Society loses out on potential growth if we do not resolve the structural problem in getting highly-educated graduates from different professions faster in work. However, it is a challenge that many SMEs have no tradition for hiring highly educated staff and that many highly educated graduates have no knowledge of job possibilities in SMEs. Thus, there is an untapped potential in connecting SMEs with a need for development and innovation with newly graduates. The intention is to contribute to increased growth in businesses and create a basis for increased employment-rates.In order to assure that ends meet – graduates getting employment and SMEs getting the staff they need the project will create a cross-border digital platform that will collect inputs from SMEs about their skill shortage and subsequently design an education set-up so that unemployed obtain the sought after skills.Universities and University colleges play a crucial role in the development of society and they have to supply SMEs with strong graduates in order for business to realize their growth potential and ambitions. In this specific project, the partners offer high quality education and the graduates have a strong subject-specific knowledge. Furthermore, the graduates have gained transferable skills such as entrepreneurship, digital literacy and creativity but sometimes those skills need to be refined to meet the demands of a constantly changing labour market.It will be a collaboration between university/university college teachers and enterprises in three countries. This collaboration will ensure that teaching staff get substantial knowledge about the skills that companies need so that will have an impact on their everyday teaching and planning of curriculum and the participation from enterprises to ensure that the competencies presented aligns with the enterprises needs.The objectives of Growth4SMEs1.Develop and set-up a digital platform - open source where SMEs can register needs for competencies2.Reactivate already existing university and university colleges’ user panels and open up the digital platform for their registration of demanded competencies3.Perform analysis of demand of skills both on a cross-country and regional level4.Develop open and collaborative learning and sharing spaces, such as a MOOC and regional courses co-created in collaboration between universities/university colleges, SMEs and local job centres.5.Set-up international case-competition in each participating country (job seekers can apply for a grant to participate in one of the other countries) where local/regional business can get solutions to challenges they are facing.6. More knowledge among teaching staff about demands for skills both at national and international level900 adult learners will participate in the project and 150 SME interventions. The activities in the project are the build of an agile digital platform that will secure real-time insight into the demand of skills. This insight will provide an overview over skills demanded at an international level as well as a more regional specific demand. The project will make it possible to create tailored courses that will help give young graduates updated skills that complement their education background and at the same time is compliant with the need of business both in the region and in an international context. The courses – both open and collaborative learning and sharing spaces, such as a MOOC and the region specific courses will be co-created with teaching staff from universities and university colleges and enterprises. Furthermore, there will be arranged case-competitions to allow SMEs to hand in challenges and the unemployed graduates will show how their with newly acquired skills can present innovative solutions to problems.Impact of the project will be a better understanding of the demand and supply of competencies and the creation of a stronger link between university/university colleges including teaching staff, job center and SMEs; more adult learners will find their first job in a SMEs, SMEs will be more satified with the supply of competencies and teaching staff have a better understanding of the SMEs need of competencies and how they with changes in the studyprogramme can ease the transition from education to work-life for graduates.

The disruptive digital transformations are challenging ways of participation, the feeling of trust and understanding between people. The digital divide is a threat to social and cultural participation for millions of Europeans. But the technology also has the potential to enhance social cohesion, inclusion and enlightenment. Digital literacy is becoming - as formal literacy is - indispensable to participate in society, and training needs to address real needs and be accessible to those who really need it.In the project, we will build a network of partners that will design learning activities by activating resources in the local community. In developing the activities the partners will use Design thinking to best meet the needs of the target group. The target groups vary from activity to activity and to partner to partner, but will mainly be seniors, young adults neither in education, employment, or training, refugees/immigrant or low-skill adults. By developing and offering social creative learning activities, 200-300 participants will build digital competencies and get help in joining their community by building relations both in the digital and physical world. This can have a huge impact on their potential for participation in society, and thus their quality of life.The goal of the strategic partnership is to develop and research practical learning activities for digital skills, and to understand how we best can collaborate in our communities to promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. The Partners will develop an Open Digital Inclusion Network to build competencies and capacities to develop their role as public educators. The partners will work together in an online communication platform and in annual project meetings, where we will invite participants from other networks working with digital inclusion to build bridges across networks in Europe.Libraries have always had an objective of public education and enlightenment. In recent years, we have seen a development in the ways learning is facilitated and delivered. Learning centres, Makerspaces, Studios, and Labs have popped up around the bookshelves and has made creative activities possible. We also experience the need to work across organizations and disciplines to help users solve their real work problems, and we need to be more able to collaborate with our communities. There are very little literature and research on library didactic and on effects of this kind of social, creative, informal learning, and the project want to gain more knowledge to be able to successfully develop this social way of learning further. We will do research on how libraries work as connectors in local network building, that is how libraries develop intra-community ties and how do they link different community organizations together.Physical and digital meeting points are essential for participation in our society. The activities in the project will empower and strengthen participants through building digital competencies - to facilitate personal development, as well as participation in civic, social and political life. The project will contribute to social inclusion by fighting the digital divide and use information and data literacy as a means to build trust, understanding, and communities. The library owners will through the project get more knowledge about how their libraries function as a public educator and a facilitator for inclusion. Participating organizations will learn more about challenges and barriers for inclusion, and will learn a methodology of human-centred design, and get to know partners that are working in innovative ways.The project is following up on the “Paving the way for essential skill houses” (Erasmus+ 2017). The project will contribute to UNs Sustainable Development Goal 4 : Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning for all.

This project aims at developing better school and local government guidelines to prevent and follow up compulsory school children at risk of dropping out of school through school absence. Targeting the challenges schools meet today with innovative and knowledge-based actions is the main goal in this application. The project will focus on developing new and better guidelines for municipalities and schools within the Nordic countries. A practical guideline for municipalities and schools will support both school administrative systems and school personnel in identifying and treating pupils who have or have started developing problematic school absence. It will also ensure that pupils with different challenges and problems are met with more individualized guidelines and treatment.This project stresses the need for better identification of problems, and treatment focusing on these. A variety of specified measures e.g. child’s social situation, child and parent wellbeing, and coping strategies have been developed and are practised. However, comprehensive documents targeting schools’ guidelines and practises related to school absence are lacking. The project will cover this need and develop a literature summary of school absence related program targeting outcome measures related to school attendance, mental health, and school competence. This will be done by going through the latest research literature and practises in schools today. Targeting educational government directorate and policymakers, school administration, teachers and professional with new knowledge-based guidelines and recommendation are a priority in this project. How municipalities and regions monitor schools and systematize educational and health initiatives, and how school administrations, school personnel and professionals develop integrated plans and guidelines, will be target. The models that will be developed in this project are aimed at supporting schools, teachers and service providers and strengthen their professional skills as well as their current practises. Describing important screening and monitoring tools, describing good practises and documented prevention and treatment approaches will support and contribute to better practises. The project will be administered and organized in three main phases over 36 months: PHASE 1. Develop a comprehensive assessment of school avoidance behaviour from the literature focusing on factors influencing attendance, how to monitor and when to intervene, strategies to improve attendance, and tools to help improve attendance. PHASE 2. Describe new approaches to manage school avoidance, monitor, treat and prevent. PHASE 3. Describe how policymakers, municipalities and schools can implement better systems and guidelines for preventing and treating problematic school absence.Statped has taken the initiative to the project. Statped will be the project leader and coordinate the execution of the activities and assign responsibility to the partners in the project. Each partner will bring the basic knowledge and educational system knowledge of their country into the project. Identifying the need for better systematic approaches, developing new and improved guidelines for municipalities and schools based on scientific knowledge and practical experience within the Nordic countries. The project is set up with local research groups within each country. The group members will communicate with each other and will be responsible for the progress within each country. The project's workplans are also followed up by joint workshops within the aims and objectives of the project.This project is expected to improve the quality and efficiency of educational routines and guidelines related to students' absence within the Nordic countries. The project will fill the gap and give municipalities and schools better tools and guidelines in identifying, approaching and evaluating practise related to school attendance problems. There will be developed and specified a plan to communicate and promote the findings from this project to relevant policymakers and national agency within each participating country and to other EU countries. The outcomes are also relevant for schools’ professionals, practitioners and academics working with problematic school absence. We will promote the outcomes from this project in relevant domains and areas of interest.

<< Objectives >>The FEPL project strives to build a network of engaged librarians that meet and translate EU policies into relevant language and activities for adult learners in their community. Librarians across Europe will work to develop a mutual understanding on 3 thematic areas: digital skills, the green transition, and civic participation.<< Implementation >>The project will have 3 camps organised in Aarhus, Ghent, and Lisbon where public librarians will be convened for 2 days to build their knowledge and understanding of a topic. From these camps, a briefing note will be developed that encompasses the messages libraries want to communicate on digital skills, the green transition, and civic participation as well as case studies.<< Results >>A briefing note that empowers librarians to be multipliers of EU policy knowledge. It will contain key messages, language relevant to the library sector and case studies on each of the thematic areas selected. This will be used to develop activities that disseminate the knowledge to adult learners in each community. Long term network of librarians that regularly meet and exchange on EU policy and translate this into their community in relevant language and activities.

"Context/background of the projectA former project in Denmark has reduced work injuries among caregivers caused by transfers (moving and handling people with physical impariment) by 36%. These findings are the foundation of this project - titled ""Digital Tools and Methods for Safe Transfer Techniques for Caregivers in Today's Health Care Sector"" (STTech).According to Eurostat data in 2018, 19% of the EU-28 population was aged 65+. EU-28 population will continue ageing from 2018 to 2080. As the population structure shifts European countries will face two challenges: 1) the cost of supporting older people will rise, and 2) the caregivers will be insufficient to support those in need of help. This scenario highlights the need for solutions able to reduce costs, to lower the workload of caregivers (both professional - public servants and private ones) and to offer effective assistance to older adults. An example is that older people with impaired physical function, need help in order to get from e.g. their bed to their wheelchair. The caregivers are the providers of this service, characterized to be a physically demanding job. As a result, many of the caregivers workers are suffering from back pain, attrition or even work injuries. At the same time, difficulties recruiting caregivers are occurring. Improving caregivers education and work environment, will make the job more attractive.The objectives in the project are to:- extent and develop the competences of educators and others who teach adult caregivers- increase transferability from training/classroom to everyday work- focus on the safety and rehabilitative approach for the patient in the transfer situation- develop new digital tools and methods for teaching safe transfer techniques- develop a Peer Learning model - implement assisted living technology to reduce work injuries- create a hosted and maintained website (during and beyond the end of the project) for free access to the developed tools, guidelines and models in the projectNumber and profiles of participantsThe Consortium consists of 6 partners divided in 3 categories:1. Education of health care workers2. Work life of caregivers 3. Development of digital tools for caregivers The Consortium includes 3 universities, a nursing home, a research center of interactive media, a municipality and a rehabilitation center to form the project based on different perspectives and skills. The project will build bridge between the education, the caregiver’s work life and the development of digital tools. The partners are:- UCAM (Fundacion Universitaria San Antonio) from Spain- VEVU (Lavoslav Ruzicka, College of Applied Sciences) from Croatia- VIA (University College of Applied Sciences) from Denmark- RISE (Research centre on Interactive Media, Smart Systems and Emerging Technologies) + AMEN (Archangelos Michael Nursing Home) from Cyprus- Västerås Rehabilitation Care Center from Sweden- The Municipality of Aarhus, CFT (Center of Assisted Living Technologies) from Denmark. Leading partner of the STTech project. Description of activitiesThe project is activity based and the activities, such as: analysis, design, development, testing, implementing etc. will lead to the results of the project. Other activities will be dissemination events e.g. a multiplier event in each partner country as well as one transnational learning/teaching/training activity.Methodology to be used in carrying out the projectThe project will use a participatory methodology with focus on co-creation, co-working, user involvement, user-centered design, peer reviews and person-centered care.Results and impacts envisagedThe results will be: Guideline and Toolkit of safe transfer techniques, Digital tools (virtual reality and e-learning program), interactive handbook of peer learning and Open Educational Resource.The impacts envisaged are that teachers, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and nurses are enabled to use new methods and digital tools in teaching and spreading best practice of safe transfer techniques. As well as developing and providing free accessible digital tools for the professional caregivers to deliver person-centered care and training.Potential longer-term benefitsThe overall goal is a long-term effect to reduce attrition and work injuries, to improve education and work environment in the health care sector and to ensure the safety and rehabilitation of patients.Implementing the results of this project in today's health care sector is an investment that will benefit the economy by virtue of less sickdays for caregivers."