Almost all school students in 14-19 vocational education have considerable digital competence and experience acquired through access to their own laptop, tablet or smart phone, and their engagement with social media. Most schools and colleges have access to web 2.0 learning platforms, but only a minority of teachers use anywhere near their full potential for interactive, student-centred teaching and learning across the curriculum. This project aims to enhance the capacity of non-specialist ICT teachers to do this by identifying and providing the training and support they need to engage and develop students’ pre-existing digital skills in support of their personal and social growth, their vocational education, and their lifelong employability. The project is focused upon a collaborative program of action research undertaken by five providers of 14-19 vocational education in five European countries. It is directed towards a better understanding of what works, where, and why in providing the training and support needed by teachers, school leaders and other educational professionals to meet the aims outlined above. It investigates the extent to which best practice can be transferred across European countries or modified as appropriate to their specific social, cultural and educational contexts. In this way, it seeks to address the challenges of supporting young people’s completion of vocational education leading to transferable qualifications in “New Skills for New Jobs”. Major outputs include:• cumulative resource packs for training and supporting the work of teachers and school leaders in meeting this challenge through the enhancement of their own and their students’ digital skills and awareness; • demonstration of best practice including audio-visual presentations, documentary analysis, and reports for academic and professional publications, all feeding into regional and national policy communities; • an international conference showcasing these digital competencies in vocational education for employability; • an EU-fundable and sustainable training course for our immediate target groups of teachers, school and college leaders, educational advisors, business-education link workers and the members of local and national VET policy communities; • an online course where the knowledge gained through the project can effectively be shared with other teachers, leaders and schools around Europe;• a sustainable web-site as the basis for dissemination and exploitation of the project’s outputs across the whole European area.

The project will develop and validate a concept for modular design and production of vessels. We combine advantages of scale and standardisation with customisation options, allowing small-series and one-off vessel construction, using interchangeable modules across vessel types. Even though parts of our work will have a wider relevance, we focus on inshore vessels (operating coastal areas and inland waterways) with electric power systems. The project is divided in three phases: Specification, innovation, and replication. In the specification phase, we perform a wide meta-analysis of both user needs and existing technological solutions, coupled with case-studies of needs and technologies for four targeted use cases. In the innovation phase, we develop the modular design concept; combining theoretical approaches, cross-fertilisation of methods from other industries (mostly rail and automotive), deep maritime experience in the relevant areas (including hull design, propulsion and electric power systems) and heavy involvement by operators (including three as consortium partners). The concept is applied to, and refined through, four demonstrators: Two ferries, a workboat and a vessel for goods traffic on inland waterways. At least one of the demonstrators will be physically built, co-financed by Rogaland County Council and its transport subsidiary Kolumbus, and used to operate a multi-stop commuter route into Stavanger. It will be a fully electric fast passenger ferry, operating in a region that is a substantial exporter of hydropower. In the replication phase, we will further validate the concept through five additional demonstrators (planning and simulation level) together with operators that did not participate in the details of the first two phases. Our aim is that the modular concept will prove to work as a general purpose toolkit within our market segment, proving that a wide set of vessel types can built in a cost-efficient and environmentally friendly manner.

PHUSICOS, meaning 'According to nature' in Greek, demonstrates how nature-based solutions (NBSs) provide robust, sustainable and cost-effective measures for reducing the risk of extreme weather events in rural mountain landscapes. Although mountains amplify risks, and even more so under extreme weather events, mountainous regions do not receive the same attention as densely populated urban areas in European disaster risk reduction plans. PHUSICOS's underlying premise is that nature itself is a source of ideas and solutions for mitigating the risk posed by climate-driven natural hazards. However, there is a lack of adequate proof of concept for NBSs to address hydro-meteorological events in rural and mountainous regions. PHUSICOS will fill the knowledge gap specifically related to NBSs for hydro-meteorological hazards (flooding, erosion, landslides and drought) by implementing NBSs at several European case study sites. These sites comprise 3 large-scale demonstrator sites Italy, Frane/Spain/Andorra and Norway; and 2 small-scale complementary concept cases in Austria and Germany. The three demonstrator sites are representative of hydro-meteorological hazards, vegetation, topography and infrastructure throughout rural and mountainous regions in Europe. They have already guaranteed external financing and are currently in the process of implementing disaster risk reduction measures that are open to broader implementation of NBSs through the application of the PHUSICOS key innovation actions. The concept cases will be used for testing innovative ideas at local scale. PHUSICOS relies on a transdisciplinary consortium of 15 partners from seven European Countries, with expertise from public authorities, research institutes and universities to develop innovative actions on five fronts: technical, service, governance, learning arena and product innovations. PHUSICOS will also utilise the experience of three international partners and results of European research projects.

The project ‘Daily innovators and daily educators in the libraries’ aims at the preparation of supportive educational ecosystem for adult learners, with special regard to those living in the areas/districts having poor access to lifelong learning programs and recent cultural developments, as well as to those belonging to groups in danger of social exclusion (such as: unemployed, immigrants, elderly or disabled people). The core of the project infrastructure is a library - a trusted place, a space between the two usual social environments of home and the workplace.Librarians and other local cultural activists, due to their hitherto experience and project achievements, will be expanding their roles and raising their qualifications of local cultural educators for the adult library users. The model and educational materials elaborated within the project will upgrade local cultural educators’ competences, so that they will be able to help adult library users’ improve their basic and transversal skills, in particular social and civic competences, sense of initiative and entrepreneurship as well as cultural awareness and expression. The identified learning deficits of both adult users and cultural educators have been collided with the most recent library development trends; on their verge we have specified the areas of intervention in accordance with the users and institutions desired directions:- library as a creative incubator,- library as a center of social innovations,- library as an intercultural dialogue facilitator. The logic cycle and structure of the project will focus on the following elements:1) Research and preparation of a report ‘Learning experiments in the European libraries’: a summary of achievements of European libraries, with special regard to the participating countries. The report will contain:a) the performed analysis of the most substantial issues, affecting the situation of adult library users, local cultural educators and infrastructure & capacity of libraries themselves,b) the profile of educators, trends and tendencies in the contemporary library development,c) the institutional analysis: strategy, factors of successes and failures and ability to evoke the social change.The research report will be supplemented by the outcomes of the learning activities: short-term joint staff training events in the participating countries, providing the details of cultural sector development at the national & EU level.2) The above-mentioned short-term joint staff training events, organized as a series of workshops with on-site visits will be dedicated to the in-depth immersion into the local context in each participating country. The cycle will be summed-up during the foresight workshop in Brussels and will give the basis to the elaboration of new library model. 3) The main intellectual outputs tailor-made for the local cultural educators (librarians and local activists collaborating with the libraries) as well as for the adult library users are: a) MIC (multicultural, innovative and creative) library model: mission, vision and main assumptions of the new library role together with the presentation of library place in the network of internal and external relations.b) Educational materials for local cultural educators: a new curriculum/self-study/study with the expert materials/scenarios strengthening their qualifications in the selected areas as well as giving them a general preparation to work with the adults, manage and carry out the independent projects, communicate and cooperate efficiently. c) Teaching scenarios developed in accordance with the methodology of adult learning processes; enhancing the skills and competences of adult library users to raise their awareness and develop the creative expression, engage in the local community integration processes also with the special regard to the cultural minorities.4) The prepared materials will be tested by the group of ca 20 local cultural educators from Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Norway in their mother institutions. Once the process of preparation is over, the series of 4 national seminars and 4 international conferences for ca 225 participants will follow. The seminars and conferences will show the results of the project and possible impact of the developed materials, as well as the present good practices, guidelines and recommendations for the local/international policy makers and other important stakeholders. The project will be implemented in a partnership of five organizations:1) The Information Society Development Foundation (Poland),2) The Culture Information Systems Centre (Latvia),3) The Martynas Mažvydas National Library (Lithuania),4) The Oppland County Authority/Oppland County Library (Norway),5) The Reading & Writing Foundation (Netherlands and Belgium).

We are in the middle of an energy transition when it comes to reaching Europe’s Green Deal challenges by 2050, providing a great opportunity for renewable energy to strive for more established, more innovative and more embedded initiatives such as the Centres of Vocational Excellence. In the European Green Deal it is stated that: “Renewable energy sources will have an essential role. Increasing offshore wind production will be essential, building on regional cooperation between Member States.The EU goal of climate neutrality by 2050 requires 25 times increase in offshore wind installed capacity. Already in the next 10 years the volume of offshore wind in Europe needs to rise from 25 GW to over 110 GW. This given fact will have huge on the requirements for skilled personnel, needs for harmonization and need for international cooperation. For the planning & installation phase of an offshore wind farm EnBW estimates 25 Full Time Employees (FTE) per MW installed. If Europe have 110 GW installed by 2030, this means 85.000 MW new installed capacity the next 9 years, which means more than 2 million new FTE in the planning & installation phase. For Operation & Maintenance EnBW estimates 1.2 FTE/MW, giving 102 000 new employees working the whole period of operation (25 – 30 years). As we know there will be a considerable shift in the work force due to mobility, the number of trained and reskilled personnel will be even higher. What are the difficulties and possible solutions to this issue:1.While wind power is essential to the climate fight, wind alone will not suffice to meet the United Nations Paris Agreement’s goal of avoiding a 2-degree Celsius rise in global temperature. Decarbonizing all sectors of the economy, including heavy industry and transportation, requires passion, it requires sector coupling of industry, thus cooperation between industry leaders and above all new green skills. 2.Skills obtained at a young age no longer suffice to last an entire career,