One of the main difficulties that the European agri-food cooperatives are facing is the lack of involvement and participation of young farmers (men and women) in the management of their own farms and in the day to day activities of the cooperative. The generational shift is not guaranteed because the younger farmers are not aware of the importance of the cooperative structure for the sustainability of their farms. Considering this need, the aim of the project is to get a generational and gender balance in the co-operative agricultural sector through the strengthening of the capacities of young generation of farmers (men and women) in order to ensure the generational shift in their family farms and co-operatives. The goal is to engage young farmers with the values and objectives of the cooperatives. It will empower young farmers to make changes in the cooperatives in terms of innovation and improvement of the cooperative areas of work. The project partnership is formed by 5 organizations coming from 5 different EU Member States. The Coordinator (ICOS) and Partner 3 (SERVICES COOP DE FRANCE) are the national Association and Union of agri-food co-operatives in their countries (Ireland and France), Partner 2 (AGACA) is the Association of agri-food cooperative of Galician region (Spain) and Partner 5 (LLKC)) is the Public Agency of the Ministery of Agriculture for the rural advisory and traning center for co-operatives. They will provide the project with a work-based experience in the cooperatives sector and a strong link with project stakeholders and project beneficiaries. Partner 3 (Changemaker) is a consultancy company and VET provider specialized in ICT and innovative training tool development and consultancy of innovation and change processes management. They will play a pedagogical supervisor role in the development of the training contents and tools. The methodology used to develop the project will be based on cooperative learning, paying special attention to the involvement of participants as active agents of their own learning process. The main foreseen result of the project will be: Innovative shared training contents about Basic Farm Management through joint development available in English, Spanish, French and Latvian. Innovative shared training contents about cooperative culture and values available in English, Spanish, French and Latvian. 1 open-source ICT platform to support learning with interactive management of contents and tools. 6 Cooperative games to work cooperative values supporting previous training contents. 1 Training course for trainers (virtual training), in order to train trainers in the use and implement of the training contents and cooperative games developed. 4 National Pilot Training Sessions with final beneficiaries held in Ireland, Spain, France, Latvia. These will aim to present and test common training contents and methodologies and for testing the cooperative games developed. 3 Seminars of presentation of intellectual products developed in Spain, France and Latvia, in order to disseminate and capitalise project objectives and results. 1 Final Conference held in Ireland through which the final results of the project will be disseminated and capitalise on. 2 Blended mobilities for young farmers and women farmers (learners of partners), in order to directly experience different points of view and different ways about how young farmers and women are getting involved in the agri-food co-operative sector in other countries. Virtual and physical mobilities are foreseen. At the end of the project the following impacts will be achieved: 1) Provide the agri-food cooperative sector, and the associations of cooperatives and VET providers in particular, with new and innovative training contents and tools for fostering knowledge in Basic farm management and Cooperative culture and values among their younger members (women and men). 2) Improve and update pedagogical, methodological and procedural skills and technical knowledge of participating organisations’ trainers, especially of organisations offering VET contents to cooperatives. 3) Update the technological and pedagogical knowledge of trainers in participating organizations about the offer of new innovative training tools and resources available, in order to provide them with the skills and the knowledge required to create, manage and develop Innovative training tools using ICT tools and open-source technology as well as cooperative learning tools. 4) Increase the quality and accessibility of the VET offer in the agri-food cooperative sector.

"Agri-food cooperatives in Europe are currently facing the fundamental challenge of promoting the Corporate Culture among the members of their Board of Directors and increasing their knowledge, abilities and skills about Business Administration and Management, in order to ensure a suitable decision-making process in their entities and adapt them to the strategic changes required by the market. Also, there is a need to incorporate women to the Board of Directors in cooperative companies, and promote the generational replacement, through the assumption of responsibilities by younger members.Work experience with cooperatives highlights the need to update and strengthen the Training of the Trainers, in order to increase their pedagogical, methodological and procedural skills, and their technical knowledge, adapting them to the new market scenarios produced by the near situation of economic crisis in Europe, and to the new demand coming from the training final beneficiaries and to their levels of knowledge.ToTCOOP+i project aims to address the above-mentioned needs, by improving the quality of VET offer in the European cooperative sector. It has two general objectives: 1) Increase the quality of VET offer for members of cooperatives at European level, in order to address the sector needs. 2) Strengthen the capacities of the members of Board of Directors in the field of Business Administration, Management and Corporate Culture, promoting, at the same time, the access of women and young people to charges of responsibility. Also, it has one specific objective: Strengthen and update the pedagogical, methodological and procedural skills, as well as the technical knowledge of trainers of Associations of agri-food cooperatives and organisations that offer training and consulting services to them.According with the recommendations contains in the EC’s study ""Support for Farmers’ Cooperatives"", these objectives will be achieved through two main actions: 1) exchange of experiences and best-practices between the Countries involved in the project; 2) development of common innovative training contents and tools, on the base of the best-practices identified at European level.The main project outcomes are: a Best-Practices Report on VET actions implemented in EU for the promotion of Business Administration, Management and Corporate culture among the members of Board of Directors in the agri-food cooperatives; a Methological Guidelines for the development of common training contents; Common Training Contents about Business Administration, Management and Corporate culture in agri-food cooperatives, that will be available in English, Spanish, Italian, Sweden, Polish and Latvian; an high-quality ICT open-source learning platform, for the interactive and shared use of the training contents.The project innovation consists in the development at European level of common training contents, through the exchange of experiences and best-practices existing at regional and national level. Also, ToTCOOP+i aims to provide the trainers of the European organisations involved in the project, the latest trends updated about Business Administration, Management and Corporate Culture, and the skills and knowledge necessary to manage and develop Innovative training tools created using ICT tools and open technology to create and develop training support tools.For that purpose, the project put together six organizations coming from six different EU Member States: 2 from Souhtern Europe (Spain and Italy), two from Eastern Europe (Poland and Latvia) and two from Northern Europe (Ireland and Sweden). The partnership joins leading VET providers (Aris, Changemaker), associations of cooperatives (AGACA, ICOS and SNRSS) and organizations providing consultancy and advisory services to cooperatives (LLKC).In the short-term, ToTCOOP+i provides agri-food cooperative sector with new and innovative training contents and contribute to increase the quality and accessibility of VET offer in that sector. In the mid and long-term, the project help to boost Business Administration and management skills of Boards of Directors and promote entrepreneurship. By this way, it also contribute to increase the employability in the cooperative sector and reduce the effects produced by the economic crisis.The project final beneficiaries are: 1) managers and trainers of the participating organizations; 2) associations of rural cooperatives, VET organizations and institutions, public entities at local/regional/national level, young professionals working in cooperative sector; 3) members of small and medium agri-food coperatives’ Boards of Directors and new entrepreneurs in cooperative sector."

Rezekne Academy of Technologies (RTA) in cooperation with partners plan to implement an applied research project: Development and Introduction of a Communication competencies Model for Enhancing and Maintaining a Business Mentor Network. The expected results of the project focus on achieving the objectives of Priority 7 of the Smart Specialization Strategy (Latvia) or RIS3: identification of the existing resources of territories and their specialization, proposing prospective economic development opportunities and directions, int. al. leading and prospective business directions in the municipal territories. According to the NACE Rev. 2 classification of economic activities, it corresponds to Section J: Information and communication. The aim of the project is to examine barriers to communication competencies between mentors and mentees and propose solutions how to enhance and maintain the business mentor network by means of communication technologies. The project is interdisciplinary because, according to the OECD classification, it directly relates to such fields of science as economics, entrepreneurship, communication as well as information technology. The project involves the following research studies: a technical and economic feasibility study and an industry research study. Project activities: Technical and economic feasibility study on the communication competencies model for the business mentor network; Theoretical literature studies, an examination and comparison of mentor work specifics in Latvia and abroad; Interviews with business mentor network participants (mentors and mentees); Interviews, questionnaire with experts; Mobility, experience exchange with foreign countries; Development of a smart communication competencies model for the business mentor network; Development of an effective communication and collaboration methodology for the business mentor network; A pilot group of mentors and mentees for assessing the effective communication methodology; Creating mentoring handbook; Publishing original scientific articles in journals or conference proceedings included in Web of Science or SCOPUS (or other) databases Development of a joint monograph; Development of network between partners.In order that a mentor can act, communication is necessary, which is key to successful entrepreneurship. Regardless of whether communication is internal or external, horizontal or vertical, all the forms of communication in the entrepreneurial environment help to increase efficiency and improve organizational performance. The key purpose of communication is to ensure that a message is comprehended in a way it was initially intended in order to reach the audience. That is why communication could be both verbal and visual – it is a continuous process, during which interaction occurs among the communicator, the channel, the message and the communicates. An essential element in communication is the communicative effect or response, which indicates whether the message has reached the audience and whether the communication objective is going to be achieved.The target group represents several fields: Research and academic environment: scientists, students, academic personnel in social sciences, as well employees engaged in research; Entrepreneur environment: entrepreneurs from all countries, who wish to participate in business mentor network activities as mentors and mentees; enterprise stakeholders – employees, customers, business partners; entrepreneurs as users of the communication methodology for the business mentor network; Society: the society as a whole, as entrepreneurship in a region affects every resident through creating new jobs, improving the economic situation in the region, which increases the purchasing power of residents, amounts of taxes paid to the local and national governments.Methodology and division of work will be symmetrical, where similar activities for development of intellectual output is going to be implemented in parallel in the participating countries. More in detail, the expected impact on the participant organizations is: more than 20 staff persons will be involved in the project; employing research staff; improving competence in communication field; enhancing international relationships; further collaboration in research.Project will apply competence-based approach and assess their quality, impact and relevance. This can contribute to higher quality of education and training and support permeability between the different education and training pathways.The expected results of the project would therefore be effective solutions to developing the business mentor network in all countries:performed study on a communication competencies model; designed a smart communication competencies model and a methodology; developed mentoring handbook; original scientific articles published in journals or conference proceedings.

"AgriCoopValue is a training project that aims to create a favorable framework for the application at European level of an unified social accounting system for agri-food cooperatives, in order to monetize their social value and determine their multiplying capacity within rural environments of the European Union.The Single Market Act II establishes that “the Commission will develop a methodology to measure the socioe-conomic benefits created by social enterprises. The development of rigorous and systematic measurements of social enterprises’ impact on the community is essential to demonstrate that the money invested in social enterprises yields high savings and income”. The Program for Employment and Social Innovation also foresees, in its third axis (Microfinance and Social Entrepreneurship), that the execution reports that financial entities and fund managers have to present to the Commission must also contain information about the results in relation to social repercussions.In 2014, the Group of experts on social enterprises (GECES) identified a series of challenges that would have to be answered in order to advance in an effective methodology for social monetization within the social economy, among which the difficulty of conceiving was highlighted a strict set of indicators to measure the social impact on the wide range of business typologies.AgriCoopValue will face the need to provide the European agri-food sector with an effective method to measure all the impacts (economic, social and environmental) that its industry produces, adapted to the idiosyncrasy of its sector and to the peculiarities of 5 subsectors: dairy, meat, fruit and vegetables, wine and olive oil.AgriCoopValue will start from the research carried out by the research group ""Ethics in Finance & Social Value"" of the University of the Basque Country, which has developed a conceptual framework in relation to social accounting and a methodological calculation process, called SPOLY, which is finding wide acceptance in the international scientific community and among potential user organizations.Therefore, we propose as specific objectives of the project:O1: Train technicians and trainers of organizations that represent agri-food cooperatives, to use the SPOLY methodological calculation process, in order to monetize the social value of an organization.O2: Advance in the improvement of the methodology through specific applications in the different agri-food subsectors (dairy, meat, fruit and vegetables, wine, olive oil, etc.), at European level.O3: Form and train agri-food cooperatives in order to monetize the social value generated by their own companies.O4: Raise awareness of the importance of social accounting compared to traditional accounting, for the social economy sector.O5: Consolidate the international acceptance and recognition of the calculation methodological process developed and promote the transfer of results internationally.O6: Improve the image of European agri-food cooperatives, highlighting their attractiveness, thus contributing to improvement of their competitiveness in an increasingly globalized market.To achieve these objectives, the project is divided into 6 Working Packages (WPs):WP1: COORDINATION AND MANAGEMENT WP2: DISSEMINATION AND EXPLOITATION OF RESULTSWP3: TRANSFER OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE TO THE AGRI-FOOD COOPERATIVE SECTORWP4: DEVELOPMENT OF NEW APPLICATIONS OF THE CALCULATION METHODOLOGY BY AGRI-FOOD SUBSECTORS OF THE MACROECONOMYWP5: TRAINING FOR THE MONETIZATION OF THE SOCIAL VALUE GENERATED AT THE MICROECONOMIC LEVELWP6: CREATION OF STRATEGIC ALLIANCES FOR THE DISSEMINATION OF THE UNIFIED SOCIAL ACCOUNTING SYSTEMThe activities contemplated in each of these phases will follow a collaborative methodology for the development of deliverables and products. In this way the partners who are part of the partnership will contribute to greater or lesser degrees, based on their experience and profile. For the selection of said partnership, the necessary profiles were taken into account based on the objectives and access to the final recipients: Trainers and technical staff of associations/ federations/ unions of agri-food cooperatives, members of the governing councils and cooperative members; Hired management and administrative staff of the cooperatives; Agents of the cooperative and/ or agri-food sector.The partnership is made up of umbrella entities of agri-food cooperatives in their respective countries: AGACA (ES), ICOS (EI), CONFAGRI (PT) and LLKC (LV), an economic group specialized in social monetization methodologies- GEAccounting (ES), a rural development agency AGRRA (HR) and a technology company ATLANTIS (GR)."

ToTCOOP+i TECH project proposed to respond to the following challenges of the agri-food co-operatives in Europe: - need of promoting the Corporate Culture among the members of their Board of Directors and,- need of increasing their knowledge, abilities and skills about Business Administration and Management, in order to ensure a suitable decision-making process in their entities and adapt them to the strategic changes required by the market. - need to incorporate women to the Board of Directors in co-operative companies, and promote the generational replacement, through the assumption of responsibilities by younger members.In order to help the co-operatives facing these challenges, the project sets the following objectives: 1. Transforming the current offer of Continuing Vocational Training in the co-operative sector at EU level into an excellent training, based on the use of technology and in the new models of the digital era and, 2. Strengthening the capacities of Business Administration of the Board of Directors Members from agri-food cooperatives, through their direct involvement in the training process. The project partnership was formed by 7 organizations coming from 6 different EU Member States. Coordinator (ICOS) and Partners 2 (AGACA), 4 (Association for Social Cooperatives), 5 (Latvian Rural Advisory and Training Centre) and 7 (MedAtlantia) are associations of co-operatives and providers of consultancy and advisory services to cooperatives. They have provided to the project a work-based experience in the co-operatives sector and a strong link with project stakeholders and project beneficiaries. Also, they have contributed with their specific knowledge about the agri-food co-operative sector to the content for the technological tools that have been developed.Partner 3 (Changemaker) is a consultancy company and VET provider, specialized in change and organizational development and learning processes as well as digital service development, games and visualisation on a national and international level. CM have had the role of pedagogical supervisor of the project. Partner 6 (GRIFO multimedia) with partner 7 (Medatlantia) are newcomer to the previous partnership. P6 (GRIFO) It’s an Italian SME that operates in the field of e-learning, knowledge and content management, integrating technologies, contents and services in customized solutions built around the entities’ specific needs. Partner 7 (MedAtlantia) is a worker co-operative specialized in designing and developing green and circular economy projects for entities belonging to the social economy (worker co-ops, agri-food co-ops, social co-ops, Associations of co-ops, Public and Private Foundations) in the rural areas. Also, it provides VET services such as Coordination and Mgt. of Public Administration Training Plans, and training offer in Mgt. of Cooperative companies. Apart from the coordination and dissemination, the following activities were developed in the project: - Observatory of Learning Innovation and technological opportunities for training- Transformation of training content into innovative tools - Short-term joint staff training event - Implementation of national pilot training sessions The main results achieved are: 1 Infographic Handbook of innovative technological resources for training (10 digital learning tools included) 1 Handbook of Best Practices in Learning Innovation 10 Video materials for training purposes 1 Serious game, with 50 boxes of knowledge activities (5 for Didactic Unit) (digital version) 1 Didactic App for smartphone 10 Gamification tools for training assessment 1 Final Conference held in Ireland in order to disseminate and capitalize project final results 4 Pilot training sessions with Final Beneficiaries, for testing the use of the digital innovative learning tools developed, in Ireland, Spain, Poland and Latvia 1 Short-term joint staff training event (in Spain) and assessment reportRegarding the ToTCOOP+i TECH, impact we can highlight the following achievements:- Availability of common training contents on Business Administration, Mgt. & Corporate culture for members of Board of Director of agri-foods co-operatives, taught throw the use of technological tools based on digital solutions.- Exchange of experiences and identification of best-practices for innovative learning.- Increased awareness about the importance to involve younger generations (men and women) trough technological tools at European level to guarantee a generational shift in the sector.The project sustainability is ensured by the inclusion of the TOTCOOP+i TECH training results in the VET offers provided by the different project partners to members of Board of Directors of agri-food co-operatives, rural and social co-operatives and members of co-operatives. Partners firmly agreed to participate until June 2024 in an Impact study, setting several specific measures to assess the long-term impact of the project.