<< Background >>“The coronavirus pandemic is causing large scale loss of life and severe human suffering. It is a public health crisis without precedent in living memory, which is testing our collective capacity to respond.” Angel Gurria OECD Secretary-General 20/03/2020The context of this application is a world on lockdown, grappling with a global pandemic, millions of jobs have been lost, economies are facing challenges longer term and the need for adaptation to a post-COVID era is a certainty. Education and training is changing, as the crisis accelerates online and distance learning amid a future that is more difficult than ever to predict. The world will not be the same, and it will be time to build a new future. To rebuild or reinvent this future, individuals, families and communities will need to be entrepreneurial. It will take high levels of innovation, agility, responsivity, creativity, co-ordination, resilience and collaboration to create new value for their communities and the world around them.Yet ongoing issues persist for this age-group of women. Despite their recognised potential in the labour market, many women are not in or fall out of employment as they get older:•Unpaid work is primarily done by women - the gender gap in unpaid work ranges from 6-8 hrs in Nordic countries to over 15 hrs in central and southern Europe (IT/HR/SL/AT/MT/EL/CY)•Women’s inactivity may be a forced choice for low-earners who cannot afford childcare.•Employment rates of women decrease as they grow older•Part-time work remains higher for women than men•Gender pay gap persists across all countries in Europe<< Objectives >>This project aims to work within and through the current crisis to create sustainable, innovative and most-of-all effective resources to empower women to map their ways towards economic inclusion through employment and self-employment during these times. Within this, there will be a specific focus on encouraging women to consider creating solutions to the challenges they see around them, to aspire towards women-led entrepreneurial actions which rebuild and reinvent our communities and our world.This project will address the challenges faced by women aged 35-55 entering the workplace by addressing the following objectives:-Opening up free access to innovative upskilling pathways for low-skilled women aged 35-55 that complement and link to national training pathways-Validating existing skills and experience gained through life, family, work or self-employment-Increase the peer networks, confidence-building and self-efficacy of low-skilled women aged 35-55-Develop and recognise new skills gained which open up new career pathways for employment or self-employment-Raising awareness of the potential labour market impact of competence based development for women aged 35-55-Placing a spotlight on how women can develop ideas and initiate entrepreneurial actions that can create social, cultural and economic value to address societal challenges.<< Implementation >>The project activities are based around creating the following interlinked and complementary intellectual outputs and activities:- Pathway Report to understand the needs and potential of women aged 35-55 years across Europe and develop an evidence-based methodology tailored to meet modern challenges (PR1)- Creating an online platform as a learning and networking space to link conversations, opportunities, advice and signposting to national and EU level sources (PR2)- Supporting women to complete Competence Recognition Tool to map and recognise existing and newly developed skills and experience – underpinned by the EntreComp framework(PR3)- Designing and delivering online mini-MOOCs as accessible learning opportunities to develop and recognise specific skills relevant to employment and self-employment (PR- Designing and delivering a series of national face to face workshops to recognise and validate existing skills and experience, develop new and explore career pathways intoemployment or self-employment (PR- Womens Entrepreneurial Empowerment Training – a unique transnational training opportunity for women to develop their entrepreneurial ideas working with a network of womenpeers and experts (PR- EU level recognition through the Online Talent Showcase of videos and testimonies from women across Europe who have participated in the programme (PR<< Results >>The following will be developed and launched through this project:-Exploring and identifying needs through a transnational survey of potential women participants-Creating an online platform as a learning and networking space to link conversations, opportunities, advice and signposting to national and EU level training and information sources-Supporting women to complete Competence Recognition Tool to map and recognise existing and newly developed skills and experience – underpinned by the EntreComp framework-Designing and delivering online mini-MOOCs as accessible learning opportunities to develop and recognise specific skills relevant to employment and self-employment-Designing and delivering a series of national face to face workshops to recognise and validate existing skills and experience, develop new and explore career pathways intoemployment or self-employment-Womens Entrepreneurial Empowerment Training – a unique transnational training opportunity for women to develop their entrepreneurial ideas working with a network of womenpeers and experts-EU level recognition through an Online Talent Showcase of videos and testimonies from women participants

<< Background >>PEPAICO has as its goal to provide, students, professionals and entrepreneurs with the necessary and sufficient knowledge and tools to allow them to take on the challenges posed by the emergence of artificial intelligence and exploit the wide range of opportunities offered by this technology, either as novel products or innovative means to upgrade processes.According to International Data Corporation, the global artificial intelligence market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 17% to reach 250 billion euros in 2027. The impact of artificial intelligence on employment has been extensively studied over the last ten years, leading to a paradoxical conclusion called ‘job polarisation’. Examining the US, Acemoglu and Autor (2011) came to the same conclusions than Darvas and Wolff (2016) who worked on the French, German, Italian, Swedish and British cases found similar results for the US, while report such developments for a selection of EU countries: in all these countries, the number of middle-education jobs (clerks, machine operators, assemblers) is declining while at the extremes, the number of high-education jobs such as managers, engineers and health professionals and the number of low-education service occupations (e.g. shop workers, deliverers, etc.) that are not worth to replace by automation, are growing. A key conclusion is that the quality of human capital plays a crucial role. The ability of individuals to use the technological advances for the benefit of their work requires developing particular digital skills through well designed policies. This underlines the importance of using appropriate instruments to ensure that workers are well prepared to harness the disruptive forces of digital technologies.Because it creates a wide range of new products and services, artificial intelligence is the very type of technology favouring not only entrepreneurship but also new generations of graduates, professionals, and entrepreneurs.Engineering, life sciences, business, arts, security, and even politics, all sectors use under one form or another. artificial intelligence technology is virtually limitless. J. Boynott provided seven examples spanning from finance, medicine to law to the showing how artificial intelligence can disrupt almost all industries. But artificial intelligence also changes radically the way businesses are run. K. Patel listed five ways AI can bring added value: efficiency, productivity, customer experience, creativity and error avoidance. At the same time, artificial intelligence is increasingly viewed as a threat rather than an opportunity, including youth who is presumably more acquainted with digital skills than their elders. In a study made by Young Enterprise on young people’s view of AI, 76% of respondents said that they think that AI will lead to fewer jobs. The artificial intelligence revolution is nevertheless irreversible. According to a survey performed by IBM and Oxford Economics, 82% of enterprises are now considering AI adoption. What really worries enterprises in implementing AI has nevertheless changed. Instead of the availability of technology, which was seen as the most important obstacle, now, it is the lack of skilled people enterprises consider as the most deterrent barrier.By contributing to the emergence of graduates, professionals, entrepreneurs well aware of the opportunities and threats artificial intelligence is and will be bringing in, the project is expected to: i) lead to business creations and jobs; ii) upgrade the employability of the learners since artificial intelligence is adopted by an increasingly number of companies.<< Objectives >>Spanning over three years, PEPAICO has as overall goal to alleviate this barrier by providing students, professionals and entrepreneurs with the knowledge allowing them to face the challenges posed by artificial intelligence and exploit the opportunities it creates in terms of careers or businesses. To that end, the project will achieve the following objectives:-O1:Characterise the advantages, drawbacks, opportunities and threats brought by each type of technologies on employability, career and business;-O2:Specify and develop a modular methodology blending in-person teaching and distance learning to train students, employed and unemployed professionals and aspiring and confirmed entrepreneurs on artificial intelligence along with tools to monitor and assess the trainees’ progress;-O3:Develop a face-to-face training course on artificial intelligence combining theoretical knowledge, practical skills, and gamification;-O4:Construct a distance learning platform on artificial made up of adapted as well as specifically developed online contents and a micro-learning application;-O5:Promote a generation of graduates, professionals and entrepreneurs well-aware of and well trained on artificial intelligence with the message than well tackled, artificial intelligence can lead to employability improvement, career boosting and business opportunities.<< Implementation >>Lasting 36 months, the project is made up of four intellectual output-producing activities (IOs). There are additionally an activity package (AP) dedicated to the dissemination and exploitation of the project results, and an activity package (AP) devoted to the project implementation and management.-“IO1 – Impacts of artificial intelligence on employability, career, and business” will set the ground for the educational methodology to be adopted by PEPAICO. Its purpose is to investigate the effect of artificial intelligence on each industrial sector and perpendicularly on each job position. IO1 will start by setting up a common terminology since artificial intelligence terminology and meaning are often vague, multi-semantic and intertwined. The results will be combined with existing studies to provide an in-depth insight of the impacts of artificial intelligence on employability, career and business.-“IO2 – Pedagogical methodology” has as its goal to specify the modular blended training programme on artificial intelligence in terms of content as well as format. To that purpose, the project will: i) determine job seekers, employees and entrepreneurs’ needs and expectations regarding training on artificial intelligence by means of quantitative surveys and qualitative semi-structured interviews; ii) use the results in combination with the outputs of IO1 to determine the artificial intelligence knowledge and skills to be acquired by each target groups regarding their backgrounds, professional profiles, and personalities; iii) Specify the formats to be used for the educational materials e.g. in-class theoretical teaching, simulations, coaching, gamification, peer-to-peer assessment, self-evaluation, etc.-“IO3 – Learning content development” will develop the core training content based on the survey, need analysis, and intended learning content specified by IO2. The developed content will be rolled out in face-to-face teaching and training pilot sessions. To that purpose, IO3 will: i) inventory partners’ educational material responding to the specification of IO2; ii) Adapt existing pedagogical material to make it tailored to trainees’ needs; iii) Develop complementary pedagogical material to fully respond to job seekers, employees and entrepreneurs’ expectations; iv) Carry out pilot sessions and refine the content taking into account the collected feedbacks.-“IO4 – Distance learning platform and micro-learning application” will design, develop and deploy the distance learning on artificial intelligence through four components:-The online teaching modules resulting from adaptation of the modules developed by IO3 and complemented with additional modules if necessary-The micro-learning application whose goal is to enhance the training process and create a collaborative network of trainees on artificial intelligence-The library of examples of use of artificial intelligence to enhance careers or businesses to illustrate-“AP5 – Dissemination and exploitation” is aimed at reaching the largest possible audience. For that purpose, it will combine multiplier events and online promotion of the project results, including the development of a website dedicated to the project in particular, and artificial intelligence in general, and participation in all relevant social networks. -“AP6 – Consortium coordination and project management” will put in place a management system be sufficiently flexible to allow the project face unexpected events while strong enough to ensure the project be implemented according to the work plan.<< Results >>PEPAICO will result in:•At the knowledge level,-R1:The project will produce a mapping of the impacts of each artificial intelligence technology on each industrial sector, job and position. This result will be reached by the achievement of the objective O1. It will help companies exploit the opportunities created by artificial intelligence while mitigating the risks it brings in, in terms of business development as well as process improvements. It will also help graduates and professionals identify the levers offered by artificial intelligence to upgrade their employability or promote their careers.-R2:The project will identify produce a pedagogical methodology for modular blended learning aimed at determining the artificial intelligence topic to be taught to students, professionals and entrepreneurs according to their background, industrial sector, situation, and aspiration as well as needs and expectations. R2 will be the result of the achievement.•At the educational level, the project will design, develop and implement a 360° learning approach grounded on the intended learning outcomes specified by the results R1 and R2 and combining face-to-face coaching, distance learning and daily micro learning:-R3:The set of modules to be taught in face-to-face sessions -R4:A distance learning platform aimed at allowing learners to access to a wide range of training contents including among others online courses, market forecasts, business cases, technological trends and best practices-R5:A micro learning application allowing learners to: i) self train on artificial intelligence knowledge and skills; ii) find information with the assistance of artificial intelligence; iii) network with other learners.Altogether, R3 will concretise the achievement of IO3 while R4 and R5 represent the achievement of the objective O4.•At the dissemination level, the project will:-R6: Create a website presenting artificial intelligence issues notably, but not exclusively in terms of business and jobs, the project objectives, content and partners as well as the Erasmus+ programme. The project website will naturally linked to the project distance learning platform as well as its micro learning application. This main communication tool will be supported by hardcopy material including flyers and brochures.-R7: Organise three multiplier events held in Finland, France and Spain to present the project outcomes, discuss their scientific and pedagogical relevance and promote their take-up at the academic as well as business level.Together with R3, R4 and R5, R6 and R7 will accomplish the objective O5.

Work-based learning in the cultural and creative sector has always been one of the most natural ways to learn or expand your understanding and to develop skills and competences. Based on this the overall aim of “Learn to Create – promoting Work-based Learning in Europe’s Cultural and Creative Industries” was to design and test a new work-based learning (WBL) programme in Europe’s Creative and Cultural Industries (CCIs). The cultural and creative industries sector (CCI) whose social and economic contribution to the EU as well as its highly dynamic and transformative character in the digital era have been recognised by the European Commission highlighting it as one of Europe’s emerging industries. Learn2Create partnership was composed of organizations that together represent the three areas the project matched and connected: CCI specialists, VET organisations, and organisations experienced in designing innovative and creative apprenticeships and work based learning. Six partner organisation (Foundationa ARTeria from Poland, Rinova Ltd from UK, Materahub from Italy, Dimitra from Greece, Innogate from Spain and RDA from Slovakia) believe that the modern, creative workplace is a powerful learning environment, with the potential to make vast contributions to employment, productivity and increasing economic competitiveness. This is why, as a Strategic Partnership in the field of VET, Learn2Create pursued its aims and objectives of developing a comprehensive and tailored approach to promote WBL in the CCI sector working directly with and providing specific support to companies and entrepreneurs from this sector and VET teachers and trainers. The specific objectives were: • To develop and provide a fresh and tailored conceptual model for effective WBL in CCI. • To design learning curriculum and course for training VET teachers and trainers how to prepare learners (trainees, apprentices, internships) for effective WBL in CCI sectors, how to support them and how to link with the CCI employers sustainably. • To test the blended training programme for VET teachers and trainers in piloting countries to assure and actively promote its replicability beyond the consortium and across other EU countries. • To provide CCI employers with guidance on how to set-up, structure and support effective and beneficial WBL opportunities to learners. • To link with CCI clusters, to test an innovative mentoring programme for CCI employers on how to set-up and support high quality WBL with their limited resources and with the help of clusters and cluster managers. The CCI sector is characterised by a series of peculiarities that need to be taken into account and that result directly in specific needs of the target groups (VET teachers and CCI employers): • VET teachers and educators play a crucial role in assuring high quality in WBL, but in such dynamic sectors as the CCI, continuous professional development is important to assure that up-to-date support to learners and a robust sector specific link between education and the labour market is given. • The CCI sector is dominated by micro-enterprises, including freelancers, with limited financial, organisational and human capital. CCI employers need to be provided with better support on how to offer high quality WBL opportunities and how to support and manage them effectively within their limited resources. • The impact of globalisation is being increasingly felt in the CCI sector with businesses being involved in international value chains. This creates the need to better prepare VET teachers and educators how to equip students with a set of skills to enable them to work in an international environment. In the same sense, CCI employers and company tutors need to better be prepared for how to offer WBL opportunities for talented workforce that might come from across Europe. Learn2Creste developed following results: • the development of training needs analysis and best practices focusing what VET educators miss in order to better promote WBL for CCI for the job market (IO1) • a training package (combining non formal learning and online learning) for VET Educators to foster their competences and skills on promotion of WBL in CCI (IO2 - IO3 - IO4) • a manual for CCI professionals to better understand how to run WBL in their companies and how to increase the benefit for them (IO5) • the development of a community of VET experts and creative professionals able to create connection and business/VET partnership during and after the project maximizing the mobility prospects and the impact (IO4, IO5, IO6 - UX Comepndium)

"<< Background >>The main motivation behind the presentation of this project is the idea, stated in the Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan, that ""investing in entrepreneurship education is one of the highest return investments Europe can make"", combined with the conviction that soft-skills hide the key to unlock additional potential in young professionals and entrepreneurs. As a result, we have seen the multiplication of initiatives promoting entrepreneurial learning across the board, from vocational education and training organisations to non-formal entrepreneurial learning in youth organisations. Today, a substantial body of evidence demonstrates that possessing soft skills predict a wide range of life outcomes, in particular employability, career advancement, and entrepreneurial success (Kerr, 2018, Krueger, 2015, Lackéus, 2015).Hard skills have gradually lost importance in favor of soft skills, especially with the proliferation of artificial intelligence, which have proven to be a crucial asset in terms of employability and entrepreneurial success. In fact, the comprehensive Youth Work and Entrepreneurial Learning report (2016), demonstrates that entrepreneurial learning and its associated soft skill development, is particularly powerful when taking place in non-formal and informal settings, including youth work. SOFTIMPROVE intends to translate it into actionable learning strategies and provide employed and unemployed professionals and aspiring and confirmed entrepreneurs with the soft skills necessary for employability, career and business success while creating synergies between vocational education and training and non-formal entrepreneurial learning settings.In a nutshell, this project is justified in an ever-changing economic environment, which is in an evolution process towards a new professional framework that is more reliant on soft-skills and interpersonal competences. It responds to the need of young professionals and confirmed/aspiring entrepreneurs of enhancing their employability and their probabilities of economic success. More importantly, it responds to the need of training the best professionals for tomorrow, to expand their potential and capabilities to adapt to the new challenges posed by the economic environment.<< Objectives >>The goal of SoftImprove is to provide professionals and entrepreneurs with the knowledge and practice of soft skills needed to enhance their employability, improve their career prospects or increase their chance of success as entrepreneurs. The specific objectives of the project are:• O1: Characterize soft skills, decipher the role they play in improving employability, career and business and assess professionals and entrepreneurs’ needs and expectations of training on soft skills;• O2: Specify and develop a methodology blending in-person teaching and distance learning to train employed and unemployed professionals and aspiring and confirmed entrepreneurs on soft skills along with tools to monitor and assess the trainees’ progress in soft skills;• O3: Develop a face-to-face training course on soft skills combining theoretical knowledge, coaching, gamification and peer-to-peer feedbacks to be tested in pilot sessions, evaluated and refined;• O4: Construct a distance learning platform on soft skills made up of adapted as well as specifically developed contents;• O5: Promote a generation of professionals and entrepreneurs well-aware of and well trained on soft skills with the message than soft skills are as important as hard skills, and that soft skills can be improved through learning.<< Implementation >>In order to fulfill the first and second objective, that of delving into the state of the art of Soft-Skills and the elaboration of a methodology to give training, the partners will: map soft-skills, seek for feedback on stakeholders about their way of considering soft-skills and investigate their impact in terms of employability, career, and business as well as the needs of the target young professionals and entrepreneurs in soft-skills. Regarding the objective of developing the training modules and tools, the activities planned include: the development of the training modules, the creation of a soft-skill use library and the Experimentation and assessment of the training program. Thirdly, the activities planned to build the distance learning platform are: defining the functional specifications of the platform and set it up, and the adaptation of the content to the characteristics of the platform as well as the creation of new content specific to the platform (i.e. video testimonies). Finally, the platform will be tested and improved with the feedback received.Planned additional activities are: -Strategic steering, quality control and project monitoring-Administrative and financial management-Dissemination activities through, but not only, multiplier eventsAll these activities are aimed to provide the target group with training in soft-skills, which will ultimately enhance their employability and their chances of success when starting a business.<< Results >>At the knowledge level, the project will result in a common terminology of soft skills and an in-depth assessment of their impacts on employability, career, and business, as well as a mapping of the soft skills needed and expected by professionals and entrepreneurs. At the educational level, the project will design, develop and implement a gamified, blended soft skill development programme, applied to professionals seeking jobs or career progress and entrepreneurs starting or running their own enterprises or aspiring entrepreneurs looking to turn ideas into action. The programme will include: (i) a list of intended learning outcomes drawn upon both professionals and entrepreneurs’ needs and expectations and partners’ knowledge and experience to be used to define the learning content in terms of topics as well as levels; (ii) The set of modules to be taught in face-to-face sessions made up of theoretical knowledge, quizzes, coaching sessions, serious games, and peer-to-peer assessment ; and (iii) A distance learning platform providing dynamic and interactive training on soft skills with embedded incentives (gamification), practical simulations and ongoing feed-back along with a library of concrete cases for experiential learning.Finally, at the dissemination level, the project will create a website presenting soft skills notably, but not exclusively in terms of lever for employability and entrepreneurship, the project objectives, content and partners; and five multiplier events held in Belgium, France, Germany, Iceland and Spain to present the project outcomes, discuss their scientific and pedagogical relevance and promote their take-up at the academic as well as business levels."

This project is about supporting actors in all sectors of the lifelong learning system to enhance the development, validation and recognition of the entrepreneurship key competence across lifelong learning. It will do this by creating the Entrepreneurship360 platform as a one-stop-shop to provide guidance, collate tools, share practice, learn through online training and connect those working on the practical implementation of EntreComp into learning and work. The project includes partners from, and will actively engage with wider networks of practitioners and organisations from, formal education, youth organisations, employers and business/start-up. This project will drive the implementation of EntreComp as a tool for lifelong learning sectors to place a focus on the transversal skills needed in the modern workforce - addressing skills gaps and mismatches to support social inclusion and economic growth. The objectives of the project derive directly from EntreComp research carried out by partners with the European Commission – we will target lifelong learning organisations and practitioners working across Europe to access and engage with the Entrepreneurship360 platform as a one-stop-shop for the peer networks, guidance, tools, resources and MOOC based training that they need to understand and use the EntreComp competence framework. The project will:• Mobilise engagement across lifelong learning to understand the relevance of EntreComp• Connect practitioners and organisations interested in or actively using the EntreComp framework• Empower learning organisations and practitioners to use EntreComp as a tool to drive entrepreneurial learning design, assessment and recognition• Tailor guidance to specific contexts through how-to guides on the potential of EntreComp for emerging areas of potential - initially (1) Employers - HR and recruitment (2) Youthwork and (3) Assessment and certification/recognition• Map progress of the EntreComp community [evidenced through an extensive baseline survey and follow-up survey after 30 months to assess progress and impact]The project will target practitioners, organisations and system level actors across lifelong learning. It involves partners from across lifelong learning sectors, and this will drive active engagement with networks from formal education, youth and non-formal sector, employers/business and start-up support organisations. Specific partners will take the lead on recommending and implementing networking approaches with specific sectors of lifelong learning. This drive up the quantity and quality of design, implementation, assessment, transparency and recognition of the entrepreneurship key competence. It will target governance systems, professional networks, learning organisations, business,employers and practitioners involved in the design and delivery of learning in any setting. This project seeks to show how EntreComp can be part of a transnational solution to the needs identified above. While the focus will be on Europe, the project will reach out to worldwide networks, both sharing and showcasing the value of EU initiatives and EU funding.This will be the first action focused one-stop-shop focusing solely on how EntreComp can drive key competence development across lifelong learning sectors. It will be innovative in its focus on all sectors of lifelong learning from formal education through to HR recruitment and start-up. The project partners can capitalise on their strong links and networks into education, youth, employment and business sectors to create a holistic and highly relevant online one-stop-shop to support entrepreneurship key competence through implementation of EntreComp. The intellectual outputs will include the platform which will be the one-stop-shop at the centre of project and bringing together all the deliverables for the engaged participants including (IO2) a comprehensive toolbox of practices, tools and resources, (IO3) four tailored guides to support emerging areas of use for EntreComp e.g. recruitment or youthwork and areas where additional guidance is needed e.g. assessment and (IO4) a set of two MOOCs to provide a learning pathway for participants to engage and learn how to implement EntreComp. A project baseline and final survey of perceptions, understanding and usage will be designed and shared at the beginning of the project, and this will be repeated with participants, and correlated with the type of involvement they have chosen (mapped across five EntreComp goals). This will be the primary evaluation approach to map the progression of organisations actively using EntreComp to evidence a deeper and more sustainable use of EntreComp by practitioners, organisations and education systems engaged through the platform. This will ultimately drive more effective and higher quality development, assessment and recognition of the entrepreneurship key competence across lifelong learning in Europe.