FAST, or how Food And Sustainability Thrive. FAST opened up the world of science, citizenship and entrepreneurship to students of lower and upper secondary schools in seven countries of Europe: Slovenia, Italy, Denmark, Spain, Poland, Portugal and The Netherlands. It was unique as it allowed students (coached by a transnational team of teachers) to formulate their own research topic within the overall topic. During the prior meetings (personal or in some occasions via e-mail) between teachers, heads of school and the first communication with students, each school determined a common research topic to be discussed and researched in a bilateral meeting. The students chose the topics: eco-farming of fruit (SI-NL), sustainable livestock farming (DK-NL), water-processing (ES-NL), influence of salt on food conservation (PT-NL), influence of weather (IT-NL), ecology and Earth-day (PL-NL) and how to reduce the waste of food (NL). ObjectivesThe work developed by the teams, according to the research topics previously chosen, was planned to meet the horizontal objectives: “Improve achievement in relevant and high-level basic and transversal competences in a lifelong learning perspective”, “Open and innovative education, training and youth work, embedded in the digital era” and “Sustainable investment, performance and efficiency in education and training”. All teachers involved orientated the students work in the different tasks using the teaching techniques and strategies they thought would encourage and motivate the students to know more about their topic subjects of the FAST project. Innovative, the students were given autonomy to do their own research departing from guidelines given by the teachers. They were asked to search for information in the school library, the internet or by contacting professionals linked to their research areas to collect direct information. The teachers shared experiences in the teaching strategies between all countries and noticed that they could easily transfer teaching approaches in their own research instructions. The cooperative work of teachers of different school subjects in this common project is a good example of how to maintain a life long learning process. Innovative teaching - Main activitiesIn order to get a broad scope of research, each school selected a class that was teamed up with a Dutch class (year 3). Together they executed PHASE 1 of the research during a physical exchange. PHASE 2 of the research was finalized during the project-meeting in the Netherlands.The main project language was English and in all schools the English language teachers participated actively in the management of this project. In most countries, the students learned new content words in English (CLIL) so cooperation on activities of the project became easier. During the teachers meeting in 2016, all teachers agreed to give the students (extra) language information about sustainability and food. Due to the age differences between the students, all students were informed about Europass and the European Language portfolio, but they were allowed to choose to evaluate themselves and use the outcomes in their personal curriculum vitae. All students can use the project certificate as part of their Elicit portfolio, Europass or school-own certificates. In order to make the priority of 'open and innovative education' possible, it was necessary to embed FAST in the digital world. The ICT skills were incorporated in all stages of this project. ICT was relevant for basis communication, interaction and research. During the project several students also learned to work with specific scientific programs (e.g. programming weather stations with small Arduino computers) in order to collect relevant data internationally. The direct contact to the professional business community in the regions helped the students to realize that what they learned was real and currently innovative and therefore enhanced their entrepreneurial way of thinking. See http://sites.google.com/zwijsencollege.org/fastTeachers - life long learningMajor goals of the project were to enhance teaching skills and project work and make an extra step towards learning in the 21st century where students need specific 21st century skills. The participating schools contributed to teacher training platforms and school networks, as well as in some cases to professional (international) teachers' networks. Learning outcomes of the project and transversal teaching skills have been shared with colleague teachers at each partner school. They were encouraged to integrate them into their teaching practice, especially in research projects and in opening ways of involving students in sustainability, ecology, water etc. The outcomes of the teachers tasks and of the students research (videos, assessment materials etc.) have become part of the on-going learning cycle of teachers and students belonging to the network of schools involved in the project.