The construction industry is experiencing an unprecedented period of rapid change across Europe, wrought by technological advances and socio-economic drivers. As the industry responds to emergent challenges including labour skills gaps, improving energy consumption and resource efficiency, digitising and modernising processes, and improving productivity; the need for a paradigm shift from traditional to modern methods of construction has been never been greater. Offsite and modular methods of construction (OSM) have been utilised in different ways across Europe and have proven to be cleaner, safer and more productive than traditional building methodologies. Recent advances in technological processes have brought offsite methodologies into the mainstream, with the associated benefits of addressing the key issues identified above as well as providing a route to lower cost, affordable housing stock. Investment in a transnational collaboration presents an opportunity to accelerate the pan-European response to the education and skilling needs of the construction industry. The proposal is predicated on the sharing of best practice, commonality in benchmarking and standardising educator training, sharing of effective pedagogical approaches and resources, and the development of a European network of professionals working and teaching within the field of OSM education. The proposal is positioned within the field of higher education with a focus on developing advanced-level technical skills, thus our references to advanced vocational education and training (AVET) is synonymous with higher education.The project aims to modernise the delivery of off-site and modular (OSM) construction advanced vocational education & training (AVET) by developing an innovative training model and joint curriculum that provides a framework to benchmark the quality of delivery within the partner nations. Specific emphasis will be placed upon the digitisation of key processes as well as key agendas including decarbonising activity and improving energy efficiency, workplace safety practices and supporting a diverse and equal workforce.The objectives of this project are:1.Design and implement an innovative training model and competency framework that modernises the delivery of off-site and modular construction AVET by Feb 2022.2.Engage learners across the EU in innovative courses in the area of off-site and modular construction by Feb 2022. (2000 individual engagements through our platform)3.Develop and disseminate a suite of open online educational resources to support AVET practitioners in the delivery of industry standard and emerging off-site and modular construction practices by Feb 2022. (8 modules with 40 hours of learning content each; webinars and joint teacher training)4.Support local businesses, particularly small and micro businesses, to improve awareness and adoption of offsite and modular construction practices within their construction activity. (60 businesses engaged throughout project)Seven partners from five different countries (Spain, UK, Germany, Austria and Slovenia) across the European Union have joined this project. Our partners include AVET institutions in all countries as well as a European institute settled in Germany. Many of these partners have extensive links to the construction industry in our partner countries and an enormous amount of relevant experience. Most institutes have a long history of working on European projects.After initially reviewing the European landscape in off-site and modular (OSM) construction we will create a new course model and competency framework based on our research. This model will then be used to create course content that will be distributed online. We will disseminate this content on a dedicated platform and will host specific teacher training, industry engagement and multiplier events. The project proposes the development of open education resources, co-designed and co-delivered by the partners, which incorporate innovative teaching practices, high quality learning resources and a wide range of digital assets. The products of all intellectual outputs outlined within this application will be free at the point of access, open source, compliant with interoperability standards and available in the languages of the represented partner nations (English, German, Spanish and Slovenian). All digital content will be available on our platform EMIC-GEM.eu and will be optimised for transfer to other common digital platforms.The project will have a large impact on a number of construction AVET teachers, AVET institutions, construction companies and learners by offering new material, upskilling teachers, modernising course delivery and engaging businesses throughout the process.

ELP Transport is a Strategic Partnership aimed at developing innovative outputs in the field of Vocational Training for Local Public Transport System (LPTS), developed transnationally and on the basis of a coordinated action among research, LTPSs businesses, VET providers and local communities.Due to the ever-increasing urbanization and digitalisation, the urban mobility sector is affected globally by transformation dynamics.In this context, Local Public Transport plays a strategic role. The planning of networks and local public transport systems in an integrated, digital and sustainable way, allows the development of the smart cities of the future.Development, innovation, intramodality and interconnections for passengers and goods also and especially at the urban - and therefore local level - are among the majors challenges for European transport to make services more efficient and sustainable.ELP Transport comprises seven partners form Italy, Spain, Croatia, Slovenia and Cyprus, countries that share similar Transport Modes splits. It is coordinated by Conerobus Service a Service Industry linked to Conerobus, the LPT Service Provider of the Ancona metropolitan area, in Italy, which, starting from an internal needs assessment, very recently signed an Agreement with the Politecnica University of the Marche Region – Dept.of Management in order to develop a Mobility Academy focused on ongoing training of workforce specialised in the complex environment of LPTSs. The other partners well represent excellence in research, regional planning, social innovation and VET provision.The Consorci de la Ribera is a public body created by an association of two counties placed in the Region of Valencia (County Ribera Alta and County of Ribera Baixa) which is made up of 47 municipalities. The aim of Consorci de la Ribera is to manage collaboration agreements with both counties in the field of tourism, environment and cultural heritage, energy, socio economic development.Universitat Politècnica de València is a public Higher Education Institution actively involved in international cooperation and mobility projects. The Transport Department is in charge of teaching courses related to transport and logistics planning and mobility studies.The University of Zagreb is the flagship educational institution in the country with 31 faculties, 3 art academies and various university centres and departments. Faculty of Traffic and Transport Sciences has made the first Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMP) for cities in Croatia and neighbouring regions.Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia - Institute for Business Education (CPU)' mission is to supply business with high quality, modern and applicable knowledge enriched with national and international experiences and good business practice examples according to the ‘’practice to practice’’ principle.Centre for Social Innovation in Cyprus not only is a gateway to also the Greek context, but it has a transversal role in bringing social innovation at the core of the educational and methodological approaches of the project.Given the fast pace of technological and social innovation concerning LPTSs, these are verychallenging environments that need specialized workforces with expertises in different field, spanning from technical to managerial competences. There is a renowned problem of skills mismatch in the public transport sector (Davydenko I. Et al., 2009), depending mainly by the complex environment and strong work-based experience required. In order to respond to these challenges the project will:- take further research on skills gaps in LPTSs extending the Rodrigues methodology to different;- comparable scenarios and produce a skill report on an LPT expert;- develop a new vocational profile in line with the skills report and a relative training programme (blended eLearning + work-based), with a strong work-based approach and innovative user-centric educational methodologies.- develop a monitoring tool for skills mismatch and emerging labour market needs in the Local Public Transport System in order to update skills gaps, vocational profile and training offer on a continuous base and develop further vocational profile as necessary;- establish a business-research international network aimed at: - Reducing unemployment, especially among people with an higher education diploma and/or a degree in economic, technical and engineering subjects in partner territories; - Supporting innovation, cooperation, peer-learning and the sharing of experience; - Promoting the work-integrated learning; - Promoting new skills required by the labour market; - Strengthening cooperation and networking between organisations and citizens; - Transfering the results of the projects to other national contexts (similar at first and new after appropriated applied researches) at EU level.

The project arises from the observation of the exponential increase economic and social vulnerability needs andsituations, generated by economic crises, identifying that one of the possible solutions to this emergency is the creationof innovative business models.It becomes essential for enlightened entrepreneurs, especially in countries that have a fragile socio-economic fabric,such as Bulgaria, Greece, Slovenia, Italy and Spain, to identify the value, in terms of the social impact of their businessor the social effect that each intervention generates on the community or on specific categories of beneficiaries.In this context of uncertainty, there is a new way of doing business: a model is introduced that sets aside forever theoutdated yardstick of profit as the only objective and parameter to assess the health of an entrepreneurial activity,choosing transparency, 360 ° sustainability (economic, social and environmental) and responsibility towards allstakeholders, including the environment and future generations as the guiding values.The need for skills, tools and approaches aimed at measuring and managing this value also increases, the developmentof which will be crucial for the evolution of the business ecosystem and social innovation in the EU.To date, 3,086 Benefit Corporations are certified in 150 sectors and 71 different countries.In Italy, despite being the first country in the world, after the USA, to have introduced the legal form of BenefitCompany as of 1 January 2016, there are almost 100 B-Corps; just 50 in Spain, while for Greece, Slovenia and Bulgariathere are long delays (Certified B-Corporation Community, 2020).Furthermore, in recent years, most of the studies and tools carried out have focused on large companies.With the SIMPLE project, on the other hand, we want to identify sustainability paths, business models and impactmeasurement methodologies that consider the specific features of SMEs, which constitute the production fabric of theEU countries involved, capitalizing on good business practices at national, European and international level.SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES:1) To develop for 60 SME workers in Italy, Spain, Slovenia, Greece and Bulgaria, skills in social sustainability in termsof strategic paths, business models, organizational processes, measurement tools with the development and systematicadoption of a shared blended training offer (IO1 - TRAINING PROGRAMME FOR SUSTAINABILITY ANDSOCIAL BUSINESS INNOVATION)2) Promote digital integration in learning activities with the co-design and development of:a) Open Educational Resources, in the form of interactive, video pills for the corporate population of SMEs, in theEU partner reference territorial contexts, to increase a skills set in terms of social sustainability useful for theirorientation towards social innovation and immediate application in the business and work environmentb) SIM-Game (Social Impact Measurement Game) which, exploiting gaming and gamification logics, will be aninteractive recreational-educational container structured in episodes, each of which relates to skills and relative openeducational resources, capable of marking the evaluation process concurrently with learning, generating engagement,motivation and self-awareness.(IO2 - INTERACTIVE AND GAMIFIED OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES)3) Align 24 partnership trainers and consultants, involved in two transnational mobilities to:a) acquire the methodological references of INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN to elaborate the contents of the OER to berealized by producing interactive, training video pills and GAME-BASED LEARNING to incorporate and functionalizethe dynamics and game based mechanics to be applied to learning processes exploiting game logics to create a selectiveand detailed evaluation process on specific areas of competence and determining behaviours of corporate socialsustainabilityb) implement the functional plan to guide the target SMEs to measure social impact and guide learners in its applicationin target companies during company check-ups.4) Co-elaborate and standardize methods and tools to measure and manage social impact in target SMEs to allowworkers to conduct corporate check-ups to photograph the actual with respect to the planned social innovationobjectives and trace an action plan to guide companies in redesigning the business model by orienting their objectivesand methods to B-Corp and benefit Company logics. (IO3 - SOCIAL IMPACT MEASUREMENT PLAN)

<< Background >>The project responds to the strongly felt need by EU SMEs to enter, develop and remain in international business circuits. In fact, recent surveys on the fabric of European SMEs (Global Competitiveness Report 2020) reveal the need for highly qualified human capital capable of supporting processes of:•COMPETITIVENESS to adapt to the challenges of the global market, with particular reference to typical crafts, whose competitive position has recently been questioned, despite representing a highly significant sector for the European context.•DIGITAL INTERNATIONALIZATION, i.e. entry, development and permanence in international business circuits which represents one of the most significant challenges for European SMEs. Their export quota is below 30% according to the Annual Report on EU SMEs 2018/2019 (EC, 2019). The small businesses active at international level show an occupational increase of +7% with respect to only +1% of others without international activity.The project addresses a topic of transnational relevance with a multi-actor partnership, cooperation strategy of co-elaboration of a continuous training model, of joint experimentation and adoption in European countries and of two transnational mobilities (LTTA) for trainers that cannot be realized in national or local projects making I.D.E.A. an action of European relevance able to favour the evolution of the VET training supply generating significant impacts in terms of fostering innovation in VET, and nurturing innovation capacity and competitiveness of EU and MS<< Objectives >>The I.D.E.A project, in line with the current and future developments of the labour market at transnational level and with EU policies, intends to create a transnational Strategic Partnership between VET Providers, Chambers of Commerce/Businesses Organisations to: 1.to increase the digital, international business management skills of 80 workers of small companies in Slovenia, Poland, Italy, Spain and Greece functional to define a correct and sustainable planning of digital, international company projection2.align a group of partnership trainers and consultants (16), involved in two international mobilities to acquire the logic of the crossroads-based story to represent behaviours, situations and relational dynamics typical of digital business internationalization and to implement the functional guidelines to guide, thanks to the transformational team coaching methodology, the target SMEs in the digital transformation of the commercial and marketing processes and guide the learners in their application on the field in the organizational contexts of the target companies during the company check-ups.3.co-elaborate a European, blended training supply which is innovative and in line with the needs of workers and companies to improve their development opportunities in the globalized economy4.Pilot the training course with at least 80 workers from European SMEs involved in the partnership, through:-the use of the Educational TV Programme and OERs and participation in face-to-face sessions during the e-learning course,-the holding of check-ups by learners, suitably assisted by the consultants who have participated in the mobility who, by applying the Digital Internationalization Guidelines, will collect the information and data to be analysed to guide their companies in the implementation of strategic planning efficiency paths, direction and control of the commercial development processes of the business through new digital media.In the long-term, I.D.E.A aims at fostering innovation in VET, and nurturing innovation capacity and competitiveness of EU and Member States. Major achievements will deal with the development of a sustainable, multidisciplinary and participated approach that makes knowledge transfer and links between training and business easier reducing the misalignment between the skills generated by the training systems and those required by production systems by defining training courses calibrated on the analysis of company operating needs and the development of integrated training approaches, to generate positive effects in terms of competitive development of small businesses and professional success of workers.In the medium-term, the project is addressed to strengthen the basis of a well-organized and integrated network involving diverse partners from training and business, to influence policy-making, then capable of maximising the formative efficacy of training courses in the European partnership reference contexts.<< Implementation >>The project responds to the strongly felt need by EU SMEs to enter, develop and remain in international business circuits addressing a topic of transnational relevance with a multi-actor partnership, cooperation strategy of co-elaboration of a continuous training model, of joint experimentation and adoption in EU countries and of 2 LTTA for trainers that cannot be realized in national or local projects making IDEA an action of European relevance able to favour the evolution of the VET training supply generating significant impacts in terms of fostering innovation in VET, and nurturing innovation capacity and competitiveness of EU and MS.The project includes 5 WPs (2 Traversal and 3 Technical) each WP will be led by a different project partner identified considering its experience in the specific domain. Other partners will collaborate in the implementation of WP activities.Here follows a description of the methods used to ensure a proper workflow during the entire project.WP1 Project management - Leader GZS CPU (M1-M24)The first work package will take care of all tasks needed to coordinate activities and a smooth flow of the project as well as a proper monitoring of results, information flow between partners, conflict management and quality of the produced project results.WP2 Communication and dissemination - Leader Camara de Comercio Italiana - Barcelona (M1-M24)that covers all the activities concerning the project visibility (i.e. Graphical identity, media coverage, etc.) and the diffusion of project results.WP3 Elaboration and Development PR1 (WP and PR Responsible: HAU; M1 – M6)A3.1 Desk Research (M1-M3)A3.2 Field Research (M3-M4)A3.1 will be integrated by a field analysis through the organisation of Focus Groups with workers, SME and partner training agency representativesA3.3 Learning Programme Design (M4-M6)On the basis of the findings of A3.1-3.2, the partnership experts will design the new learning program, defining the teaching methods, the criteria to select learners, the assessment methods, evaluation of the learning outcomes achieved.WP4 Design and Development IO2, IO3 (WP and IO Responsible: CONFORM; RCGE; M7 – M18)A4.1 Short-term joint staff training event (LTTA) – M6to be carried out at Conform, that will last for 5 days and will involve a group of 5 partnership trainers/experts involved in an upskilling and methodological alignment process, focusing on challenge based learning that uses the logic of crossroad storiesA4.2 Elaboration of contents and technical development of OERs (M7-M14)A4.3 Design and development of the Educational TV Programme learning environment (M10-M17)A4.4 Design of the Digital Internationalization Guidelines (M17-18)A4.5 Short-term joint staff training event (2nd LTTA) - M17to be carried out at RCGE: 5 days for 5 partnership experts/consultants involved in an upskilling and methodological alignment process, focusing on transformational coaching and digital internationalisation guidelinesWP5 PILOTING (PR1, 2, 3; WP Responsible HAU; M16-M23)These activities will be transversal to classroom trainingA5.1 Testing of the Educational TV Programme, OERs and the additional materials (M16-20)A5.2 Company check-up implementation (M19-20)by workers suitably assisted by the consultants who have participated in the 2nd LTTA who, that will apply the Digital Internationalization Guidelines (PR3).5.3 Evaluation (M16-23)with the identification of the methods to verify and evaluate all the learning process; the development of evaluation materials; the collection of results for reporting. Partners will prepare a compendium of the pilot phase carried out.<< Results >>Expected results are:1.the establishment of a stable, multi-actor network, of international excellence, of 3 EU Training body, 3 chamber system/business organisations, 3 HEIs/Research Center expression of 5 EU countries, to foster interaction and integration of company, methodological, technological and didactic expertise, functional to the strategic design of developing and maintaining among small business workers, enduring digital and international business management skills, based on a systemic vision of a technological, organizational/managerial, commercial, relational and marketing nature, functional to define a correct and sustainable strategic planning of the international digital projection of companies businesses.2.the undertaking, in response to the strongly felt need to enter, develop and remain in international business circuits by small of a cognitive analysis centered on listening to a group of key business people in small enterprise systems of Partnership reference territories, in order to assess the need for digital and international business management skills.3.the validation and diffusion of the training standard and of the teaching framework developed by the Project to favour its implementation in the framework of the partnership regional/national training supply systems (PR1 - DIGITAL AND INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS LEARNING PROGRAMME)4.digital integration in learning, favouring access to a plurality of OER (gamified interactive training videos with narrative crossroads), which can be freely used online for at least 2 years after project end, to allow a wide range of students to acquire and maintain enduring skills and valuable knowledge of international, digital and cross-cultural business management, based on a systemic vision of an organizational/managerial, commercial, relational and marketing nature, functional to defining the correct and sustainable strategic planning of the international projection of companies (PR2 - EDUCATIONAL TV PROGRAMME AND INTERACTIVE GAMIFIED VIDEO TRAINING PILLS DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT )5.the achievement by a group of partnership trainers, as a result of mobility, of a methodological alignment (i) on the logic of the crossroads-based story, to represent behaviours, situations and relational dynamics typical of digital business internationalization and digital Conversational Marketing processes, allowing learners to verify the consequences of the behaviour adopted/chosen in cross-cultural contexts in a cause/effect logic - LTTA (ii) on the transformational team coaching to implement the functional guidelines to guide the target SMEs in the digital transformation of the commercial and marketing processes and guide the learners in their application on the field in the organizational contexts of the target companies during the company check-ups (PR3 - DIGITAL INTERNATIONALIZATION GUIDELINES)6.the development and implementation of Educational TV Programme with episodes as a Learning environment to guide the beneficiaries on the new ways to promote and valorise digital internationalisation that will consist of the OER, the additional training materials as well as the interviews with stakeholders/business operators (PR2)7.the involvement of a group of at least 80 male and female workers (20SI, 20IT, 10EL, 20ES, 10PL) in the piloting phase (PR1)8.identification of the opportunities foreseen in regional, national and EU calls for the implementation and transfer of results to new contexts

The EU is a leader of global trade: in 2012, EU agriproduct exports reached a record high of 138 billion €, 7% of all EU exports (European Commission, Monitoring EU Agri-Food Trade: Development until July 2019). Agriproducts represent 10.6% of intra-EU trade with internal market value of 372 Bn € (DG Agriculture and Rural Development, Farm Economics Unit, Statistical Factsheet 2019). Agriculture and the food related industries and services together provide almost 44 million jobs in the EU. The food production and processing chain accounts for 7.5% of employment and 3.7% of total value added in the EU (DG Agriculture and Rural Development, Agri-food trade in 2018: another successful year for agri-food trade)The food and drink industry is the EU's biggest manufacturing sector in terms of jobs and value added. The above calls for the pivotal role of retailers and distributors to add value through branding and marketing high quality EU agriproducts. This requires market intermediaries able to properly operate in global markets, both as suppliers and buyers of high quality EU agriproducts.At present there is no curricula in HEI to empower such market intermediaries with the set of knowledge and competences to tackle the challenges of ever-changing global markets for agriproducts. What is currently available are curricula that focus in a compartmentalised way only on one aspect of generalised agriproducts: students either study agronomy, or law for international trade, or marketing, etc. Such “silos” approach undermines the ability of the EU to maintain its global market share and enhance efficiencies of the Internal Market through better positioning of its products.There is the need to establish innovative curricula to educate professional intermediaries to properly position on both the supply (i.e. producers/sellers) and the demand side (i.e. international buyers) EU high quality agriproducts.SMaRT will develop, test and validate and promote a 20 ECTS credit course based on a balanced mixture of classroom, e-learning, game-based learning and WBL, embedded in the current educational offer of 4 HEIs in 4 Countries, which will be promoted and maintained for at least three years after the end of funding. During the project at least 80 students (20 per country) will be directly involved in the course.Concrete results are:• the design and adoption of a new university learning curriculum, centred on international sales management in the agri-food sector, which is configured as an integrated and permanent international framework that, through the change in the methodological paradigm, allows the development of target skills, with innovative, blended, interactive, game-based, flexible and methods and forms adaptable to individual needs• digital integration in learning, favouring access to a plurality of OER, in the form of interactive video pills, which can be freely accessed online for at least two years after project end, to allow a wide audience to students to acquire and maintain technical/managerial/commercial/relational skills over time, functional to s develop processes to increase sales volumes of agri-food SMEs, through effective management of commercial processes• the adoption of a European model of interactive and game-based university teaching, capable of evolving learning methods, tools, solutions and situations to favour raising the level of managerial culture of students and valorising new talents for International Sales Management, generating new, concrete employment opportunities in the agri-food sector.• the development of game-based learning forms and opportunities favoured both by the creation of the PlaS - Play to Sale game in episodes as an interactive recreational-educational Knowledge hub, to develop and evaluate skills to manage business processes and increase volumes of sale of SMEs in the agrifood sector and through the conception and construction in the classroom of real challenges to be faced and resolved• the creation, through socialization spaces on the net, of networking opportunities, to aggregate ideas, experience, skills and job-placements• the involvement of a group of 80 students (20 per country) in testing the training course• the achievement by the partnership trainers, following the mobility, of a methodological alignment with the teaching techniques to develop instructional design and game-based skillsSMART solutions can be easily replicated in all EU countries that wish to enhance their high quality agriproducts’ visibility and competitiveness in other markets as they produce high quality agriproduct sand contribute to making the food sector the second most important manufacturing sector of the EU as a whole.