"<< Background >>The primary reason for applying for CISCOFY is that the majority of this consortium are part of an ongoing Erasmus+ project financed under the COVID-19 call (EU-TeachPaaS) which looks into developing certifications for digital skills for lecturers, students and university administrators. EU-TeachPaaS has a heavy focus on the digital element (based on DigCompEdu), however, as the partners were engaged in digital education for the past months, they noticed (as also supported by reports and literature) that digital skills alone are not enough and that the following gaps should be better emphasised and complemented with digital skills: G1: limited know-how on adopting pedagogical strategies for boosting student happiness, motivation, engagement and performance and successfully embed them in digital formats (for online delivery in higher education and beyond) G2: reducing the percentage of drop-outs from online higher education (and beyond) and help educational institutions become more resilient G3: better foster inclusion of groups at risk and personalized education in online deliveries in higher education and beyondG4: strategies for generating brain plasticity and learning connections, creation emotional responses to improve learning, and understanding timingG5: None of the previous G1, G2, G3, G4 have been successfully embedded in online OERs and online delivery operations internationally due to limited engagement with professional educational product providers.<< Objectives >>In this context, the overall objective of CISCOFY is to boost the digital readiness, resilience and competences of university lecturers (primary and adult/youth trainers secondary) towards upscaling online education on three main pillars: digital transformation through the development of digital readiness, resilience and capacity, building skills to foster inclusion and representation in digital education and promote and rewarding excellence in teaching and skills development.<< Implementation >>CISCOFY will implement the following activities: * Result 1 (A Smart train the trainers toolkit) based on blending DigComp, inclusion, gender, neuroscience approaches with the innovative ""Goal Setting Methodology"" of EUR. Virtual pilots will also be organized as part of this IO. * Result 2 (Training webinars in effective & inclusive online education): WEBINAR 1: Debunking open educational resource (OER) development for effective & inclusive online education; WEBINAR 2: The ""Goal Setting Methodology"" as a tool for effective and inclusive online education; WEBINAR 3: Neurolearning as a behavioural tool to train your students' brains for online education settings. * Result 3 (Certification framework for digital competences supported by CISCO) offering three certifications: *Certificate on OER Development for effective & inclusive online education; Certificate on the ""Goal Setting Methodology"" as a tool for effective and inclusive online education; Certificate on Neurolearning.* CISOCFY alumni network * 4 CISCOFY Certification Centres* Dissemination & Exploitation * Quality assurance<< Results >>CISCOFY aims to develop three main results (smart train the trainers toolkit, webinars and a certification scheme), a network of 4 certification centres on digital education that will offer three types of certifications and an alumni network. During the project lifecycle, CISCOFY will: engage at least 600 participants in three main webinars (from which at least 240 will be from social groups at risk, with gender balance); At least 240 people will apply for CISCOFY certifications; The number of other types of training institutions that will incorporate CISCOFY's outputs will be at least 60; At least 10 requests of collaboration from public authorities will be received; At least 10% reduction in online education drop-outs; at least 15% increase in registrations for online education; 200 physical participants to multiplier events and at least 200 online; at least 50% of the departmental staff of the participating organizations will be trained with the CISCOFY certifications; at least 25% boost of learning experience (from students/learners of the partner organizations) after their lecturers apply the gained know-how; boosted market for EduTech."

"CONTEXT & PROBLEM: The digital transformation of higher education was heavily accelerated by the COVID-19 crisis which posed the need of high quality and inclusive digital education. Such challenge cannot be tackled in an isolated manner as it requires a true systemic and holistic approach to provide a suitable solution. Specifically, EU-TeachPaaS foresees a strong link between boosting the digital skills of three main actors (university lecturers, university administrators and students) and the improvement of EU's digital readiness towards inclusive and high quality online education delivery (HBR, 2020, EC, 2020). Whether isolated efforts of digitalization of higher education have been done recently, the outcomes of this approach have deemed to be inefficient leading to: frustrated academic staff unable to cope with technology, ineffectiveness of the taught content and delivery mode, limited engagement of students (lack of focus/attention/interest, limited connectionism and constructivism), lack of inclusiveness and personalized online teaching, rigidity of university administrators towards online teaching, and overall confusion and concern over the value of university services in such online format (EACEA, 2020).TARGET GROUPS AND TRAINING NEEDS:* UNIVERSITY LECTURERS: inability to deliver online education (both synchronous and asynchronous) that would foster connectionism and constructivism; unawareness of enabling a supportive virtual class environment; lack of digital skills to support the curriculum transformation process; inability to incorporate forward-looking digital solutions to support teaching; lack of skills for co-sharing resources and jointly developing high quality universal Open Educational Resource with other lecturers internationally; inability to reach social groups at risk and gender-balance by delivering personalized online education; inability to foster decision making on choosing the right digital resource for each online taught subject. * UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATORS: lack of mechanisms to foster inclusive education to social groups at risk and to students from peripheries; technological shift rejection (behavioural); lack of skills to adopt online learning/education analytics to help them improve their online educational offer delivery and enable constant improvement of their operations; lack of focus on providing DigCompEdu certifications to lecturers and students; lack of digital training/certification centres (within the institutions) that would formally train online education performers (i.e. lecturers and students); lack of skills to properly promote online education (impactfully) to better attract students to this new mode of learning.* STUDENTS (both undergraduate and postgraduate): Inability to interact with lecturers in an online environment and foster connectionism and constructivism; absence of online learning skills such as being well organized, self-motivated, and possess a high degree of time management skills in order to keep up with the pace of the course (i.e. text-based interaction takes more time); lack of skills to fight the sense of isolation and psychological wellbeing; lack of active learning skills; lack of ability to understand responsible/ethical digital education utilisation.OBJECTIVES & IMPACTThe overall impact is to boost the digital readiness of universities (holistically) towards online education, while connecting universities in the digitally transformed ecosystem (i.e. with policy makers, businesses, third sector, parents, etc). In this context, EU-TeachPaaS aims to develop a pan-EU network of 6 certification centres (IO1) in higher education that will provide training and certification for university lecturers (IO3), administrators (IO4) and students (IO2) operating in online learning by specialising DigCompEdu competences and global innovations for local needs in order to offer online education excellence passports. During the project lifecycle, EU-TeachPaaS will: pilot-train virtually 850 (fully gender and age-balanced) university lecturers, students and university administrators (from which 340 will come from groups at risk); At least 600 people will apply for EU-TeachPaaS certifications; The project partners will boost their digital readiness with at least 1 upper level in the DigCompEdu scale; The number of other types of training institutions that will incorporate EU-TeachPaaS' outputs will be at least 30; At least 50 people will change their mindset from ""against"" to ""in favour"" of online education; At least 6 request of collaboration from public authorities will be received; At leat 5% boost in EduTech applications measured and at least 5% decrease in unethical digital technology use. Furthermore, at least 300 people will participate physically (if allowed) at the multiplier events (while 300 virtually) and an overall number of 150 000 people will be reached throughout the dissemination campaigns (including paid ads)."

Predictive Maintenance (PM) is a critical element for the optimization of primary resources used in the economy and on fundamental infrastructure systems (while mitigating climate change also). Currently, both industry, academia and VET trainings lack coprehensive PM curricula. The objectives of PreMETS are to introduce an alliance for boosting the European Innovation in Predictive Maintenance through entrepreneurial cooperation, education, and training for the development of a coherent digital platform that covers all aspects of the PM process. In this context, the general objectives of PreMETS (linked to the goals of the call) are: OBJ1: Develop an innovative cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral PM education toolkit (ECTS and ECVET compliant) hat will be used to train 1000+ PM learners (students, VET learners) and workforce during the project implementation. OBJ2: Develop a cutting edge toolkit for trainers in the field of PM (higher education, vocational education, corporate) that would be uptaken by 250+ trainers during the project implementation. OBJ3: Develop a micro-credential certification framework for PM-related micro-courses that would enable at least 500 learners (students, VET learners, workforce) to receive certification for skill-recognitionOBJ4: Develop a cross-disciplinary platform that would include the PM education toolkit, the package for PM trainers, the micro-credential certification system, an embedded lifecycle analysis process calculation service (that can be used by learners to test various resilient PM strategies and assess their environmental, social and economic impacts) and a virtual space for blended Teaching Factories deployment.OBJ5: Pilot the training courses and the platform via innovative work-based learning blended apprenticeship secondments where mixed learners from academia, VET and industry (under the moderation of trainers and experts) will experiment the gained know-how in cyber-physical industrial settings.

28.7% of persons with disabilities in the EU are at risk of poverty and social exclusion compared to 19.2% among the general population. Their employment rate in the EU in 2017 was 50,6% compared to 75% for those persons without disabilities (European Disability Forum 2020). Several studies show that employment functions as a primary factor for disabled people in terms of social inclusion in general. Low employment rates of persons with disabilities indicate in turn an untapped potential and talent and a core area of intervention as stressed by the European Disability Rights Agenda 2020-2030 (EDF 2020).The inclusion of persons with disabilities in the labour-market is promoted by national legislations through employment quotas, coupled with non-discrimination laws on the ground of disabilities, incentives for employers, as well as non-compliance measures.However, it is debatable whether quotas represent an effective or desirable policy approach, or in contrary, one more form of discrimination. (ILO, Gender, Equality and Diversity & ILOAIDS Branch, Promoting Employment Opportunities for People with Disabilities, 2019). The quotas system in general addresses almost entirely companies with more than 50 employees. Small and micro-enterprises (<10 employees) however, represent 93% of the total SMEs number, reckoning the vast majority of SMEs ‘out of the map’ as significant players in promoting employment opportunities for persons with disabilities. The unemployment rate of persons with disabilities across EU Member-States is still very high (50%), while in respect to the participating countries in the proposed project they look as follows: Romania 37,6%, Bulgaria, 49,4%, Greece 32,3%, Spain 31,1%, Cyprus 34,1% (EU SILC [2018).Considering these data, the proposed project is focusing on the important role of the labour-market side (in terms of its employment providers) in promoting employment opportunities for people with disabilities. It will look into equipping SMEs (especially micro and small enterprises), including Human Resources departments and recruiters as well as business consultants responsible for recruiting, hiring, retaining, and promoting employees with a set of tools and practices (openly and freely available online in an e-learning and e-consulting format) that will help them to acknowledge and reap the benefits of including disabled people in their work-force, beyond the ‘philanthropy – social responsibility – law abiding’ nexus. At a parallel level, the proposed project will provide persons with disabilities (as end beneficiaries) with a structured approach, tools, practices and methodologies (e-learning adapted to learning capabilities) to demonstrate, acquire/further develop job skills (including job seeking skills, self-marketing, job expectations, self-presentation skills), as well as transferable soft skills for professional development at the work-place. The proposed project will focus on three groups of persons with disabilities (Deaf/Hard of Hearing persons, Blind/Visual impaired persons, Persons with physical/kinetic disabilities).Main objectives of the projectPrompting and guiding SMEs to engulf diversity on the grounds of disability as valuable resource in the work environment, rather than ‘moral/ law obligation’Shifting social inclusion through employment for persons with disabilities from the scope of intervention to ‘remove barriers’, to one of ‘career success’ and professional development (by equipping persons with disabilities with the appropriate skills sets and attitudes for labour market inclusion and career development)Fighting social exclusion by promoting employment opportunities in SMEs for persons with disabilities on the ground of factors such as personal growth and self-realisation, rather than appropriateness to disability and policy measures/legislation. Target groupsPrimary:SMEs (focusing on small and micro) key actors in recruitment and hiring of personnel (managers, directors, job recruiters)HR departmentsBusiness consultantsPersons with disabilities (end beneficiaries) Secondary:SME representative bodies Chambers of CommerceBusiness associationsDisabled persons representative bodiesBusiness consulting and training organisationsThe proposed project is to be implemented in Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Spain and Cyprus by a mixed partnership to bring in knowledge in the fields of support for persons with disabilities, professional development and business consulting. At such a transnational level, considering also that the participating countries exhibit high levels of unemployment of persons with disabilities, the cross-fertilisation of knowledge and experience from organisations at both sides of the issue (SMEs and business world – persons with disabilities) is the appropriate way to tackle an EU wide issue, which only takes special characteristics at national levels, while remaining similar in its effects regarding social exclusion.

The digital transformation of enterprises has been duly noted over the past years and coordinated efforts (DigComp) to equip the workforce with digital skills to succeed in the new environment have been promoted by the EU. Such need became even more pressuring following the societal and industrial disruptions brought by COVID-19. One of the sectors that is currently lagging with regards to digital transformation across the entire EU (McKinsey, 2020) consists of the legal sector (attorneys, notaries, judges, etc). The lack of digital skills comes primarily from the inability of universities to equip the next generation of workforce in the legal system with the necessary digital competences. Additionally, EU universities delivering law programmes are also facing the general (process-gap) challenges brought by online teaching: frustrated academic staff, ineffective learning, limited engagement of students (lack of focus/attention/interest, limited connectionism and constructivism), lack of inclusiveness and personalised online teaching, and others (EACEA, 2020). This gap is due to missing competences, skills and abilities that the consortium has further confirmed in the digiLEAP countries and project partners such as: *LAW STUDENTS (undergraduate and postgraduate, LAW LECTURERS & LAW PRACTITIONERS - GAPS IN DIGITAL LAW CONTENT: cultural change competences towards adopting a digital working way in law, digital collaboration and communication competences in the legal sector, productivity & casework consolidation competences via digital tools, and entrepreneurial skills & legal-tech awareness (HBR, 2020). * LAW STUDENTS - ONLINE LEARNING GAPS: Inability to interact with lecturers in an online environment and foster connectionism and constructivism; absence of online learning skills such as being well organized, self-motivated, and possess a high degree of time management skills in order to keep up with the pace of the course (i.e. text-based interaction takes more time); lack of skills to fight the sense of isolation and psychological wellbeing; lack of active learning skills; lack of ability to understand responsible/ethical digital education utilisation. * UNIVERSITY LAW/LEGAL LECTURERS - ONLINE TEACHING GAPS: inability to deliver online education (both synchronous and asynchronous) that would foster connectionism and constructivism; unawareness of enabling a supportive virtual class environment; lack of digital skills to support the curriculum transformation process; inability to incorporate forward-looking digital solutions to support teaching; lack of skills for co-sharing resources and jointly developing high quality universal Open Educational Resource with other lecturers internationally; inability to reach social groups at risk and gender-balance by delivering personalized online education; unawareness of behavioural mechanisms to inspire students. In this context, digiLEAP aims to bridge university law departments, law practitioners, quality/accreditation experts, educational software developers and non-formal education providers in order to co-create OERs with innovative methodologies helping both law students and law lecturers perform in online law education while also helping legal sector workers develop digital skills.digiLEAP will deliver:IO1 - Crash-course on the digital transformation of the legal/law system (OER) based on DigComp principles and LegalTech innovations IO2 – Digital teaching toolkit for law lecturers (OER) based on DigCompEdu and a neuroscience/behavioural approach to help law lecturers develop impactful learning via Attention, Plasticity and learning creation, Emotion and Timing. IO3 - DigComp and DigCompEdu certification methodology for students, practitioners and lecturers: DigComp Certificate in Practicing Digital Law (for students and law/legal practitioners); DigCompEdu Certificate in Teaching Digital Law via Online Education (for lecturers); DigCompEdu Certification in Online Learning in Law& Legal studies (for students)*digiLEAP Alumni Network (as sustainability)*digiLEAP International digital law training association (as sustainability)digiLEAP in numbers: 250 students, 100 law lecturers and 50 law professionals involved in virtual plots; 175 external requests for certification; 35 internal staff certification requests; 85% satisfaction (quality) of the participants with the project results; gender balance and at least 135 social groups at risk included as participants; 2500 hits on the website and 100 000 targets reached on social media via paid ads; observed boost of acceptance towards online education; 250 participants to the multiplier events (face to face) and 400 online.digiLEAP's main impact: Boost the digital readiness of university law departments and of the legal sector towards the digitally transformed environment (both online education and the professional environment) by making learning and digital skill development more effective.