There is a significant lack of women in STEM. Globally, women are under-represented in STEM fields due to deep-rooted gender differences and career expectations, rather than a reflection of ability (OECD, 2017). In the UK, women make up just 14.4% of the STEM workforce (Wise Campaign, 2015). Women Europe-wide are less motivated to study STEM subjects from a young age, due to perceived inequality in the fields (Microsoft, n.d.). Interlinking socio-cultural and economic factors impinge on the quality of girls’ education which impacts their decisions regarding future study and careers in STEM (UNESCO, 2017). This results in low levels of female interest and participation in STEM, and high drop-out rates for those that do choose to pursue STEM education (UNESCO, 2015).The large numbers of women who ‘leak’ out of the STEM pipeline as their career progresses has been labelled the ‘Leaky Pipeline’. This leaky pipeline has been the result of the challenges that women face in the Recruitment, Retention and Progression of their careers (RRP framework- WISE Campaign and EQUALITEC project 2001). This has significant economic and social implications for women having to start a new career (Women’s Engineering Society, 2014) and negatively impacts the EU economy, affecting levels of unemployment and GDP (gross domestic product) (European Institute for Gender Equality, n.d.).There is a strong case for diversity in STEM, as it enables organisations to maximise individual opportunity (CaSE, 2014) and benefit from diverse workforces that increase levels of productivity and creativity (WISE, 2014). Furthermore, employing organisations wishing to attract top talent must diversify and adapt to candidates’ needs, as competition for top candidates increases (Forbes, 2011). This project will address gender disparities in STEM, with a focus on those facing a double disadvantage. The lack of diversity in STEM affects all minority groups. Disabled STEM students are 57% less likely to pursue further study than non-disabled students (CaSE, 2014). There are strong links between low socio-economic status and low participation in STEM (Royal Society, 2008). Just 0.5% of board members in engineering in the UK are black (Women in STEM, 2019).Women in STEM need support at all stages of their career (Amazon HR strategy 2019) but mainly they need support in building their confidence and soft skills to navigate in a male dominated environment. (https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/amazon-unveils-strategy-to-increase-women-in-stem-roles/) The FemSTEM Coaching project aims to bridge the soft skills gender gap in STEM, by providing women with tools and techniques to develop their confidence and soft skills through a combination of online training and peer-support Coaching Circles™, that are framed around the RRP framework.The project objectives are to:-Use the RRP framework to create a comprehensive approach to deliver interventions to address the challenges faced by women during the RRP stages-Develop an E-Coaching programme for women in STEM-Develop a face-to-face peer coaching programme for women in STEM-Increase women’s self-confidence, self-efficacy and develop their soft skills and employability skillsTo achieve this, there will be three intellectual outputs carried out as part of the project:-IO1 – RRP Framework testingCrucial to this programme will be the incorporation of the RRP framework, to ensure that it addresses the needs of women at all stages of their careers in STEM and adapts the coaching models which will be provided.-IO2 – FemSTEM E-Coaching ProgrammeFemSTEM Coaching aims to tackle the issues facing women in STEM through the creation of a comprehensive E-Coaching Programme, consisting of five modules that will address the most important soft skills for women in STEM -IO3 – Coaching Circles™The Coaching Circles™ will allow for a more in-depth exploration of the soft-skills development via peer-support to improve self-efficacy. The target group is all women in STEM, however the project will particularly focus on providing support for those facing a double disadvantage, including BAME individuals, those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, older workers, people with disabilities, etc.The platform will enable women to fit what they have learnt into the context of STEM industries, by providing them with positive role models and encouraging them to take the next steps towards their future career in STEM.This project will serve as a tool for women in STEM to use for career development long after the end of the project. The project’s website and platform will exist as a long-standing resource for soft-skill development at all stages throughout women’s careers. The Career Circles™ facilitator’s guide will enable coaches and trainers to facilitate the Circles™ in the future, as this will provide a comprehensive explanation of the methodology and how to deliver them.

Recent research has proven that gamification is a valuable tool for e-participation and educational and learning disciplines targeted at youth, based on interaction, collaboration, networking experimentation and creativity. The gaming experience offers a diversified, active and dynamic learning tool in the context of informal education, which contributes significantly in developing civic, social and intercultural skills and ICT literacy.Based on this, the best way to rebrand social engagement and politics in an interesting and engaging way and to help young people to participate in political and social life is through a creative, innovate and modern gamified platform. These platforms should offer basic education and training on democratic principles and imaginative activities, and engage young EU citizens in discussions about democracy, access to rights and active citizen participation. The scope of the EmpoweringYou project was to promote political and social participation of young EU citizens through the design and development of an interactive gamified platform, which is available online and via a mobile app -http://empoweringyouproject.eu/game/login/index.php or https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.cardet.empoweringyouproject. The main objectives of the project were to:•Educate and equip young EU citizens with civic skills through an entertaining and engaging learning environment.•Create an innovative, inclusive non-formal educational tool which addresses diversity in education and training, developing social, civic and intercultural competences and media literacy.•Provide an accessible way for EU young citizens to express their political, economic and social views.•Strengthen civic cooperation, exchange of information and good practices across EU.•Combat against social exclusion and civic apathy of EU young adults.The target group of the project were young adults aged 13-30 who were considered to be 'disadvantaged', i.e. early school leavers, NEET, having behavioural difficulties etc. We also targeted key stakeholders, such as youth workers, teachers and others working directly with young people or who have the potential to influence policy in this area. During the course of the project we have worked with over 400 young people and 350 stakeholders.The project began with a period of research, where we worked with young people and stakeholders to gain a better understanding of the learning and training needs of young people and how they currently engage with online training and social/political issues. This work led to the development of a curriculum which was used to produce the content for the online 'gamified' platform which is the main outcome of the project. The platform leads the user through a series of scenarios linked to key topics such as climate change, voting and migration. Each scenario aims to provide a basic introduction to the topic and help young people understand how they can get involved. During the project, the platform has been piloted with both young people and stakeholders. Partners collected feedback in order to understand the potential impact of the platform and see where improvements could be made. Finally, partners have developed a guide for teachers and trainers which gives advice on using 'gamification' in the classroom and, in particular, how the EmpoweringYou platform could be implemented in educational settings.The key results of the project are:•A Situation and Needs Analysis Report, outlining training needs and current provision for young people in terms of engagement with political/social issues.•An ‘EmpoweringYou Curriculum’ outlining the learning objectives and content for the gamified platform.•The Platform itself, which is a ‘gamified’ environment taking users through a series of ‘missions’ which help them to start thinking about key topics and how they can take action/have their voices heard on issues they care about.•A Training User Handbook, which is a guide for teachers/trainers to help them understand the impact of gaming and ‘gamification’ in learning settings and how they can use the EmpoweringYou Platform in their own contexts.The project has:•Increased the capacity of young citizens to successfully participate in public life.•Promoted youth engagement in political, civic and social participation.•Enhanced capacities and knowledge of young participants in democratic values, access to rights, national and European governance principles.•Contributed to the self-empowerment and self-esteem of young EU citizens.•Boosted public awareness on values of democracy, access to rights, freedom and intercultural dialogue among young adult communities.•Rebranded social engagement and European politics in an interesting, engaging way and helped young people to participate in political, civic and social life.•Enhanced the capacity of partner organisations to promote youth civic participation in the political, social and economic field.

The aim of the project was to prevent burnout at work and raise resilience by developing toolkits for SMEs staff, management staff, SME owners to help them to forecast burnout ( develop coaching and counselling methods and tools) recognize the warning signs, to take steps to get balance back and to change peoples’ approach to a balanced life, to improve working conditions, reduce the cost of burnout, stress. Main project rezults developed during the project lifetime are: - Framework about burnout and resilience- Assessment to explore and recognize burnout and resilience- Toolkit for resilience - 5 toolkits, 5 ways to raise resilience. Toolkits are linked to the test on identifying factors that hinder or help your resilience.5 toolkits are:1. Personal coping 2.Experience of work 3.Health and wellbeing 4.Think yourself strong 5.Create resilience in your environment- Toolkit for managers 5 toolkits, 5 ways to raise resilience designed for SME managers to help prevent burnout at work. The content helps spot any warning signs at an early stage and ultimately improve employees’ happiness in the workplace. The toolkits are linked to the self-assessment on identifying reduced resilience of your employees. 5 toolkits are:1.Circle of Influence2.Core Quadrants of Ofman3.GROW Model4.Progression Feedback5.Social Styles- E-learning development with gamification elements- Guidelines for workshops - A total of ten workshops were delivered across the partnership, with two workshops taking place in each partner country (Belgium, Italy, Poland, Portugal and the UK). The main objective of the workshops is to test the SME Tools to Prevent Burnout platform (IO5) with managers and employees working in SMEs. The platform has been designed for two target groups: managers and employees. The workshops enabled the partnership to test various aspects of the platform including the quality of platform content and how user-friendly it is. Guidelines are attached to this report together with the final report. The partnership grew from relationship established over several years with an emphasis arising from LdV Transfer of innovation.The project proposed a well-balanced partnership structure designed with full consideration of the skills and expertise necessary for the execution of the project. Okrganizations were directly involved in the development of the project: CTCP from Portugal, Obelisk from Belgium, Materahub from Italy, Inova from UK and Globalnet fro Poland. CTCP is a public training institution that operates in the area of footwear industry in Portugal. Obelisk is a company providing multiple trainings and consultancy, it's a customer-orientation, flexible, professional and mature organization with 16 years of expertise in the area of learning and development. INOVA Consultancy is a private for profit SME specialised in providing consultancy services and project work in the field of gender diversity and equality. Materahub IT is an aggregator of people and business, a “space” where they meet, encourage the creation of new job opportunities through a process of mentoring, training and business development. Globalnet specializes in e-learning solutions and cooperates with people from various vocations. It owns the e-learning platform that is adjusted to different training courses. These project partners are responsible for the creation of toolkits and e-learning content. Due to its geographical spread the project contains high cultural diversity and varied national contexts. In addition, the project is composed of partners with large networks of contacts and expertise in creating connections among organizations. Thus, the project impact and reach will go beyond the partner countries. Generally the project and its results will have a possitive impact on many areas. Not directly the project will cause the decrease of stress level and the general working conditions should, therefore, improve - less stress and tools to prevent burnout and raising resilience and at the same time: - raised resilience will influece the professional activity of employees- less people suffering from stress and equipped with tools to fight burnout and raise their resilience- self - assessment tools to assess participants resilience and help them raise it- less people suffering from stress-related conditions caused by work (cardiovascular, musculoskeletal disease, immunological problems)- better health of staff, wellbeing, improved satisfaction with life, possitive emotions-positive effect on health and resilience,-an increased mobility of people involved in the project, - an interest in the project of the employees organizations, companies,- interest in the project outcomes of the institutions not involved in partnership,-an increase of the offer of educational institutions,- development of new initiatives between partners from European countries,- increase in interest in lifelong learning

The FENCE - Fighting gENder bias and Contributing in gender Equity- aims at gender bias practical mitigation through equality awareness and gender competence; the project’s context is in alliance with European Commission’s Gender Equality Policy, the ‘Strategy for Equality between women and men’, the EU Gender Policy, the Gender Equality in Horizon 2020.FENCE’s roots have to do with the gender stereotyping which limits the development of the natural talents and abilities of women and men, as well as their educational and professional experiences and life opportunities in general. Stereotypes and bias about gender can cause unequal and unfair treatment and cause personal or social perception & reflections concerning for example personality traits, domestic behaviors, occupation and physical appearance; with all the discrimination and inequality they can cause against women, this realty demands for continuous and coordinated actions and training tools as a process to make different key-actors ‘gender empowered’ and ‘gender sensitive’. The project includes 7 partners (CAD-COMMUNITY ACTION DACORUM, DOCUMENTA, PROGRAMMA INTEGRA, XPCSA, CSI, INOVA, GRIPEN) from 6 countries (UK, Spain, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Romania ); it addresses empowerment and capacity building actions for individuals primarily as public staff in local authorities and public bodies, social affairs services, and NGOs and CSOs members, leaders, representatives working in the field of gender equality or human rights promotion; its objectives are:a) to make specific key-actors (individuals) empowered on gender bias fighting through gender equality issues awareness, gender competence building, gender equality goals promotion; these individuals belong to both men and women groups b) to create and deliver innovative products and training tools- as tailored needs learning resources – based on differentiation methodologies and adult education approachesc) to empower them by taking advantage of the opportunities offered by ICT and digitizing the quality of learning content The activities include respective intellectual outputs and multipliers events (National Seminars/Workshops, Final Conference); the FENCE IOs comprise of the Review Paper (IO1), the FENCE Curriculum (IO2), the Digital Toolbox & Resources (IO3), the Methodological Guide (IO4) and the Policy Book (IO5). Last, it is expected that through the targeted actions there will be a significant positive change at local, national and EU level on gender issues promotion, active gender bias fighting and gender equity.

"The initiative wants to develop an innovative model of promotion of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education based on the key concept that education, and in this case entrepreneurship education, happens everywhere, particularly in those environments where first education is provided (family). With that focus that entrepreneurship education has to be ""taught"" at school and outside school, that is as a formal and non formal education transversal content, the aim of this project is that parents have to receive a basic training to enhance and facilitate (as facilitators) the first steps of the community and society in entrepreneurial learning and attitude, so that they all acquire basic and transversal entrepreneurial skills. If this environment and its actor are not ready to transfer entrepreneurial competences, skills and knowledge, the community will not be able to start thinking, acting and seeing itself as entrepreneurial. Therefore the consortium is made of partners that ensure coverage of all competences needed to work with the target group like a partner with experience in research and analysis , an Intermediary Body in charge of local policy for employment and entrepreneurship, one European network representing target group (parents), two experts organizations on the topic of entrepreneurship education, a technical partner in charge of the networking and e-learning platform, and the last partner with wide experience and representation of training activity for community actors, operators (families, teachers, social workers). The structure of the project that will last for 30 months will be based on five phases. The first one will be an analysis and research work to better understand context and needs of actors with regard to entrepreneurship and family dynamics. The second step will focus on project implementation mainly through the development of the project training package for parENTrepreneurs. The third phase will consist on creating a set of tools to further support the learning process of parents: a social learning platform, an handbook for parents interested in continuing alone their training and a guide on how to assess competences developed. Two sets of training pilot sessions, first at European level and then in a Barcamp at national level, are foreseen. The programme will include different contents (concepts, techniques and tools, alternative education references, entrepreneurship examples, etc.) that will be addressed through a learning by doing method. All the contents developed for, during and after the pilot sessions will be available for any EU stakeholder through a social platform. It will be the channel used for a repository of lessons, tools, videos, and exercises making the experience of the target group lasting even after the pilot phase. Each partner will also host a final dissemination event to make public the results of the two-years project so that any local, regional or national entity is able to exploit this EU-shared knowledge. We expect several impacts for the project. The direct impact on the parents participating in the trainings will be partly intangible (motivation, awareness) and partly tangible (knowledge acquisition, posterior use of the techniques learnt for their daily work). The local/regional community of each partner/participant will also be more aware of the need to work on new approaches towards entrepreneurship. The partners will improve internal competences making them able to exploit project results and outputs to expand their field of activity. The indirect target groups include families, school teachers, children and young people, but also policy makers, by having a community aware of the importance of entrepreneurship for all. The VET sector and trainers will also be reached."