitiveness in the global economy.So, in one hand this disenchantment with EU policies and this lack of mutual understanding among the different European peoples can lead to the termination of the European Project as we know it. On the other hand, the EU needs to create the right conditions to leverage on its diversity and make diversity a strong asset to compete in the global economy. Although the importance of the Citizenship Education – reinforcing the European Identity, the values of diversity and inclusion, etc. – is widely recognized in the EU, the existing initiatives in this area have generally a narrow scope and are mostly directed towards teens and young adults, leaving aside Children (6 to 10 years old). Acting next to Children is important to guarantee that they grow identifying themselves with Europe and the European project, and with desirable citizenship skills. The main goal of the project is to create an innovative online educational game for European Citizenship Education of children (6 -10 yo) to: • strengthen the European identity and the sense of belonging to an Union of countries; • underline the meaning of European citizenship and teach how to exercise it; • increase the understanding about all the European peoples and embrace cultural diversity for an inclusive Europe participated by all. The game will provide a challenging environment in which children will be able to: • Learn what it means to be a EU citizen, the rights and obligations that come with it, and how to participate in the EU at different levels; • Learn about several aspects of the EU and of the member states – political, economical, historical, among other aspects; • Learn about diversity and how to benefit from a cultural diverse environment; • Exercise and develop transversal competences, including important entrepreneurial skills, like creativity, communication, team work, ICT, etc. Additionally, project WeAreEurope will also deliver a: • Game Manual, with clear instruction on how to access and play the game • Guide for Implementation, with guidelines for the use of the learning game in-class in order to assist teachers and trainers • Pilot Training, involving training of teachers/trainers and testing with pupils • Website and a Facebook page on European citizenship with a repository of the materials produced in the project (but not only) and that can be a meeting point for people involved or interested in the topic."

<< Objectives >>The main objective of the project is to raise awareness of the water usage and the water footprint of the textile sector and to train HEI students and companies staff, on how to reduce the water footprint of the textiles industry.<< Implementation >>The project will implement activities targeting representatives from textile companies, HEI students and HEI academics: A methodology and a tool for measuring and managing Water Footprint in the textiles sectorDevelopment of seminars and training of HEI students, on how to reduce the water footprint in the textiles sectorBuilding capacity of textiles companies, to reduce their water footprintAwareness Raising on water footprint in the textiles sector with social media, events and papers.<< Results >>Awareness raising on the importance of effective use of water resources in textile industry Capacity building of teachers and company staff , on the topic of water footprint Upskilling of students on the topic of water footprintCapacity building of representatives from textile companies, on identifying the water footprint of their companies, on measuring and assessing it and on developing strategies for its reduction.Development of sustainable relations between academia and industry