ICT is among the leading sectors in Europe making an increasingly important contribution to the economic growth and jobs creation in advanced economies. According to the UK Commission for Employment & Skills Report “ICT: Sector Skills Assessment 2012”:“Technological change is at the heart of changing skills demand in the Information and communication technologies sector. The sector itself both drives technological change and, on a wider scale, has to respond to the new innovations, products and services developed in order to deliver high quality goods and services to both business customers and consumers.” (Gends et al, 2011)”. In order to adequately respond to the dynamic changes and challenges posed by environment, ICT companies must promote human talent so as to nurture not just the best technical skills but also the creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship necessary to create and adopt to innovation and thus to grow ICT businesses and make them more competitive.To respond the new challenges, INNOSPARK project sets the overall aim to spark creativity thinking skills in ICT SMEs, so as to foster innovation and contribute to increasing the growth and competitiveness of European high-tech industries.Specific objectives:~to provide employers and employees in European ICT SMEs with reliable tool to assess their level of creativity skills and identify areas for improvement;~to enhance the competitiveness and the innovation capacity of ICT SMEs in the EU through practical training tailored to their needs;~to increase the awareness of European ICT SMEs and VET community about the importance of creativity thinking as a catalyst of innovation processes through provision of state-of-the-art country analysis;~to inspire ICT SMEs to learn from the successful experience of peer companies which have faced similar sectoral challenges but thrived on knowledge, skills, innovation and creativity.The project has aimed at two major target groups – ICT micro, small and medium sized enterprises and continuing VET providers. SMEs are the true pillar of the European economy as ICT companies represent a highly significant part of them. VET providers, on the other hand, are one of the main and logical providers of labour force training required to enhance the competitiveness of nation’s businesses and industries. The project methodology envisages sequence of activities to design, plan and implement project objectives with the active participation of all partners and stakeholders, as a result of which four intellectual outputs have been developed within the project lifetime:1) State-of-the-art report providing an up-to-date and comprehensive overview of the ICT innovation capacity and creative performance in the partner countries;2) Self-Diagnostic Test - an interactive self-assessment tool for ICT employees and employers to discover the creativity skills they possess especially with regard to the ICT sector identifying at the same time those that they need to develop and boost so as to foster innovation in their work. 3) INNOSPARK Toolkit: Guidebook for Developing Creative Thinking and Innovation in ICT through interactive exercises focused on brain training and improving creativity skills with the purpose of learning practical techniques to stimulate one’s imagination and innovative thinking. The Toolkit will also contain A to Z of Creativity and Innovation techniques and tools for creative thinking.4) Compendium of Best Practices and Innovation containing good proven, effective and evidence-based examples of innovations in the ICT sector reached through creativity thinking techniques. The booklet will serve as a valuable reference tool of the INNOSPARK project for ICT managers and employees seeking to implement successful practices in their professional life.INNOSPARK products are freely accessible through the project website available in the six consortium languages (EN, BG, IT, ES, EE, HU).In order to ensure visibility of the results and encourage wider uptake of the products a series of multiplier events have been held in each partner country:1) Professional Development Workshops to popularize the project to relevant stakeholders and explore the functionalities and content of the developed INNOSPARK products.2) “Sparking Innovation” – national promotional events to disseminate information on the project and its outcomes among ICT SMEs, ICT associations, VET providers in the field of ICT and other stakeholders.3) INNOSPARK Final Conference in UK aiming to spread information to a wider audience about the project and its results, providing networking opportunities for many multiplier agents so as to establish the grounds for further exploitation of the project outputs and follow-up activities.INNOSPARK project has result in attracting new talents, training European citizens with the relevant creativity skills need in ICT sector, and as a consequence fuelling innovation, productivity and growth in the EU.

Climate change and environmental destruction are a threat to Europe and the world. Circular Economy (CE) has been identified as one of the key priorities that requires attention and actions for all organisations, regardless their size. In comparison to larger corporations, SMEs have smaller capacity and less availability of knowledge and financial resources. This makes it more difficult for them to change their operations, product design, or the sourcing of raw materials. Consequently, since SMEs & micro-enterprises represent the dominant form of business organization in Europe (around 99%), the transition to a green economy without their participation could hardly be achieved.The REFRAME project will create a CE Transition Framework specifically for small and medium businesses in construction, manufacturing and crafts industry, to help them become friendlier to the environment. It will provide the EU construction & manufacturing SMEs and micro-enterprises’ employees and future employees with practical knowledge on implementing CE transition in their business. A ‘sizable, growing and active’ REFRAME on-line community will be created, with main objective the Up-to-date insight in Circular Economy, the exchange of know-how and good practices among the participants and the successful implementation of a CE transition for all SMEs and mixro-enterprises.Under the REFRAME, there will be developed:1) an Interactive Self-Rate Tool (IO1) for effectively assessing the current status of a company in relation to Circular Economy (CE) principles and strategies.2) a Circular Economy Course (IO2) that it will provide a curriculum adopted to the needs of construction and manufacturing SMEs and micro-enterprises3) an Implementation Framework (IO3) that will provide a systematic methodology for the target groups to implement a successful and advantageous CE transition4) the REFRAME iLearn Tool (IO4), which will be an Open Educational Resource and will include all the above.The target-groups of the project are divided into main and secondary.Main target-groups:1) Construction, crafts and manufacturing SMEs’ owners/managers/personnel with up to 100 employees & micro-enterprises2) (future) employees of manufacturing SMEs (Unskilled, Adept, Skilled)3) VET centres/trainers/consultants4) experts that support companies with CE processes (internally or externally)Other target-groups (secondary):manufacturing SMEs associations, university/college students, municipalities and cities The target groups and the participants will be involved at every stage of the project implementation in order to assure that their needs are always adequately and fully addressed, since they will benefit directly from the project outcomes.The REFRAME partnership is composed by 6 partners from 5 EU countries, Greece, Cyprus, Portugal, Bulgaria and Hungary. They will all give an added value to the transfer of the project's products, thanks to their experience in Circular Economy, the Environment protection, in training sector, in digital technologies and in international cooperation.

CONTEXTThe globalisation, the high degree of interconnectivity and new technological advances have forced many SMEs to reinvent not only their products and services, but also their business and organisational models, in view of staying competitive in a fast-paced economy. Considering this FLOURISH project seeks to address:+The challenge of the EU and its Member States to adopt a much more strategic approach to innovation.+The challenge of the fragmented and insufficiently innovation-friendly EU market.+The demand for innovation exposes a critical gap: a lack of innovation skills, knowledge and training across most organizations. Given that the majority of European SMEs are involved in global value chains, constant innovation and efficiency are a must to ensure competitiveness in a global context.AIM & OBJECTIVESThe general aim of the FLOURISH project is to support the uptake of organisational innovation by SMEs across Europe through the development, piloting and implementation of a holistic innovation coaching methodology using a multilevel approach - individual, group and organization.This aim will be achieved through the accomplishment of several specific objectives:1. To create the professional profile of Organisational Innovation Coach for SMEs2. To develop a holistic training course for Organisational Innovation Coaches based on APGICO'S participative innovation model and Creative Problem-Solving protocol3. To create an effective refresher training tool for Innovation Coaches4. To create a solid foundation for ensuring the usability of the course for a wider VET audience5. To increase the awareness of EU business and VET community about the importance of organizational innovation and create the necessary supporting culture for that6. To provide EU SMEs with open educational resources in the field of organizational innovationACTIVITIES & RESULTSThe project partnership developed 4 Intellectual Outputs:O1: Organisational Innovation Coach for SME - Professional ProfileDescribes the importance of coaching for the development of innovation at SMEs, determines who the innovation coach is, defines the tasks and responsibilities of the innovation coach and the respective knowledge, skills and competences an innovation coach should have.O2: FLOURISH Curriculum, Course and Manual for learnersThe Curriculum describes in detail the overall course design for training of Organisational Innovation Coaches for SMEs, including training sessions, session objectives and intended learning outcomes, class layout, procedures and timings. The Manual for Learners details the content of each module, proposing activities and structuring ways of knowledge evaluation.O3: FLOURISH Educational VideoThe Video serves the purpose of refresher training, aimed at recalling and reinforcing the knowledge and skills acquired during the FLOURISH training course.O4: FLOURISH Guide for VET providers and Compendium of Good Practices The Guide is a focused methodological document aimed at supporting VET providers in the process of using the innovative training content developed under the FLOURISH project as part of the training services offered.The Compendium of Good Practices presents 23 good and proven examples for organisational innovation in SMEs of various industries, sizes and age, which can be used as a source of inspiration for SMEs and as examples during the FLOURISH training.NUMBER & PROFILE OF PARTICIPANTSFLOURISH is targeted at: SMEs top and middle managers, employees, innovation consultants, training and VET providers, people responsible for innovation or HR management, and business-related young graduates.For the development of IO1 in-depth interviews with 28 matter experts from the five partner countries were conducted. During the pilot courses of IO2 representatives from 86 SMEs and VET providers were trained. IO3 was screened by 38 experts. IO4 was reviewed by 22 VET providers.A joint-staff training event “Organisational Innovation Transfer Workshop” with 16 participants took place in December 2018 in Kaunas.Partners conducted 7 multiplier events (2 online and 4 F2F), reaching 379 stakeholders.IMPACT & LONGER TERM BENEFITSLocal and regional impact: Following the FLOURISH methodology SMEs will be able to introduce new forms of work organisation, ensure stronger employee participation in innovation processes, advance the managerial techniques and draw lessons to build on in their continuous improvement.National impact: Partner countries will benefit from raising the number of SMEs adopting organisational innovation and producing products with a higher added value. FLOURISH open-access training content will be an easy way for VET providers at national level to modernize their programmes without investing additional funds.European impact: The FLOURISH outputs are widely applicable, available in 6 languages (IO3 in 13) and can be further developed beyond the countries involved in the project.

In the Vocational Education and Training and Adult education sectors, initiatives supporting the Europeanisation and internationalisation of the stakeholders remain rare. In 2009, the European Commission envisioned education and training systems and institutions to become “more European and international” (COM(2009) 329 final). The Erasmus+ programme 2014-2020 sustains this vision through the support to projects whose goals are to “increase the capacity and professionalism of education and training institutions to work at EU/international level, and to improve the management competences and internationalisation strategies”.In this context, the project “Europeanisation” has been initiated to create an online self-assessment tool that helps education and training organisations “find out how well prepared they are for working internationally”. This tool is freely available here: www.europeanisation.eu. This tool has for objective to help educational organisations identify and remove the obstacles preventing their institutions from successful work at the EU/international level. We indeed observed in the past that educational organisations were often unable to gauge their fitness or “institutional readiness” to work at this level. In the absence of evaluation tools, many organisations overestimated and some underestimated their organisational capacities. The tool is therefore an eye-opener. Managers and other teaching and non-teaching staff members can freely and confidentially assess their organisation with regards to 7 capacity areas: (1) Mission, Vision, Culture, (2) Strategy and Management, (3) Human Resources, (4) Project Management, (5) Financial Capacity, (6) External Communication, (7) European Dimension. In these 7 capacity areas, the user navigates through 42 issues within which s/he discovers 4 situation descriptions per issue and is invited to select the description which reflects the best his/her organisation. Depending on the answers, the user finally gets an assessment report describing the readiness of the organisation to work at the EU/international level. The assessment report includes concrete recommendations of actions in the short- and long-term. Some “success stories” of internationalised organisations and tips from practitioners complete the tool. In the academic and practitioner fields, this kind of tool is usually called “Organisational Capacity Assessment Tool” (OCAT). This tool is the first European OCAT specifically targeting education institutions with the goal to assess their international capacity. The approach of the tool is not to create a hierarchy between organisations. Users do not have to reach the top level to be successful at the EU/international level. The approach is to encourage an internal improvement process for all users, precisely in the organisational capacities considered more decisive in their internationalisation process. Consequently, the tool not only is a diagnosis tool but also a learning tool. It has for overall objective to contribute to the organisational development of the education institutions using it.The tool has been elaborated for the VET and Adult education sectors. But the other education sectors can benefit from it. The tool is equally valid to organisations having no international experience and to the ones already implementing European/international activities. It can for example help applicants for Erasmus+ KA1 mobility projects in their preparation of “Internationalisation Strategies” as well as KA2 applicants in preparation of their Strategic Partnerships. But the tool is also perfectly applicable outside the context of Erasmus+ as a tutor for Europeanisation/Internationalisation. The tool is totally free of charge, compatible with any device including smartphones and tablets, and available in English, Bulgarian, Croatian, German, Greek and Hungarian. The first users of the tool have reported that the tool is “forward-looking” and “inspiring”. The impact created is that the tool “makes you think of topics you take for granted”, is “a productive way to think about their institutions” and is “useful to improve European strategies”. The expected long-term benefit for these organisations is to make their Europeanisation/internationalisation strategies more efficient and more durable, and consequently raise their overall performance.The tool has been developed by a European partnership of 7 organisations of various educational sectors and with expertise in Europeanisation strategies or organisational development: emcra GmbH (Germany, Lead Partner), the EU-Fundraising Association (Germany), the European Center for Quality (Bulgaria), the Institute for Postgraduate Studies at the University for National and World Economy (Bulgaria), the Cyprus Project Management Society (Cyprus), the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Csongrád County (Hungary) and the German Association-Organisation of the Danube Swabians (Croatia).

As declared by the Eu Commission “An agenda for new skills and jobs”, the promotion of entrepreneurship, self-employment, and innovation “can offer a source of innovative solutions to respond to social demands in a participative process, providing specific employment opportunities for those furthest away from the labor market”. According to the European Association for the Education of Adults (EAEA) manifesto, Adult Education needs to be clearly framed within an overall lifelong learning strategy that considers and gives equal importance to all sectors and all forms of learning (formal, non-formal and informal):• Adult education is a common and public good and transforms lives and societies. • Participation of all learners and especially those with low basic skills is encouraged.• Empowering non-formal methods and methodologies apply the creativity, existing knowledge and skills of learners and provide inspiring learning experiences.• Professional trainers, Trainers and staff are necessary for applying the appropriate methods and achieving high-quality provision and a successful learner experience.• Capacity-building and innovation in adult education.• Cooperation (regional, European, global, and institutional) is crucial for the visibility of adult education but also for peer-learning and innovation transfer.The Sound of Business project contributed to promote this strategy reaching the following objectives: •Provided N. 114 adult learners/trainers with practical tools leading to an innovate method of training related to basic and transversal skills, innovative managerial competencies, and entrepreneurial spirit.•Contributed to use and promote a non-formal approach based on art and music during 1 Short-term joint staff training course, 6 National Multiplier events, 6 national piloting trainings, and a very efficient transnational dissemination campaign.Involved TGs:- N. 23 trainers/coaches for adults (plus 1 participant who left the training after two days for personal reasons) equipped with knowledge, skills and innovative tools that blend the Project Cycle Management methodology with business development and rock music.- N.118 (51 participants in the focus groups + 67 agreements with stakeholders) involved in the initial analysis and needs assessment. - N. 91 business coaches, adult learners, business development experts, members of the Enterprise Europe Network, training departments of business development institutions acquired professional competence, practical and analytical skills required for business development.- N. 345 professionals especially interested in non-formal education, CYCLE management, business, and entrepreneurship, as well as music careers, reached and involved in 6 National Multiplier Events and trained about the Sound of Business methodologies.- 133 aspiring trainers requested for certification of competences.IOs and Project activitiesDue to the COVID pandemic the work plan was changed, and the project was extended till 31.12.20 with official approval of the Slovak NA. All the planned activities were implemented as projected within the changed work plan.IO1- 1 The Sound of Business Manual translated in 6 languages.IO2- 1 Online Platform available in 6 languagesIO3- 1 Learning Documentary available in 9 languagesIO4- 1 Protocol of certification od Competences and 1 Promotion Strategy of the protocolResults and impact attained; PROJECT MANAGEMENTa) Quantitative - Project meetings, both transnational partner meetings and online meetings: 44 Participants b) Qualitative - 93 % positive feedback received on effectiveness of project meetings provided by partners through internal survey following each project meeting- all partners expressed satisfaction with the decisions taken and cooperation with the other countries’ partners during the first TPM.-8 internal evaluation surveys including 4 meetings evaluations, 2 process evaluations and 2 (interim and final) quality management reports.QUALITY MANAGEMENT a) Quantitative -93% positive feedback on project management and coordination, provided by the project partners through internal survey in the middle (M14) and at the end of the project (M27).DISSEMINATIONa) Quantitative- Dissemination channels 17- Publications in printed and web-based media:15 publications (1 article in print media, 1 article in a digital issue of a monthly newspaper, 13 web-based articles)37 publications in total174 FB followers: Website visitors: 4198Indirect involvement: 694 215 141 page hits of the learning documentary266 users of training tools through the learning platformReferences to the training in other training resources -1+7 cross linked projectsb) Qualitative-96.83%of positive feedback on MEs in partner countries.Longer-term benefits.10 Educational institutions using parts of the developed teaching material 2 Adults starting the process to create their own business.