<< Objectives >>The project aims to improve the competencies and knowledge of youth workers to build a positive image of their profession. Its goals are to respond to the need for new methods for the prevention of risks in social networks, cyberbullying, and to support the development of high-quality skills in the field of digital safety and non-violent communication. All developed products will be useful for increasing media literacy and improving the prevention of dangerous viral trends on the Internet<< Implementation >>The project activities are:Project management;Development of results: 1) Research on the current methods for preventing risks in social networks; 2) Innovative Methodology for risk prevention in social networks; 3) Handbook for youth workers working in the field of digital safety;Trainings aimed at improving the digital competencies-youth and youth workers, skills for promoting social inclusion, entrepreneurship and active citizenship of youth;Multiplier events, project page, sharing PR.<< Results >>Expected results:- improved awareness of risky viral trends- developed competencies of youth workers for prevention of cyberbullying by applying innovative methods- promoted digital safety, inclusion, media literacy, active citizenship among youth- 3 innovative products: Research on the current methods for preventing risks in social networks; Methodology for risk prevention in social networks; Handbook for youth workers working in the field of digital safety-Improved quality of youth work.

<< Background >>Currently, worldwide women make up only 28% of the workforce in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), and men outnumber women in most STEM fields in higher education and occupations. The gender STEM pay gap is especially large in the fields of Engineering (21%), Computer Science (19%) and ICT. This is a relevant issue for women in the EU as those occupations are one of the fastest-growing, the highest-paid and with greater opportunities for career development and success. One of the reasons is that the educational environment is not inclusive and diverse enough for women and does not address gender-based bias towards them (women are often viewed as more inferior and underperforming than men in STEM fields). This decreases the motivation of women and girls to seek higher education in those areas and pursue such occupations. Some of the key factors in this context are: facing gender stereotypes and prejudice, underestimation of women's skills in STEM fields; exclusionary, non-supportive and inflexible male-dominating environments in STEM education and work; less focus on women role models in these areas- female engineers, computer scientists, and other factors. By applying for this project, we aim to address these needs and issues and meet the needs of the partnership, namely, the needs of experts to find ways to effectively promote and encourage the greater participation of women in STEM higher education and occupations, to motivate them to pursue such fields; to eliminate gender-based stereotypes and prejudices linked to their performance and concrete abilities as well doubts about their success, performance and future career development; to build a more supportive, tolerant and diverse STEM education environment for women. The needs of the target groups- women pursuing STEM higher education and career and those who hesitate and are discouraged to do so because of the constant underestimation of their abilities and skills, as well as experts (such as psychologists, trainers, youth workers, career counselors, etc.) working directly with them to increase their participation in STEM, will also benefit from the project.<< Objectives >>By implementing the project, we wish to achieve the following project objectives: making STEM higher education more supportive, diverse and socially inclusive for women in order promote and support their active participation in such fields; to improve their future career prospects, professional and personal development and opportunities on the modern labor market; to increase the motivation of women to pursue and participate in education and career in STEM; to increase their self-confidence in their abilities, skills and performance in these areas; to improve the knowledge and skills of experts (psychologists, trainers, youth workers, career counselors and advisers and other experts working directly with women) on how to eliminate gender-based stereotypes, bias and prejudices towards women in STEM; to create products that will aid the inclusion of women in STEM and to create a friendly learning environment in STEM higher education; to enhance the competencies of experts on how to develop and implement innovative STEM gender-sensitive educational programs and training acknowledging women's specific challenges and enhance their inclusion; improved career guidance for women; to promote gender equality and equity in STEM fields. The objectives are linked to making STEM education more innovative, diverse and with a greater focus on effectively decreasing stereotypes and prejudices (incl. gender-based bias) towards women in STEM as they are often viewed as inferior to men in those areas. Another objective is to learn more about best European practices, innovative methods, instruments, tools and programs for effectively tackling stereotypes based on gender in STEM environments, making them more friendly to women and more welcoming, and also promoting good examples of women experts in STEM fields who can serve as a motivation for other women wishing to pursue STEM education or career, increasing their self-confidence in their own abilities, skills and knowledge, thus enhancing their performance in such fields.<< Implementation >>We plan to implement the following activities: 1) Production of project results:-Development and testing of programs aimed at motivating women for pursuing and participating in STEM higher education-Development of a methodology for overcoming/eliminating / gender-based stereotypes towards women in STEM-Research and analysis of good practices and examples of successful women experts in STEM fields-Survey of the attitudes of future students - women in STEM or ICT fields of study and occupations (assessing the attitudes of schoolboys towards women in STEM (if there are any prejudices, gender-based stereotypes, etc.), and the attitudes of school girls towards STEM fields and their motivation to pursue education in STEM and ICT fields);2) Multiplier events connected with the effective dissemination of the project results and products;3) Mobility (Learning, Teaching, Training Activities) for experts such as psychologists, youth workers, trainers, career counselors aimed at learning, sharing and exchanging best European practices with innovative elements in the sphere of integrating and including women in STEM into the recycling industry and environmental protection and care (with the help of the long-standing experience in these areas of our partner in Greece- EOS Developmental SA).4) Management and implementationAll these steps will ensure that the needs of the partnership (Bulgaria, The Republic of North Macedonia, Greece and Cyprus) and also the target groups- women and experts working directly with women to increase their participation in STEM higher education and occupations, have been successfully met.<< Results >>The expected outcomes are connected with the products: -Development and testing of programs aimed at motivating women for pursuing and participating in STEM higher education; Development of a methodology for overcoming/eliminating / gender-based stereotypes towards women in STEM; Research and analysis of good practices and examples of successful women-experts in STEM fields; Survey of the attitudes of future students - women in STEM or ICT fields of study and occupations, as well as the mobility (Learning, Teaching, Training Activities) for trainers, experts, career counselors and youth workers aimed at sharing and exchanging best European practices with innovative elements in the sphere of integrating and including women in STEM into the recycling industry and environmental protection and care (by applying the vast experience in these areas of our partner in Greece- EOS Developmental SA). The outcomes in the short-term (during the project) and long-term (after the completion of the project) include the following: increased motivation of women to pursue and participate in education and career in STEM; increased self-confidence in their abilities, skills and performance in these areas; improved knowledge and skills of experts (psychologists, trainers, youth workers, career counselors) on how to eliminate gender-based stereotypes, bias and prejudices towards women in STEM; creation of outputs which will aid the inclusion of women in STEM and the creation of an inclusive, diverse and friendly learning environment in STEM higher education; enhanced competencies of experts on how to develop and implement innovative STEM gender-sensitive educational programs and training acknowledging women's specific challenges and enhance their inclusion; improved career guidance for women; promoting gender equality. Specifically, for the mobility, the expected outcomes will include: learned best European practices with innovative elements in the sphere of integrating and including women in STEM into the recycling industry and environmental protection and care (with the help of the long-standing experience in these areas of our partner in Greece- EOS Developmental SA). As part of the project, it is planned that Multiplier events will be held focusing on each developed product to ensure effective dissemination of the results.

"PASSIFRS idea is based on two important actions of EU: The Digital Education Action Plan (2021-2027) which outlines the European Commission’s vision for high-quality, inclusive and accessible digital education in Europe and Enactment of Regulation (EC) No 1606/2002 of the European Parliament on the application of international financial reporting standards (IFRS) in Europe.By the great efforts of EU, IFRSs are currently required in more than 140 jurisdictions and permitted in many more around the world.This means that the business world almost has a common financial language. PASSIFRS highly contributes to the EU's financial reporting policies by involving comprehensive and principle based IFRS training for future professionals. On the other hand, one of the priorities of EU's The Digital Education Action Plan (2021-2027) is ""fostering the development of a high-performing digital education ecosystem"". PASSIFRS meets the two important requirements of this priority by developing the digital transformation of IFRS education in HEIs; ""digitally competent and confident teachers and education and training staff; and; high-quality learning content, user-friendly tools and secure platforms which respect privacy and ethical standards"".The year 2005 was a milestone in global financial reporting with the mandatory adoption of IFRS for the consolidated accounts of all publicly traded companies in the European Union (EU). Although the accounting academics and multinational companies were aware of the beneficial adoption of IFRSs much more earlier, but from 2005, with the enactment of Regulation (EC) No 1606/2002 of the European Parliament, the adoption process of IFRS has become incredibly faster. The member states of the EU require the mandatory application of these standards for listed companies since 2005. After the regulation of the EU, many non-EU countries also have voluntarily entered the IFRS adoption process. IFRSs are designed to bring consistency to accounting language, practices and statements. The adoption process of companies to IFRSs was not an easy step. The accountants and auditors around Europe began to deal with a new and complicated financial reporting procedures, hence this adoption process mostly showed itself on the vocational training of accountants and auditors. The next step that should be taken now is focusing on the IFRS training of business students in higher education institutions (HEIs) as future professionals.Approximately from the year 2015, Generation Z students began to fill the classrooms, campuses, and residence halls in HEIs. For the year 2020, most of the students in HEIs are from GenZ and a little number of Gen Y seniors. The GenZ students of business classes in HEIs are the future CEOs, CFOs,accountants and auditors and they need to learn and apply IFRS effectively, in order to be included in global financial workforce. While our world is suffering from Covid 19 pandemic and education is mostly limited with distance and digital learning, the main objective of PASSIFRS is to build digital education readiness for IFRS education in HEIs by taking into account the unique characteristics of Generation Z students.PASSIFRS is built on three important pillars:Contributing to the digital IFRS education of GenZ business students is the priority of PASSIFRS. PASSIFRS will construct a flexible but structured digital learning platform. This kind of digital training will be attractive for GenZ students. PASSIFRS includes several IOs that are especially designed for contributing digital readiness of HEIs in IFRS education.PASSIFRS offers adopting a principle-based approach in IFRS education. Adopting a principles-based model of IFRS education is not simply limited to teaching the IFRS, but also includes how to apply it with real world problems. The principle-based approach emphasizes best practices with prescribed procedures, provides flexible learning and also perfectly matches with the characteristics, perspectives, and styles of GenZ students.PASSIFRS includes an on line multicultural peer learning exercise. This exercise has been specially designed to meet two important distinctive characteristics of GenZ students: Multicultural and socially progressive. After receiving tutorials from the PASSIFRS Digital Platform, Gen Z students of PASSIFRS HEIs will benefit from the Erasmus+ multicultural perspective and learn IFRS on line with their peers and enjoy the ability to get different perspectives."

<< Background >>The Pandemic from COVID19 has shown us that digitalization is at very low level and since all the schooling has moved to online mode, we have evidenced that the digital content is crucial for the learning process of schools. In the last decade great efforts have been made to integrate ICT in the educational process. But it has not been carried out with the desired dynamics. The most important reasons for that include: lack of digital learning content, insufficient training of teachers and lack of desire and motivation to follow and use the latest technologies and methodologies for e-learning. Besides these, the lack of time for preparation and application of these technologies in the classroom has been pointed out.<< Objectives >>The aim of the project is to increase the human capacity in high schools that will work on the digitalization but also in integration of ICT in teaching through the application of technologies for e-learning and through creation of digital content for education in the form of online OERs.<< Implementation >>This project will be carried out by 10 partner organizations of which 5 are universities that possess substantial expertise in the fields of ICT and E-Learning utilization it the educational process. The other 5 partners are Highs Schools in 3 different countries and have some experiences in e-learning but lack the resources and the knowledge to advance to higher levels and cope with the fast change.The project will provide training for the creation of digital content and the integration of ICT in teaching that is designed for a critical number of teachers from each partner organization. Creation of a critical number of digital content (OER) for teaching that will be used by all partner organizations and the wider community of teachers is also foreseen with the project. There are four (4 ) trainings – workshops planed. These trainings will help teacher to improve skills and competences for usage of ICT in the educational process and will also help them learn to develop digital educational content in form of OERs. These training will be helped and enforced by the planed Intellectual Outputs of the project that include: analyses, recommendations, tutorials for eLearning and OER creation and also developed several OERs.<< Results >>The expected main outcomes of this project refer to the increase of digitalization process and development of the digital skills and competences of the teaching staff to design and manage with OER. We also expect increasing and expanding of the cooperation with the schools in the region and Europe through creation of an OER exchange net. We expect at least 30 teachers to undergo the training and to develop OERs to deliver at least three common subjects. Besides teachers, students who will use these OERs will benefit from the project.Having in mind the accumulated experience and expertise in the participating partners, their previous collaboration, the systematic approach and the vigorous project methodology we believe that the successful implementation of this project will have adequate and long term impact: teachers will receive increased competencies and skills through training; schools will receive advanced teaching methodology and students will be able to use directly lessons that will be more contemporary and easier to use. And yet this project would just be a solid base for further growth of the interactive, modern and transnational knowledge base in form of OERs available worldwide.

The key to unlock the economic potential of Western Balkans countries is enhancement of quality of higher education by modernizing teaching and learning and fostering the innovation. Virtual Technologies, with 52% growth rate in next five years, are at the frontier of development now, considered as tool that can revolutionize the higher education sector .The project general aim is to introduce for the first time at Western Balkan universities the concept of virtual technologies as a tool for accelerating university modernization while contributing on developing knowledge-driven society. The project has these objectives and target groups:- Support capacity building in WB countries for integrating Virtual technologies in higher education. Training of target groups such as: academic staff, administrative staff and students;- Produce innovative courses on this topic by developing technology based and pedagogically sound content, assessment tools etc. Target groups: students, attracting students to learn, making the whole HE system more competitive- Create strategic WB HEIs partnership targeting public and private HE sector in all WB countries- Organize events with industry targeting industry involvement and creating sustainable academy-industry partnership; Filling the gap between formal education and the workplace.- Establish Virtual Technology Hub that will target mostly students and researchers-Tackle the topic of AR VR user experience, targeting the worldwide ICT academic and industry society- Organizing public events on national, regional and EU levels will be the main activities-By incorporating Virtual Technologies in academic culture of universities we aim to increase the quality and level of efficiency in teaching and knowledge retention through interactive learning methods.