"El colegio de Educación Especial Niño Jesús del Remedio, perteneciente a la fundación Carmen Pardo-Valcarce, lleva 28 años trabajando y formando a jóvenes con discapacidad intelectual en múltiples perfiles laborales. Hoy en día, al revisar cómo se produce la integración laboral y social de estos jóvenes nos percatamos de que, en muchas ocasiones, al abandonar el colegio e integrarse como adultos en la sociedad y en el mundo laboral, tienen dificultades para llevar una vida plenamente integrada. Estos jóvenes tienen más dificultades que el resto de las personas para acomodarse a distintos contextos. En ocasiones reaccionan de forma incorrecta a lo que se espera de ellos socialmente. Así, a veces tienen dificultad para mantener hábitos de higiene, para ajustar su forma de vestir a la situación, para llevar la gestión de su dinero, para variar sus recorridos en los desplazamientos, modificar alguna rutina, etc.Todas estas situaciones se deben a la dificultad que tienen las personas con discapacidad intelectual para generalizar aprendizajes, para abstraer, para ponerse en el lugar de otros y también para descontextualizar aprendizajes.En colaboración con el New College Lanarkshire, centro educativo escocés con amplia experiencia en el campo de la discapacidad, hemos trabajado con nuestros alumnos situaciones de enseñanza/aprendizaje en el campo de la autonomía personal y las habilidades y competencias sociales durante dos años.Entre ambos centros y contrastando nuestras experiencias, hemos pretendido facilitar estos aprendizajes a nuestros alumnos y crear varios productos que nos sean útiles a nosotros y también a otros colectivos que trabajan con personas con discapacidad intelectual.Los principales productos han sido:- ""El Libro de las Situaciones""/""Book of situations"": Una guía de habilidades y competencias para jóvenes con discapacidad intelectual. En ella se recogen distintas situaciones y habilidades, cómo llevarlas a cabo y las posibles soluciones (exitosas o no) que se han dado.Hemos involucrados a alumnos de ambos centros entre 16 y 20 años, sobre todo. También a sus familias, a los profesores de ambos centros, a las empresas donde nuestros alumnos hacen prácticas laborales, a Oficinas de Empleo y a ""Campus"" de la Fundación Carmen Pardo-Valcarce. - Movilidades trasnacionales de alumnos y profesores entre ambos centros (durante el segundo año del proyecto), donde han puesto en práctica las habilidades trabajadas. Nos ha servido también como evaluación..- Dos guías enfocadas a las empresas y sus trabajadores , con consejos para la integración laboral de personas con discapacidad intelectual. Otras actividades y productos han sido:- Modificación del Proyecto Curricular del Centro.- Campaña publicitaria ""No Hagas de Mí un Inútil""/ ""Believe me, I can do it Myself"", para sensibilzar a familias, estudiantes, trabajadores y a la sociedad en general.- Actividades lingüísticas en ambos países.- Vídeos de los viajes y las actividades de enseñanza/aprendizaje.- Libro de Relatos Cortos ""El Trabajo de mis Sueños""/""My Dream Job"", un libro con historias escritas por alumnos de ambos países.- Día del Deporte por Europa (celebrada el 7 de Mayo del 2015), donde celebramos la fecha con actividades deportivas invitando a verios centros e instituciones locales.- Gala Final de Proyecto, donde compartimos todos los productos y resultados con alrededor de 400 asiustentes, entre ellos diferentes autoridades educativas, empresas, familias...Los propios alumnos presentaron y prepararon el evento.La adquisición de habilidades sociales y autonomía personal han mejorado (y pretendemos que puedan mejorar aun más en el futuro) la integración de los jóvenes con discapacidad intelectual con los que trabajamos, y eso redunda en su bienestar laboral y personal.Los estudiantes, sus familias y las empresas también han realizado encuestas para evaluar las actividades trabajadas.La elaboración y la difusión de productos también servirán a otros colectivos que también trabajan en favor de las personas con discapacidad intelectual."

Building entrepreneurial competence is a key EU policy objective. It is a feature of the Strategic Framework for Education and Training and an element of many recent policy documents including the Green Paper on Entrepreneurship in Europe (EC, 2003), the Small Business Act for Europe (EC, 2008), the Communication on Rethinking Education (EC, 2012), the Entrepreneurship Action Plan 2020 (EC, 2013) and the New Skills Agenda for Europe (EC, 2016). The Council Recommendation on Key Competences (EC, 2018), confirms the importance of “promoting entrepreneurial mindsets” and encourages Member States to think about “nurturing entrepreneurship competence, creativity and the sense of initiative especially among young people”.ForEMLink seeks to address some of these policy imperatives by developing an approach that will offer relevant and practical learning to students in higher and advanced vocational education, increasing their entrepreneurship skills and helping them to start viable businesses.ForEMLink brings together five organisations for whom inspiring entrepreneurial mindsets is a common challenge. Through sharing their knowledge and expertise and working together the five partners will develop three concrete intellectual outputs:•ForEMLink Methodology: this aims to define and describe an approach to co-creation that may be adopted by educators in HEIs to deliver curricula in entrepreneurship (01);•ForEMLink Digital Platform: brings together educators, students and enterprises and provides a matchmaking service, enabling the latter (enterprises) to upload genuine, real-life problems that students will be able to access and attempt to solve as part of their learning (O2);•ForEMLink Handbook: developed using direct inputs from educators and students having made active use of the ForEMLink Digital Platform and/or participated in one of the transnational learning, teaching and training events; this will be an output that serves to support future users of the ForEMLink Methodology and/or Digital Platform as well as acting as an aide-memoire for existing users (O3).All three intellectual outputs will be developed through joint working by the five partner institutions supplemented by appropriate consultation with and inputs from enterprises, students and educators using the two core outputs of the project (methodology; digital platform). Consequently, transnational cooperation is not merely a necessary component of this cooperative approach but also a key feature of the targeted methodology and digital platform.A further tangible output centres on the two learning, teaching and training events, one aimed at educators (C1) and one aimed at students in higher education (C2). These will be attended by participants from all five partner countries and will generate input for the ForEMLink Handbook.Intangible outputs include an increased level of competence and usage of the developed digital resource (digital platform) among educators at the five institutions, increased confidence and competence among students, particularly those aiming to launch their own businesses and increases in the birth rate, and survival rate, of businesses in the five partner regions and countries.Partners identify the following additional innovative dimensions in the ForEMLink project:•LOCATION: the ForEMLink Digital Platform (O2) will support a transnational dimension in problem-based learning across five European countries extending to three distinct user groups: educators, students and enterprises. •PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: the ForEMLink Methodology (O1) and ForEMLink Handbook (O3) will be an asset to educators involved in developing and delivering entrepreneurial education in the five partner countries and beyond; this will be complemented by learning, teaching and training events (C1, C2) providing a space for professional networking and for comparing current approaches.•INSTITUTIONAL APPROACHES: the traditional role of HEIs is being questioned more closely than before by the public at large; the three intellectual outputs of the project and its underpinning rationale - providing real-life learning to enhance the development of students’ entrepreneurial mindsets, engaging with employers on practical problems which confront them and providing professional development for educators of all disciplines for whom the topic is relevant - is a concrete demonstration of how the involved institutions are prepared to embrace the modernisation agenda.

According to a report released by Intel Security, “Hacking the Skills Shortage”, there will be 1 million to 2 million unfilled cyber-security jobs worldwide by 2019. In the same line, on September 2017 the European Commission adopted a cybersecurity package. The package builds upon existing instruments and presents new initiatives to further improve EU cyber resilience and response. Our project lies within different initiatives carried out to build a cybersecurity capacity in Europe and feeds from the momentum cybersecurity is having in the European agenda, addressing these needs: - Lack of skills related to security operations among workers in general - Lack of qualified profiles in cybersecurity and as consequence a gap between qualifications and job demands - Increased risks related with a more digitalised world (financial operations, internet of things, connected industry, data storage, social networks and personal information) - Low awareness and knowledge about digital risks and how to protect oneself and one´s organisation - Low capacity of response in front of cyber-attacks, at all levels (personal and professional) With this project we achieved the following aims: - Increase the level of awareness of digital perils and the importance of adopting preventing measures among VET students and teachers - Define a set of units of competence and learning outcomes associated to different professional profiles. - Increase the level of qualification related to cybersecurity among VET students and teachers. - Reinforce cooperation between VET and business/technical experts to ensure an adequate training and qualification of workers in terms of information security.- Update the VET curriculums of the VET schools partners in the project as well as those who attended different dissemination events including training in digital skills necessary for workers. In order to achieve the mentioned aims, the project produced 2 intellectual outputs: - O1. Joint VET curriculum in cybersecurity, defining the corresponding learning outcomes related to main competences in cybersecurity, following ECVET methodology and designed following a classification of professional profiles attending to their technical (or not technical) training and their level of need on information security skills. - O2. Cybersecurity challenges, materials, developed attending to the professional profile addressed in each case, to achieve the learning outcomes defined in the previous output. This way, the potential users have available a set of materials to train and acquire the units of competence identified in the joint curriculum in cybersecurity in VET. During the project, 12 VET teachers were directly involved in the development of intellectual outputs. 48 more participated in pilot activities and around 30 more participated in local workshops to learn how to use and adapt the intellectual outputs for their lessons. Around 900 students benefitted from the updated and upscaled competences in cybersecurity of their teachers and the introduction in their VET programmes of new curricular components and materials in this field and 879 students participated in the pilot of materials. 9 associated partners, technological experts in different aspects related to cybersecurity participated also in the project by advising and assessing the production of intellectual outputs.. We can sum up CyVETsecurity results and long term benefits as follows: - Upgrade of competences of VET teachers and VET students related to cybersecurity.- Update of VET curricula with digital skills related to information security and protection, necessary for any profession in different levels. - Better alignment of VET programmes to the needs of the labour market and society in a digital era. - Definition of new ways of cooperation between VET colleges and technological experts towards a VET provision more adjusted to reality. - Higher relevance, attractiveness and prestige of VET, perceived by companies and enhancement of the role of VET teachers.

The Validation and Motivation for Informal and Non-formal Learning in Prisons (VALMOPRIS), set out to facilitate the recognition and validation of non-formal and informal learning through the design and delivery of competence-oriented learning activities in prisons and criminal justice settings in the EU. The objectives were to:•Explore the role and impact of non-formal and informal learning validation in prison alongside its potential to encourage learning and further competence development•Maximise the motivational potential of non-formal and informal learning, and validation in prisons through the introduction of validation processes and competences relevant to those leaners and the socio-economic disadvantages they face•Actively contribute to policy discourse on prison education, and promote/enhance the role and potential of non-formal and informal learning validation within prison education and justice settings•Interact with prison services, raising the profile of the social and personal competences acquired through informal learning (in line with the Council of Europe Recommendations on Education in Prison)•Support professionals working within prison to validate informal and non-formal learning through training and the creation of a framework, resources and materials required to undertake future and self-directed validation•Establish a train-the-trainer programme for prison teachers throughout the EUThe project saw professionals and teachers from 7 EU countries, 5 of whom deliver education within criminal justice settings, working in close partnership to design, deliver and validate competence development, as a result of our learners' engagement with a wide range of non-formal learning activities.•New College Lanarkshire (Scotland, UK) deliver wide-ranging educational provision within 7 Scottish prisons •EPPEA (Latvia) are an NGO who deliver prison education offending prevention strategies and resettlement support•Euro-CIDES (France) deliver training and development opportunities within the field of prison education•Centrul Educativ Buzias (Romania) is a closed detention centre for young offenders, subordinated to the Romanian National Administration of prisons with a core focus on education values•Changes and Chances (Netherlands) use the arts as a tool for those who come into contact with the criminal justice systemTwo partner organisations specialist in training and education concepts: •Die Berater (Austria) develop adult education and VET programmes for HR development – including specialised e-learning solutions•Blinc eG (Germany) develop training concepts, networking and exchange and host the REVEAL network and the LEVEL5 validation methodologyThe project explored the impact of competence-oriented learning and non-formal modes of learning on the motivation of prison-based learners to engage in learning – and ascertain the types of competences that were most relevant within prison and justice contextsAs a result of our research and findings, which was carried out with over 90 prison learners and 30 practitioners from 5 EU countries, and pilot activities with 30 teachers that reached 90+ learners, we delivered a set of recommendations for the development of future policy to help all stakeholders to recognise the value of informally-developed competences; as well as a series of practical resources which could be utilised within prisons and criminal justice settings to support practitioners to deliver and validate competence-oriented learningThe VALMOPRIS project produced 4 Intellectual Outputs (IO’s):•IO1 Study and Policy Recommendations includes full details of our research methodology and findings on the importance of education, competence-development and the validation of learning•IO2 Competence Frameworks has 40 competences designed for prison and criminal justice settings, which include frameworks for practitioners to develop and adapt within their own learning contexts as well as a catalogue of pilot learning activities•IO3 Train-the-trainer Programme developed as an online offering through a Moodle platform for learning professional across the EU•IO4 Practioners’ Guidebook offers advice on how to deliver competence-oriented learning available in partner languagesImpact of the project activities were:•Increased opportunities for professional training in the delivery of competence-oriented learning and the validation of non-formal and informal learning•Increased understanding of the benefits of and subsequent engagement with COL and validation processes•A consistent but flexible approach developed for the delivery of competence-oriented learning and development of the well-established LEVEL5 validation approach for use within prison and criminal justice settings across the EU•Higher numbers of learners engaging in competence-oriented learning and seeing the psycho-social benefits of their engagement with non-formal learning validation.