- Context and background of the projectMany EU member states are experiencing an increasing ‘skills mismatch’ in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). This mismatch has both a quantitative dimension (shortages of STEM skilled people) and qualitative dimension (mismatch between the skills of recent graduates and the needs of employers).Several EU member states have addressed this problem through developing national STEM strategies and / or dedicated organisations for their implementation and coordination (‘STEM platforms’) and implementation programmes. The strategies and implementation vary widely from country to country but typically rely on the close cooperation between the ‘triple helix’ of government, industry and education providers, increased coordination between education sectors (from primary education to the labour market) and a strongly regionalised, ‘bottom-up’ approach. In recent years, an increasing number of countries and regions are actively developing strategies and approaches aimed at reducing skills mismatch in STEM. Consequently, there is a rapidly increasing demand for insights in how similar problems are tackled in other countries, as well as for direct support in the development of these approaches. The project aimed to upscale an informal partnership between the STEM platforms of the Netherlands, Denmark and Estonia (the EU STEM Coalition) in a functional support mechanism for the development, improvement and upscaling of national and regional STEM strategies, platforms and approaches. The main objectives of the project were:(1) Facilitate best-practice sharing between existing national STEM platforms(2) Support the development of new national and regional STEM strategies, platforms and approaches.The project partners consisted of three STEM platforms (Netherlands, Denmark (2), Estonia), three national partners that aimed to develop a national STEM platform (France, Greece and Hungary) and three European partners representing relevant groups of stakeholders (ThinkYoung, FEANI, CSR Europe). The main activities of the project included: (1) periodic General Assembly (GA) meetings, bringing together the entire network. These meetings were mainly focused on best practice sharing around a specific theme (e.g. impact assessment, link between research and education practices, etc.), and (2) Taskforce Meetings (TM): targeted (series) of support actions aimed at the development of new STEM strategies, platforms and programmes. The meeting format varied greatly, ranging from one-day work visits to longer series of 'taskforces' bringing experts from multiple countries together to support the development of new strategies. (3) Web-portal: This portal aimed to aggregate and structure relevant information on national and regional approaches, primarily to be used during Taskforce MeetingsThe project achieved its main objectives and contributed to the development of new national STEM strategies (e.g. Danish Technology Pact based on the Dutch Technology Pact), STEM platforms (e.g. Hungarian STEM platform) and programmes (e.g. Jet-Net programme in the Basque country). Several additional initiatives supported by the project are still under development (e.g. Norwegian Technology Pact, Bulgarian STEM platform).More generally, the project delivered an active, well-structured network for best practice sharing and direct support, as evidenced by the growing number of support requests which are still ongoing. This is also evidenced by the growing number of members of the EU STEM Coalition (since its launch, STEM platforms and partners from Norway, Switzerland, Finland, Romania, Spain, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Bulgaria, Turkey and Ukraine have joined the network, including national ministries, regional governments, innovation agencies, industry-driven initiatives and relevant EU-level networks. Finally this is highlighted by the participation of high level policy makers in General Assembly meetings (including the ministers of education of France and Hungary), several nationally-focused side-events that were organised by host countries aimed at improving coordination on a national level, and the broad and growing use of the dataportal and communication channels.On the EU-level the succeeded in highlighting and promoting its approach and was included in the European Commission’s ‘Communication on a Renewed EU Agenda for her Education’ and was consequently in several high-level forums like the Directors-General meetings of several EU presidencies and fact-finding seminars of BusinessEurope, etc.