Acoustics is a multi-disciplinary field, in which professionals and students are often lacking skills in some of its sub-disciplines, leading to an overall lack of effective specialists.The aim of the project is to connect entities from various sectors and disciplines to create business partnership oriented to the development and promotion of vocational education and training with the use of modern teaching methods. The partnership focuses on the professional development of engineers in the field of acoustics.The ACOUCOU Platform (http://acoucou.org/) is a part of a strategy aimed at expanding and strengthening acoustic knowledge, supporting the development of innovative teaching methods based on attractive and effective delivery of content, services, teaching methodologies and practices at national and international levels.This initiative aims at developing innovative, shared and open academic courseware covering all acoustic sub-disciplines, jointly in an alliance of European HEIs and companies specialised in acoustics. The courseware enables students and professionals alike to improve their skills in the various fields of acoustics, be it during their studies, before their first job or in the context of vocational education.The main purpose of the courseware is to innovatively bridge theory and practice through digitalization, both in the context of current educational programmes and to increase the awareness of professionals about the role that acoustic comfort plays in citizens’ everyday life. The vision of acoustic courseware is to design and combine lessons and practical cases within an innovative online experience, stimulating the development of knowledge and allowing solving of issues connected with acoustics in a broader perspective.Incorporating newest technologies, ACOUCOU offers not only interactive visualizations, but also videos and VR experiences. Users are attracted and motivated using new technologies (gamification, VR, Virtual Acoustics, multibook, web simulator). According to learning theories, abstract conceptualization (generalizing and drawing conclusions from the experience). The form of educational materials incorporated on the Acoustic Courseware Platform are designed to be used for self-learning as well as in blended learning. Target groups are professionals and students of various specialisations (acousticians, architecture, civil engineering, EHS specialisation, mechanical engineering,electrical engineering, process and environmental engineering) who work with acoustics in their daily work but did not acquire the required expertise in a satisfactory manner during their studies; and university teachers, company researchers mainly in the specialisation of acoustics or related specialisations. These courses constitute a multi-disciplinary source of expertise and examples for them.

BINCI’s main objective is to develop an integrated software and hardware solution to ease the production, post-production and distribution of 3D audio content meant to be experienced by consumers through headphones. BINCI tools for binaural 3D audio production will be fully suitable to develop professional applications in the creative industries (e.g. music, video games, virtual and augmented reality, etc). BINCI will deliver market ready solutions proven in real production environments. This goal will be attained by filling the gap between the common practices and tools used by the actors of the audio and music production industry and the playback tools/devices widely used by the end listeners. BINCI will set up an adhoc User Group in the centre of its innovations. This User Group consists of renowned European audio production companies and recording labels, musicians and professional audiovisual content creators. The User Group will be involved in the requirement gathering and in the testing of the BINCI solutions. They will also pioneer binaural 3D audio production. To stimulate the binaural 3D audio content demand at consumer level, BINCI will create audioguide experimental productions for three emblematic cultural and touristic sites: Sagrada Familia (Spain), Opera Garnier (France) and and Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen – Pinakotheken (Germany). Altogether, these productions will be showcased to more than 500 real site visitors BINCI integrated approach to exploitation, dissemination and communication tasks will secure an increase of 25% to 40% in yearly revenues to BINCI participating companies¸ as a result of BINCI-derived products and services. For the creative industries, BINCI will generate yearly 10 to 20 million Euro worth in direct and indirect business in binaural 3D contents contracts for audioguides productions in international cultural and touristic sites. BINCI will permit European SMEs in the audio and music production to respond to that market demand.

Noise and its negative psycho-acoustic effects has become a societal issue in all European countries, with real costs incurred for the states. However, acoustics is a multi-disciplinary field and professionals/students are often lacking skills in some of its sub-disciplines, leading to an overall lack in effective specialists. This project aims at developing innovative, shared and open academic courseware covering all acoustic sub-disciplines, jointly in an alliance of European HEIs and companies specialised in acoustics. The courseware will enable students and professionals alike to improve their skills in the various fields of acoustics, be it during their studies, before their first job or in the context of vocational education.These courses will stand out from already-published books and online content and propose a more advanced and effective experience than current MOOCs, which do not allow interactive content. The idea is also to enhance expertise on acoustic issues in accordance with specific labour market needs. Improving the acoustic skills of (future) entrepreneurs will enable them to become leading experts both locally and in international markets. The main purpose of the courseware is to innovatively bridge theory and practice through digitalization, both in the context of current educational programmes and to increase the awareness of professionals about the role that acoustic comfort plays in European citizens’ everyday life. The vision of this English-language acoustic courseware is to design and combine lessons and practical cases within an innovative online experience, stimulating the development of knowledge and allowing solving of issues connected with acoustics in a broader perspective. Target groups of this alliance will be professionals and students of various specialisations (acousticians, architecture, civil engineering, EHS specialisation, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, process and environmental engineering).