In an increasingly urbanising world, governments and international corporations strive to increase productivity of cities, recognized as economy growth hubs, as well as ensuring better quality of life and living conditions to citizens. Although significant effort is performed by international organisations, researchers, etc. to transform the challenges of Cities into opportunities, the visions of our urban future are trending towards bleak. Social services and health facilities are significantly affected in negative ways owed to the increase in urban populations (70% by 2050). Air pollution and urban exacerbation of heat islands is exacerbating. Nature will struggle to compensate in the future City, as rural land is predicted to shrink by 30% affecting liveability. VARCITIES puts the citizen and the “human community” in the eye of the future cities’ vision. Future cities should evolve to be human centred cities. The vision of VARCITIES is to implement real, visionary ideas and add value by establishing sustainable models for increasing H&WB of citizens (children, young people, middle age, elderly) that are exposed to diverse climatic conditions and challenges around Europe (e.g. from harsh winters in Skelleftea-SE to hot summers in Chania-GR, from deprived areas in Novo mesto-SI to increased pollution in Malta) through shared public spaces that make cities liveable and welcoming.

"""Euro Youth MEDIALAB"" defines a new inclusive strategy and approach, to give youth required knowledges, wich will allow all of them to be and act as active citizens. This strategy is modeled in order to be used by any organisation working in the field of youth. It can be used, totally or partially, thank's to the european virtual exchanges platform we will create. To reach that result, we have established a transnational and multidisciplinary project team composed by 10 organisations including 5 associations, 3 local/regional authorities, 1 university and 1 regional innovation center coming from France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Finland, Northern Irland, Croatia, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Poland. It allows us to verify wether the strategy is usable in any member state, by any kind of organisation working in the field of education, training or youth work. Working in rural areas, as well as largest cities, providing their services in religious conflicts areas as well as regions where youth unemployment is over 55 % , partners members decided to join their skills, expertises and knowledges to develop this new strategy.The project proposes each partner to constitute Local Group which will represent 177 young people working in teams characterized by its variety. The proposed strategy is to be used to constitute Local groups, to animate it and to achieve the expected results and products. This strategy is built on a european approach (propose the Local group a virtual exchange with others european young people) and on the use of multimedia reports (photo, video, radio, numerical) to lead young people to : - be aware of the missing knowledges to become active citizen - produce themself needed knowledges by using a large variety of local actors from educational, political, economical, mediatical fields interviewing them - spread and share these knowledges with other young people through the multimedia reports produced- raise public awareness in the EU member states on a common issue (migrants in EU)- impact their society. The strategy gives youth workers, political decisions makers, teachers, trainers and organisations involved, new approach, methodology and skills to reach all youth in an inclusive way, to develop new transsectorial approach aimed at giving required knowledges to their target group in the field of citizenship. The european virtual exchange platform is a tool to organize virtual exchanges between young people and to animate the common debate on migrants in the EU.It also gives the opportunity to any kind of organisation to : - register a local group and applying all or parts of the strategy ;- identify potential partners to organize virtual or real youth exchanges;- use multimedia reports realized by local groups as pedagogical tool to work with its target-group ;- propose a transnational debate on an actually european common issue between youth in order to foster common shared values ;- work in the framework of transsectorial partnerships The project is realized by the transnational project team who will organize three transnational meetings and various virtual classrooms which will allow them to adopt a real quality approach built on common :- planification,- realization,- evaluation,- adaptation. A great advantage of the project is that all its members are part of the europe direct's network. That will guarantee a large spreading of its results and products among all european regions. Local and national dissemination events are organised and launch the opportunity, for any organisation working in the field of youth, to own the strategy using the methodological guide and the european virtual platform. These tools must be strenghten and used after the project time."

‘Arts and Aesthetic’ (A&A) is a partnership project with a focus on the exchange of good practice. A&A will explore inclusive practice in the arts and disability sector, specifically, but not exclusively, focussing on those who are learning disabled. The project will research, explore, test, and develop ways of embedding access into performance so that neither audience nor performer is disassociated from the performance itself. This will challenge the aesthetic of conventional performance. A&A will bring best practice to the fore, raising the quality and accessibility of learning disabled performance to creating new opportunities for new audiences. Throughout the project we will explore the concept of access and quality in learning disability arts: How do we fully embed access into performance; maintain quality in the creative process and include everyone? How important is quality access and how does it help improve participation and inclusion? Through practical explorations of the work of partner organisations and initiating conversations between partners we will • explore the concept of full access in creative work by/for learning disabled people. • develop and test new approaches to embedding access into performance • explore the process and value of critical thinking.• learn new methods of integrating access into performance. • recognise the importance of quality work with/for learning disabled people and raise the aspirations of learning disabled people.Learning Teaching Training Events will run alongside the explorations in order for workers (including those who are learning disabled) to learn techniques that will enable them to embed access into their own work. These activities will take place in each partner country and will target arts workers, artists, disability workers and those working within arts and disability from within the partner organisations. 16 places will be available for these LTT activities in each partner country who will work together with staff and groups of up to 15 learning disabled people from the host organisation. It is estimated that 50% of participants attending the LTT from partner countries will be learning disabled. Through a combination of transnational workshops, conversations, learning events, online discussion and evaluation of ongoing activity within partner organisations the project will explore current approaches, experiences and models, investigate what is important and what isn't, explore what works and what doesn't and find ways to communicate that to the current conversations taking place regarding quality, inclusion and learning disability in the arts. More specifically the project will: - challenge preconceptions of learning disabled performance and its aesthetic, - enable learning disabled people to be more active both within the partner organisations and within their communities - enable learning disabled people to learn the importance of accessibility in their work so they are more able to compete within the mainstream - develop the confidence and self- esteem of learning disabled people and increase their motivation and understanding of what they can achieve - provide european platforms for the work of learning disability artists - create new opportunities for the participating organisations to expand their current programme of work - create new opportunities for both learners and staff through the learning of new skills and working practices - enable participating organisations and those working within those organisations to progress within their field - improve language and communication skills of learners and staff involved in the project - a greater awareness of the role disadvantaged people can play in the social, economic and cultural life of their communities - contribution to the current national debates on quality and learning disability in the arts - bringing a European perspective to the current debates on quality and learning disability in the arts - a raised profile of the use of the arts as a tool for change - a stronger European arts and disability community working for the benefits of learning disabled people and in the current and longer term, add value to the existing debates on quality and learning disability in the arts.

The overall purpose of this project is to promote cooperation between all stakeholders in different parts the battery and electromobility value chain, to analyse what is happening in the sector related to skills agenda, and to develop a sectoral skills strategy and blueprint for sectoral stakeholders, including education and training in and for the sector.The Steering board oversees the work, evaluates, supports and if needed directs its development within the framework of the contract. ALBATTS Steering board is led by the ALBATTS partner ACEA and have influential and centrally placed members as EIT Innoenergy, EIT Raw Materials, EUROBAT, the Stuttgart region and the BATTERY 2030+ Research Roadmap project umbrella.The ALBATTS project works with two core and interdependent development processes. Three WPs (3,4,5) are focusing on “Sectoral Intelligence”, to find out what is happening in the whole battery value chain; stakeholders, drivers of change, technologies, attractiveness of the sector, global context, emerging skills, and competence and new job roles needs and offer.One WP, WP6 Education and Training, is continuously taking part of the sectoral intelligence results for analysis and planning of their work. This is done to address these emerging job roles and skills needs, identify gaps in present education offerings, formulate curricular items as learning objectives, produce or in other way address missing learning material. Besides, and to the support of these lines of action from the project work, there is also an ambitious and modern dissemination activity (WP2). The dissemination has two main strands - the sharing and shouting of activities, initiatives and results from the partnership, and the scan of related projects, initiatives or designed strategies and policies at national and European levels. These allow the creation of news, publications, and posts on the project website and media channels, to raise awareness from the e-mobility ecosystem inside and outside the partnership and to all relevant stakeholders. Dissemination is a collective effort which facilitates the promotion of results, related campaigns and organisation of events. The project develops mainly along the contract and work plan, although some adjustment to meeting plans and similar has been made due to the raging pandemic that has affected the work since March 2020. The project has reached out well with dissemination and networking activities and is today well placed and known in the context of other European organisations, projects and initiatives (concerning batteries and electromobility). The ALBATTS project has shown to be the only project which has on its main agenda to develop Vocational Education and Training (VET) for the value chain, while other projects mostly work with education as a part of their projects, and focuses on higher levels of education. ALBATTS is also a vital part of the recently formed ecology within the Pact for Skills. The value chain we are working with is developing and changing fast, both globally and in Europe.