"EASIT is a strategic partnership of stakeholders from different fields addressing innovation in higher education, with a focus on one of the European priorities: social inclusion. It originated from existing learning assets aiming to generate a comprehensive training ecosystem for the many accessibility professionals required in Europe to fulfill legal requirements and societal needs. EASIT has built on previous project results in Easy-to-Read (ER) and media accessibility and has given a step forward in the recognition of new professional profiles in easy-to-understand (E2U) language that will join existing accessibility experts such as the audio describer (ADLAB PRO), the live subtitler (ILSA, LTA) or the accessibility manager for the scenic arts (ACT). EASIT has defined the skills of the professionals involved in creating E2U content, with an emphasis on how already existing professionals (audio describers, subtitlers, journalists) could expand their skills to cater for innovative hybrid contexts in audiovisual media (IO3). EASIT has defined a methodological framework for implementation, putting forward shared practices in E2U across Europe (IO1). EASIT has also produced recommendations on how E2U language could be integrated with existing access services in audiovisual media, going beyond the traditional emphasis on the written printed word (IO2). In this regard, EASIT has made an innovative terminological proposal and talks about ""easy-to-understand"" as an umbrella term ranging from Easy-to-Read (or Easy Language) to Plain Language. EASIT has proposed a modular curriculum design to train experts, both at academic and vocational learning (IO4), considering cross-fertilization with existing curricula developed as part of other strategic partnerships (ACT, ILSA, ADLAB PRO). It has developed flexible multilingual educational resources, freely available and easily integrable in different learning environments catering for the needs of diverse student profiles (IO5). The project has also considered what certification procedures could be implemented beyond the life of the project, giving suggestions for both academic and vocational environments (IO6).All project objectives and expected tangible results have been met:1. Common framework obtained through a survey: IO1.2. Recommendations on hybrid services: IO2.3. Skills card: IO3. In fact, three skills cards, instead of one, have been produced.4. Modular curriculum design: IO4. In fact, two curriculum proposals have been produced, beyond what was included in the application.5. Open educational resources: IO5. All content is in open access.6. Proposed certification strategy: IO6. Apart from the proposed certification strategy, different options for vocational and academic training have been suggested. A multilingual approach has been favoured, considering major languages such as German, English, Italian or Spanish and less spoken languages such as Galician, Catalan, Swedish or Slovene. A wide selection of subtitled content is available. The methodology has put the user at the center of the design. Six events have taken place, with almost 500 participants, guaranteeing a wider impact of the outputs. EASIT has impacted on various target groups: higher education institutions wanting to offer training in E2U have a ready-made modular curriculum that can be easily implemented, as well as training materials to be re-purposed. SMEs or associations wanting to offer training have a definition of skills and flexible contents to be used, as well as a MOOC proposal. Freelancers are able to access materials and expand their skills. All citizens, especially persons with disabilities or reading difficulties, can benefit indirectly because professionals trained with EASIT resources will be able to produce accessible content. EASIT has been possible thanks to a balanced combination of partners experienced in Erasmus+ projects and newcomers. Partners come from different backgrounds and have complementary expertise: academia (UAB, UVIGO, SUH, SDI, UNITS), industry (RTV Slovenija) and end-user NGOs (Zavod RISA, Dyslexiförbundet). The expected intangible results have also been achieved:1. Raised awareness about E2U. The project has been disseminated widely and is recognised as a key project in E2U, as shown by the invited keynotes given and the accepted project presentations.2. Further professionalisation of the experts: 3 specialisation courses have been approved by UAB, which will allow professionals to be recognised through certification.3. EASIT partners have been involved in a network of E2U language experts at European level, which has produced the first book on the topic at European level. 4. The educational resources can contribute to train professionals, which will involve new audiences and provide quality E2U content. The content can also be used to enhance acceptance of diversity in society, as it contains dedicated educational content on this topic."

Audio description (AD) for people with sight loss (PSL) is a new form of accessible translation that connects PSL with the visual reality they live in. AD is a verbal description illustrating the visual elements of an audio visual product for PSL. In spite of the importance of AD, the professional figure of the audio describer is not yet fully recognised and a systematic training is not evenly offered over Europe. As a consequence, notwithstanding the promotion of an inclusive society, the professional figures working in the field of AD are still few, often untrained and not well defined. The main aim of ADLAB PRO was to fill this gap by defining a course curriculum and developing a varied set of online, open access, flexible training materials to form new AD professionals or to refine their current skills. The project was carried out through the synergy of eight educational and non-educational partners with the aim of delineating a professional profile that can meet multiple market needs as well as creating a flexible course curriculum capable of training effectively future AD experts. The academic partners in the project were the University of Trieste (Italy) acting as coordinator, the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain), the University of Antwerp (Belgium), and the Adam Mickiewicz University (Poland). The non-academic partners included Utopian Voices, a private UK company supplying high-quality AD, training, research and data analysis in the field of AVT; Soundfocus, an audio post-production studio specialized in media accessibility and responsible for all major AD projects in The Netherlands; RTV Slovenija, the national public radio and TV house; and the Royal National Institute for the Blind, a UK charity for the blind.The project IOs, all leading to tangible results, were six and led to the production of a snapshot of the current AD training practices in Europe (IO1), the outline of the AD professional profile, its required skills and its competences (IO2). ADLAB PRO also delineated a course curriculum (IO3) based on different types of AD – including screen AD, AD of dynamic performances and events, recorded AD for static arts and environments, AD integrated in revoiced translation modes, AD for new audiences and AD interacting with new technologies - and it created open, free, modular and fully customizable training materials (IO4) based on constant internal and external evaluation and testing (IO5). The project also looked at the accreditation of the educational components for both academic and vocational scenarios through the attribution of ECTS (European Credit Transfer System) and ECVETS (European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training) to each of the six modules constituting the whole course.In terms of results and impact, the creation of training materials (open access, accessible, online) is expected to secure opportunities for youth workers and to enable them to learn different AD practices, to take part in unique training activities, and to see their formal and non-formal learning recognized. In fact, ADLAB PRO secures transparency and recognition of skills to facilitate learning, employability and labour mobility. Furthermore, in the long run, such systematic training should contribute to the full establishment of the new professional figure of the audio describer. Besides affecting directly higher education as well as trainees interested in AD and the AVT market, the results of ADLAB PRO are expected to have a long-term impact on a wide spectrum of potential beneficiaries of the audio descriptions that will be produced by the new AD professionals. These include the blind and visually impaired communities and more in general a wide array of persons with specific needs who might find it easier to listen rather than to watch or read audiovisual information.

The future of media experiences is still to be written, and the maturity of eXtended Reality (XR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies provides a unique window of opportunity for the European Creative and Cultural Sector (CCS) to reimagine digital co-creation, interaction and engagement possibilities. TransMIXR, a consortium of eight representatives from the CCS and twelve leading industrial and academic partners, combines the necessary interdisciplinary skillsets and domain expertise to create a range of human-centric tools for remote content production and consumption via social virtual reality. The project’s TransMIXR platform will provide (i) a distributed XR Creation Environment that supports remote collaboration practices, and (ii) XR Media Experience Environment for the delivery and consumption of highly evocative and highly-social immersive media experiences. The ground-breaking AI techniques for the understanding and processing of complex media content will enable the reuse of heterogeneous assets across immersive content delivery platforms. Using the Living Labs methodology, TransMIXR will develop and evaluate four pilots that bring the vision of future media experiences to life in four CCS domains: (i) news media & broadcasting, (ii) performing arts, and (iii) cultural heritage. Additionally, the project will harness the creativity of the CCS and will forge interdisciplinary collaborations to demonstrate how immersive social experiences could be transferred to new application areas beyond the CCS. The results of the project will contribute to the Media and Audiovisual Action Plan from the European Commission, in particular boosting the adoption of XR technologies, opening new business models opportunities in new application areas and markets, and gaining worldwide leadership in XR technologies while being deeply grounded in European values such as veracity, diversity, connectedness and universality.

<< Objectives >>SELSI aims to develop recommendations and strategies for linguistic support in spoken Easy language (EL) to support adult learners with additional needs in gaining important skills according to their abilities in most oral-based environments. Up to now, EL has been researched and practiced almost exclusively as a writing methodology. This makes SELSI one of the first attempts to deliver a rounded, academically grounded, and practically verified model of communication in spoken EL in Europe.<< Implementation >>First, SELSI will map the needs and resources for spoken Easy language (SEL) communication in Europe. This will allow the partnership to develop recommendations and strategies introducing innovative inclusive methodology. This will be pilot-tested in 3 national off- and online learning settings, with educators and adult learners with additional needs as validators. Finally, the recommendations will be fine-tuned based on the test feedback and introduced as a multi-lingual online tool.<< Results >>The main project result is a practical model of non-language-specific recommendations and strategies for oral communication in SEL, as an online tool. This will lead to major practical implications for language-specific adjustments in different language contexts. Reports, academic papers, and test sessions will be conducted. One of the key/desirable ''side effects'' of the project results will be reinforced European cooperation regarding accessible language and education in spoken settings.