Entrepreneurial thinking and acting is increasingly becoming a highly sought-after competence in the world of work. Not only shall the self-employed and company founders have the appropriate skills, but also on their parts companies rely on entrepreneurial thinking because of the ever-increasing pressure to create innovations. Comprehensive vocational training does therefore not have to disregard the field of entrepreneurship education. One oft he project’s aim is therefore to develop a holistic entrepreneurship education-concept consisting of several identified best practices in order to comprehensively address the areas of the EntreComp framework. Digital change will be taken into account and the potential of digital media and media-supported forms of learning will be taken up in order to promote a tested set of instruments for measuring and promoting entrepreneurial skills among young people. The concept will be implemented on a digital platform that promotes collaborative and reflected learning among young people as well as educational staff and supports project management in the application of the instruments (organisation, monitoring and control). Subsequently, the platform-based application of the holistic entrepreneurship education-concept will be tested in the partner countries.The teaching philosophy behind the project is strength orientation. The application of this principle proves to be advantageous both for the development of competences of young people and for managers. Digital media offer young people the opportunity to organize their own learning. The project’s aims is to address digitization issues, such as industry 4.0 and design thinking, and on this basis to develop autodidactic modules for multipliers. The autodidicatic modules qualify people who work with young people in vocational orientation or training for matters of Entrepreneurship Education and they contain material that can be directly used for the work with young people. By a central digital platform being attainable for the supervisors, the mentors and the young people not only project information in various depth, organizational references and applied learning materials of the holistic entrepreneurship education-concept can be retrieved, but the platform also enables a direct communication, effective feedback processes, a better quality management and above all suitable solutions for people involved. In this context, suitable means that content can be flexibly used in terms of time and space and researched according to the current needs of the individual or group. The organization of the different work phases (self-learning - interactive work phase - cooperation with the learning guide) can also be coordinated and carried out accordingly. The participants can write reports, share their experiences with potential other participants, search the database of learning guides for competent contacts.The partners significantly contribute to the project’s success by their expertise and as coordinators of local activities. In Hungary and Bulgaria, the Chambers of Industry and Commerce were found as partners. In Greece, a renowned IT company and a management consultancy were won as partners, and in Spain an organization for business development and in Italy the Department of Business and Law at Milano Bicocca University. Last but not least, the consortium will be further enhanced by the two associated partners, the Lippe zu Detmold Chamber of Industry and Commerce and the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber. The project is coordinated by the Institute for Work Science (IAW) at Bochum Ruhr University.In the first step, the representatives of the respective partner country are trained in the transfer and application of the concept within the framework of the kick-off and a teaching/learning activity. In the total of all activities, the consortium will develop a series of intellectual outputs which will be applied beyond the project, which will be accessible to third parties and thus contribute to its impact and sustainability. The outputs are the holistic Entrepreneurship Education Concept and five autodidactic modules for self-study. The latter are to be established in the individual EU countries as a recognized certification program for so-called learning guides and are e.g. offered at the respective chambers and universities. In order to promote the project’s dissemination, impact, and sustainability, the project partners are to organize multiplier events in their countries in addition to the pilot application, where the holistic entrepreneurship education-concept, its application via the associated platform and the self-learning modules are presented and discussed.

"The starting point for the ""Digital Coach"" project are the challenges that the digital transformation poses to individual actors, companies, the economy and society. The project is concerned with the question of how the actors in the education system succeed in promoting the skills required to shape the digital transformation in companies or organizations as well as in the economy. In this context, the maturity model (ADAPTION) developed at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, classified as tried and tested, is being used in selected training companies in the EU countries. On the basis of a corresponding questionnaire, deficits and strengths can be identified by comparing the actual and target states and the need for skills and skill development can be worked out. At the same time, effective and efficient competence development programmes can be designed and implemented in a targeted manner, and individual future strategies for the respective companies can be worked out in a situation-specific manner. The acquisition of competencies required in connection with the digital transformation also raises the question in the project as to which learning locations are particularly suitable. In addition to the (vocational) schools and the training companies, a new learning location is being added with the ""learning factory"" learning location. The concept of the Learning Factory represents an innovative approach to promoting the teaching and learning that is required in the context of implementing new digital technologies. In this context, it should be noted that the number of learning factories in Germany alone has increased considerably in recent years (from 3 in 2003 to over 30 in 2019). Just like the other learning locations, the ""learning factory"" learning location should meet certain quality standards. However, such quality standards do not currently exist. The EU project aims to work out quality standards for the establishment, implementation and evaluation of learning factories. Another aim of the project is to further develop a modular, competence-oriented curriculum and a training programme based on the analysis and potential tool of the maturity model and the methodological-didactic concept of the ""learning factory"", in order to finally introduce and implement the innovative field of activity of a ""digital coach"". The Digital Coach will act as an internal and external process promoter for the companies, who will have the necessary competences to meet the requirements resulting from the digital transformation of the economy and the companies. The Digital Coach will take on a similar task in relation to the Learning Factory as, for example, trainers in training companies. The corresponding module programme comprises several self-learning modules such as (1) quality and process management as a starting point for digitisation including artificial intelligence, (2) Industry 4.0 including maturity models, (3) new business models and corporate cooperation, (4) corporate strategy for digital transformation and agile project management, (5) acceptance assurance of IT solutions, (6) learning transfer and learning location cooperation between training companies, vocational schools and learning factories, (7) opportunities for participation. The target group of the project is primarily the teachers, i.e. groups of people who are responsible for vocational education and training, in order to be able to benefit from multiplier effects and thus, ideally, to bring about sustainable change. This group of persons includes, for example, trainers of instructors, instructors in companies and in inter-company training centres as well as teachers of vocational schools, but also employees of chambers of industry and commerce or of business development agencies. It is the task of the respective project partners in the EU countries to ensure, among other things, access to (a) the target groups of the project, (b) the training companies that have a learning factory or a similar facility, and (c) the learning factories, among others, in the region. It is decisive for the sustainability and the impact of the project that a total of three learning factories could be won as project partners, who will contribute their expertise in the field of the ""Learning Factory"" and ""Teaching Factory"" concept to the ""Digital Coach"" task area. The consortium consists of the following project partners: The Chambers of Industry and Commerce from Pécs (Hungary), Heraklion (Greece) and Gabrovo (Bulgaria), the learning factories at RIF/ Dortmund and Ruhr-University (Germany), the learning factory at the University of Budapest (Hungary) and the University of Patras (Greece) and a management consulting from Heraklion (Greece). The project is managed by the Institute for Work Science at the Ruhr-University Bochum."

The objectives of the project „job developer: from job creation to competence development“ was to set impulses in the reduction of the high unemployment in Europe by adapting vocational educational training and career counselling in the EU to the labour markets‘ conditions and requirements in the respective countries.These activities of adaptation are achieved by the education/training of so-called „job developers“, who identify the qualification requirements in cooperation with youths and young adults to create new employment opportunities, and work out a plan for individual professional development. This was achieved with the means of the application of the instruments „employment radar“ and „talent diagnosis“ – resp. the country-specific adaptation of these instruments – developed by SHS/minipreneurs GBM. Young adults were encouraged and enabled by the support and under the tutelage of a skilled/trained „job developer“ to detect employment opportunities, to create jobs on their own as well as to deduce the respective dimensions of requirements by analyzing the local employment opportunities on the one hand, and their interest, knowledge, and skills on the other hand. By comparing the qualification requirements with the present talents as well as the local training opportunities, on the one hand further trainings may be advised and on the other hand gaps in the existing training programmes may be identified.Thus, the project renders it possible to adapt training activities with (local) labour-market trends in an early stage and specific way and to achieve a lasting change effect. This may be effected i. a. by the adaption of curricula in the vocational training and development as well as by career counselling. At the same time, the participants gain first practical learning experience in the field of self-employment especially by the trend and market analysis in the context of the employment radar and by a subsequent expert hearing.The project’s core was to qualify the staff in the acquired partner organizations in Hungary, Spain, Greece, Bulgaria and Lithuania as multipliers and thus to enable them to provide necessary structures for the concept’s adaptation and implementation. With their expertise and as coordinators of the local activities, the partners essentially contribute to the project’s success. In Hungary and Bulgaria, the chamber of commerce, and in Lithuania the Chamber of foreign Trade were won as project partners. In Greece, a research firm as well as a business consultancy and in Spain the European Business Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship were attracted as partners. Besides, in addition to the Institute for Work Science (IAW) at the Ruhr University of Bochum, the SHS/minipreneurs GBM also participated as a German para-partner.They had developed the concept of the employment radar and the talent diagnosis and supervised the initiated qualification, adaptation and implementation of the concept by the European partners as experts.In the first step, one to two persons per partner country were trained in the context of the kick-off-meeting and a five-day multiplier training in the fields of the concept’s transfer and adaptation. On the basis of all project activities, the consortium additionally worked out a series of intellectual outputs that shall be applied beyond the project and will be accessible to third parties and thus contribute to the project’s effectiveness and sustainability. This comprises on the one hand the translated documents concerning the application of the concept and the respective publicity materials, and on the other hand the further development of the employment radar and its potential and resistance analysis that yield to country-specific conditions. In addition, five modules were developed and evaluated, whose completion ensues a qualification as a „job developer“. This qualification as a „job developer“ shall be established as a recognised certification programme in the each EU country. The modules‘ contents comprise basic social skills, i.e. competences which are necessary for leadership and the encouragement of encounter groups, the creation of an employment radar including the implementation of a talent diagnosis, digital competences field of social media for entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial creativity , and cultural mindfulness and Cooperation, especially networking for entrepreneurs.In all, by the training of multipliers, by the qualification as a „job developer“, who did not actually exist in this form before, and by the local implementation as well as the development of intellectual outputs, the project will contribute to means of creating new jobs involving the promotion of educational training and career counselling matching with the current trends on the labour markets.

In view of the fact that youth unemployment is high in the EU, the planned project aimed at promoting the consideration of self-employment in vocational education. Therefore, it was benefited from the emerging synergy effects of the cooperation between youth and (ex-) managers from the age group 55+ in entrepreneurship projects. For this purpose an analysis of the potentials in terms of entrepreneurial thinking and transaction of young adults in the age of usually 15-26 years is conducted. To recruit the young adults a cooperation with, among others, (vocational) schools, high schools, chambers, career centers and employment agencies was arranged. The implemented diagnostic tool has been developed, tested and evaluated in the context of the Project “Losleger”. The tool assesses to what extend competences, attitudes and skills are given which are necessary for business formation or running a company. This analysis of potentials can be seen as a special form of career counseling. The analysis’ results were presented to the participants in a constructive way in professional and individual feedback talks. Subsequent to the feedback talks young people which were identified as having entrepreneurial potentials were promoted by entrepreneurship education. This promotion included not only competence development programs but also working with an older employee in the age of 55+ as a mentor who assisted with his/her experience-based knowledge. To implement this, a special concept, the founders’ workshop, was developed and tested. The concept is based on experiences of the German Founder Prize for Students, especially on the student enterprises. This special methodological-didactic form of qualification stimulated the youth to deploy their potentials and to use the emerging synergy effects, which originate from the different perspectives of the two involved groups. For recruiting the older managers so called multipliers which come from organizations, schools, and career centers were used. The parallel, but country-specifically adapted implementation of the two projecttools (potential analysis and founder workshop) in the countries, Greece, Hungary, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Spain, it was shown that this concept of the project enterprise+ can be used successfully in a EU-wide context.The learning philosophy the project is based on is the focus on strengths. This approach was beneficial for the competence development of both the youth and the older employees. The reason is that the necessary effort for further developing strengths is significantly smaller and therefore more promising than transforming weaknesses to strength. The talentscouts (for the potential analysis) as well as the mentors (for the founders’ workshop) were trained in the project’s course. Therefore the specifically needed competencies to conduct their tasks successfully were identified at first. One of these was the ability to give constructive feedback. These tasks were dependent on the multiplier and could include initiating, conducting and evaluation the analysis of the potentials and the founders’ workshops in a specific country, as well as coaching the youth. Following the identification, self-learning units which support the multipliers in their work were developed on the basis of the different experiences made during the project in the countries. In sum the project aimed at initiating and implementing projects which are conducted by youth and older employees together to contribute to a reduction of youth unemployment. To reach this aim motivated and competent partner organizations in the named countries where won which supported the success of the project with their expertise and their local coordination of the project. In Germany it is the chair of Economics and Economic Education of the University of Duisburg-Essen, which supported the project with the tool for the analysis of potentials. Furthermore the organization “Alt hilft Jung” helped the success of the project with their expertise in the cooperation of youth and older employees. In Hungary and Bulgaria the chamber of commerce, in Lithuania the chamber for foreign trade could be won as partners. The Greek partners are on the one hand a research institute and on the other hand a consultancy and the Spanish partner is the European corporate center for innovation and entrepreneurship.