The overall project objective is the development of competencies of trainers and teachers working in the educational and social fields to transition towards blended learning in a European context.Given the constraints of the current global pandemic and the fact that online training and mobile learning is becoming more and more important, the aim is to adapt existing training curricula to a blended form of learning – face-to-face and online.All three partner organisations involved in the project – Organizatia Umanitara CONCORDIA (OUC) in Romania as the lead applicant, as well as the Centro per la Cooperazione Internazionale (CCI) in Italy and Human Rights Campus (HRC) from the Netherlands – have extensive experience in training and also in online and blended training. The new component for all of the organisations is the structured development of a Training of Trainer’s curriculum which allows teachers and trainers – independent from the target group they are working with and the content they have to deliver – to partially train their target group online. An additional objective is to exchange on existing knowledge about pedagogy, tools (e.g. platforms, applications) and training methods among the partners.In order to reach the objectives described above, the main activities are going to take place as follows:- Development of train the trainers’ curriculum and participants’ manual including a toolkit for blended training.- 10 days’ Train the trainers’ programme (8 days face-to-face and 2 days online) for 13 teachers and trainers 8 from OUC, 3 from CCI and 2 from HRC. The scope of training will be to provide to participants methodical and didactic skills, knowledge about blended learning planning and preparation of teaching-units.- Development of a blended learning curriculum & toolkit on Human Rights and Global Education.- Teachers’ training with a minimum of 15 trainers/teachers/instructors (2 modules, 3 days each plus 2 days virtual exchange in each country). The training objective will be to develop theoretical and practical competences of participating teachers regarding the transition towards blended learning. The agenda will blend theoretical lectures with exploration of case studies and examples. Different teaching methods will be used: single and team teaching, group-works. The learning methods will include self-directed learning, collegiate case consultation, reflection units, application of mediated knowledge to practice.Regular progress meetings are assuring the compliance with the project objectives as well as the on-time implementation of the activities. The multiplication events in the three countries and at European level are going to make sure a proper communication and the visibility of the project. Information related to training module implementation will be published on all partners’ websites and social media.About 58 trainers and teachers will benefit directly through the project and enhance their capacity to instruct in blended methodology, while other 400 educators from 200 organizations at European level will be informed about project results. As the blended learning curriculum & toolkit will be made available in English, Dutch, Italian and Romanian and disseminated widely in digital format, thousands of teachers and trainers in Europe will be supported to implement blended learning in the classroom.

"The digital transformation is challenging the European citizens in multiple ways: As employees (workspace 4.0). As learners (lifelong learning, self-competencies) As citizens (acting as conscious, self-responsible, democratic citizen). Digital transformation in its effects relates to vast aspects of peoples everyday life in a fast and more and more disturbing ways, thus is also is a force generating unconsciousness and needs to be reasoned about. Digital transformation is challenging as well the infrastructures in cities, states, big data/multiple databases, social networks. Digital competence should enable people to approach these challenges.Adult education for Active Citizenship has a crucial role to play as it supports learners to develop competences to engage and participate in society as democratic and confident citizens. However the field of AE has to deal increasingly with an audience/target group which is more and more in a position of exposed to the transformation while not being sufficiently equipped to understand digital transformation in its aspects to democracy, and society. Such to develop digital competence goes far beyond media literacy and critical thinking development but pre-requires also a field of Adult education which itself is confident and able to understand and develop learning concepts that adress the democratic challenges and dimensions relating to digital transformation in its full range. In particular Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education have a potential which tour project DIGIT-AL explores and aims to activate. In cross-sectoral collaboration we deliver two handbooks, an app and policy recommendations. The overall concept behind the project is to understand adult learning as a competency centered learning. Aiming to address the ability of adult learners to act consciously, self-responsible, aligned with their self-defined interests and self-explored needs, along democratic values and in cooperation with other citizens. The project is exploring and presenting approaches, practices and tools 1) how to involve digital competence into adult education. 2) How to support adult learners in understanding digital transformation and co-creating it as digitally competent citizens. 3) Furthermore we focus as well on the digital competence of adult educators. 4) The findings will be fed back to developers of digital competence frameworks and learning, as well as to the policy level. During the project we develop- A handbook on digital transformation as a specific and transversal topic in adult education: this publication explores the horizon of digital transformation and its connection to the practice of Adult learning for democratic citizenship- A handbook for educators: Digital competence: What is it? through what kind of approaches and practices adult learners might gain it and what kind of digital competence adult educators need to develop- Policy Recommendations targeting at premises of competence frameworks, AE policies in Europe related to digital transformation and Adult learning for democratic citizenship. - an App to support Adult educators in their learning settings with concrete and easy adaptable info and concepts for targeting digital transformation in their learning settingsA series of training activities tests and evaluates different concepts for educators to master digital transformation as a topic in their Adult learning settings. These trainings will involve a wider audience from the community of adult education practitioners and offer means to them to adapt suggested approaches and concepts into their educational work.The project itself builds a bridge between AE practitioners in Europe and the world of digitalisation research, digital competence development and digital transformation: it mutually ENGAGES stakeholders and experts from both ""spheres"", CONNECTS existing concepts of digital competence development within the wider horizons of digital transformation and the grassroots sphere of Adult Education, as being the level working with the group of citizens vastly affected by digital transformation. The project EMPOWERS adult educators and the field of adult education providers to better understand the transformative character of digitalisation to democracy and citizenship in all its different and difficult aspects, and supports them to develop adequate means and approaches to work with adult learners in an encouraging and positive way on these topics."

With a focus on five Central Asian countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan), ORCA is a pilot programme dealing with science performance and science management with a specific focus on economics and social sciences. Across the world, the academic ranking business has turned into a multi-million industry with dozens of surveys implemented to rank universities, bringing with it pressure to improve performance on these same rankings. As a result, most universities have been attempting to improve their performance measured against the metrics and criteria used. While debates advance within the EU and high-performing countries, training paths to increased research performance remain limitedly available. Central Asia is a good starting point to address this gap, given the excellent tradition it has in hard sciences (especially engineering) that has resulted in continued international collaborations, while research in the economic and social sciences has remained largely under-developed. ORCA will produce a generation of experts in research policy with focus on the region as a pilot attempt to a) contribute to informing EU (and member state) policies and attitudes towards the region, and how to enhance excellent and open science, and b) act as multipliers and contribute to the formation of further specialists that will then be able to explore and operate in other regions. ORCA brings together 18 leading institutions and organisations across Eurasia, with experience on science excellence and sufficient links with national governments to influence the development of science in the region, including policies on ethics, integrity, open access and data management. The effects of ORCA will live on through the formation of a dense network based on secondments and knowledge exchange, building a vibrant community of researchers interested in enhancing collaboration, knowledge exchange, co-authorship, seminars, presentations and future projects.

Changes in the regulation of ICT research and innovation are opening up a new scenario. It is expected that stakeholders, policy makers, and end users adapt to them as soon as possible. This, however, might be hard, especially for SMEs. PANELFIT is firmly committed to facilitating this adaptation process by producing a set of editable, open access Guidelines, validated by two data protection agencies. Once produced, they will serve as operational standards able to reduce the ethical and legal issues posed by ICT technologies while promoting innovation and market growth, enabling high-quality job creation and ensuring an adequate level of privacy and security/cybersecurity. Furthermore, we will produce a complementary set of six outcomes to 1) suggest possible concrete improvements to the current regulatory and governance framework, both at the EU and the national level, 2) create mutual learning and support tools and to promote networking among stakeholders and policy makers and 3) increase the quantity and quality of the information available to policy makers, professionals, researchers, journalists and the public. All these outcomes will be produced by a co-creation process involving policy makers, stakeholders, and end-users. They will all participate in the creation of the main outcomes of the project through a range of engagement activities that includes workshops, public consultations, encounters, surveys, etc. This will be combined with a strong communication and dissemination strategy that includes numerous activities, such as webinars, MOOC courses, public debates, a constant use of a web site and social networks and the creation of a Platform for Mutual Learning, which is meant to become the reference forum for the discussion of the issues at stake even after the end of the project. The participation in PANELFIT of the European Data Journalism Network, with an aggregated web audience of almost 70 million monthly visits will help us reach this aim.

In addition to the almost 2bln workers already active in the informal sector, World Bank and ILO estimate that the pandemic might have put at risk of precarious employment 500mln-1.5bln more. These losses, and related consequences, are not evenly distributed given that Africa, Asia and Latin America is where 93% of the world’s informal employment is located and where post-pandemic crisis is likely to hit harder (especially women, migrants and young people). Yet, the concern is global. Indeed, besides vulnerability and precariousness at individual and community levels, informality also eventually reduces state capacity and the ability of institutions to design and implement policies that properly address social, economic and environmental issues (i.e. SDGs) in a long term perspective. Accordingly, informality-related challenges have been devoted a great deal of attention and political statements. But seldom have these statements been followed by concrete instructions, guidelines or evidence-based policies to tackle informality across the world. Starting from this gap, PRESILIENT is a large network comprising 14 partners (of which 7 non-academic) and 15 associated partners located in Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America committed to delivering the a world class cross-regional training on informality in the Global South to: measure it, address it, find viable and sustainable alternatives. By doing this, we have committed to four main objectives: O.1 train the next generation of experts on informality in the global south. O.2 carry out a research spanning 15 different countries and to produce novel data and significant theoretical advancements in the field. O.3 produce strategic intelligence that can be used to provide practical policy recommendations O.4 enable multi-directional knowledge transfer through network events, pairing of academic and non-academic partners (who will jointly supervise each fellow), secondment and task-based teamwork.