General aim of the AgriNext project is to create learning environment that responds to the skill demand on the job market in the field of Multifunctional Agriculture. In order to achieve this aim, the specific project objectives include: 1.Flexibilization of learning environments and curriculums in I-VET and C-VET, on EQF levels 3-6, in order to facilitate fast responses to job market demands 2.Teacher empowerment (continuous professional and pedagogical) for a fast response to the job market demands, 3.Established system of continuous exchange between employers, teacher/trainers/guidance service providers, in order to respond to the skills needed 4.To develop students/learners who are highly skilled, motivated, entrepreneurial and aware of the importance of C-VET and lifelong learning 5.Creating physical and virtual environment that enables: -Interaction between teachers, trainers, mentors from companies, students, and researchers; -Individualisation of the learning process; -Demonstration & try-outs of new technologies -Development of entrepreneurial activities 6.Promoting rural development & vitality by demonstrating and highlighting opportunities of Multifunctional Agriculture.7.Increasing digital competencies among students and teachersThe main expected results are: -Online training for guidance service providers for the use of new guidance service model-Online training for VET teachers for flexible learning processes-Proposals of flexibilization of VET -Green job = dream job video trailers-Established Incubators (business – education partnership) -AgriNext IT Platform for Rural Excellence Activities has been divided in to 5 implementation Work Packages:WP1–Guidance services to foster lifelong learning and development of VET skills in multifunctional agriculturalWP2–Flexibilization of school systemsWP3–Green job=dream jobWP4–Business incubator for rural excellenceWP5- AgriNext IT platform

<< Background >>According Eurostat and OECD statistics, 72% EU population lives in urban areas. Results shows constant growth of cities and population density and urban transformation especially in CEE EU countries as consequences of commercialisation and densification of inner-city areas and expansion of built-up space which devour in green areas what causes people disconnection from nature. Urban trees play an important role in the fields of climate change, social and health well-being and economy, removing air pollutants, reducing surface temperatures, mitigating wind effects, reducing storm water, providing shade, recreational and aesthetic benefits and enable social interaction and decline in use of healthcare facilities. Unfortunately urban tree mortality in EU is at a shocking level with low average lifespans 7-28 years while their rural counterparts can live up to 100 years. The reasons occur due to inadequate maintenance of urban trees and poorly provision of a properly educated workforce. Urban areas are facing skills gaps as workers often LACK BASIC KNOWLEDGE and ESSENTIAL SKILLS in the field of ARBORICULTURE which mostly relate to: -improper planting techniques and maintenance, -poor knowledge of tree species and their characteristics, -inadequate identification of diseases and pests, -physical damage due to improper pruning, -inappropriate soil treatment and watering,-insufficient removal of invasive plant species that suppress tree growth, -use of inappropriately or tight tree supports, -planting trees in too small or shallow spaces.Also, there is vast difference between the techniques and practices among professional arborists who obtain certificates mainly at the EQF level 5 and 6 EQF level 4 arborist profiles are severely lacking - trained tree workers who simply maintain trees on a daily basis. This is a case especially in project partners’ countries where students of VET programs (EQF level 4) Forestry, Gardening and Horticulture get some but not sufficient arboriculture knowledge within other school subjects. In partners’ countries, there is almost no provision of formal or non-formal programs in this field which would offer students the acquisition of competences on EQF 4 level.The European Arboricultural Council vision is to ensure healthier and longer living trees in towns, parks, gardens to beautify Europe and increase the number of more competent tree care professionals.Therefore, the project Arbor Tech addresses professional approach to described demands of urban greenery through the adequate VET program (EQF level 4) to ensure basic arboriculture knowledge, skills and competences and train the students/ participants and teachers to implement it. The VET program ‘Urban arborist’ will be developed and basic arboriculture knowledge and essential skills needed for basic urban tree maintenance will be provided to perform quality work in the field of arboriculture.<< Objectives >>Project Arbor Tech strives to ensure the urgent need for green skills as the EU strives to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. Among the professional recommendations for maintaining an urban environment, it can be seen that periodic tree care can only be performed by a professional arboricultural providers dealing with planting, pruning and other arboricultural practicesTherefore the general aim of the project is to assure professional approach to described demands of urban greenery through the adequate VET program (EQF level 4) to ensure basic arboriculture knowledge, skills and competences and train the students/participants and teachers to implement it. This will be achieved with the concrete objectives:1. Comprehensive assessment of educational needs between service providers in the field of arboriculture and sufficiency of basic contents in VET gathered in a joint report 2. Development and implementation of the new and innovative VET curriculum ‘urban arborist’ and related contents for students and its integration in open curriculum of existing formal VET programs and in non-formal education and validation through the use of ECVET reference standard and EQF framework level 4.3. Setting up an educational e-learning platform for blended learning ’urban arborist’ with interactive visual and textual learning materials to transform, complement and improve the learning process via digital way5. Setting up a dendrology laboratory as a concrete/ physical learning unit for practical learning and virtual laboratory (vDIab) which will complement in-person learning process via digital way4. Development and implementation of in-service teacher training to conduct training for ‘urban arborist’ with emphasis on inclusion of participants with fewer opportunities for which a specialized guidelines will be developed for this purpose6. Promotion of arboriculture and its importance for urban areas through further education, adult education and non-formal education and validation through the use of European references tools.<< Implementation >>In order to achieve our objectives we will apply following activities:Comprehensive assessment of educational needs between service providers in the field of arboriculture and sufficiency of basic contents in VET gathered in a joint report . This objective will be reached by the following activities:-conducting analysis based on the determined methodology-Providing data for each participating country-selection of examples of good practices of educational offers in EU in line with minimum criteria set.-collecting, comparing and summarizing of data collected;-production and design summary of findings, collected in a joint report 3.Development and implementation of the new and innovative VET curriculum ‘urban arborist’ and related contents for students and its integration in open curriculum of existing formal VET programs and in non-formal education and validation through the use of ECVET reference standard and EQF framework level 4. Activities that will help us reach this goal are:-Preparing special instructions for structuring the curriculum ‘Urban Arborist’– -Setting up (presumably) 4 modules based on R1 findings-Specifying contents for each module separately-Determination of all parts of the General part of curriculum and specific parts of the modules-Defining of the objective and contents of the theoretical and practical In-service teacher training (LTT activity) -Selecting the format of the training material for each module-Designing contents of the training modules in selected training material format-2 Pilot testing of the Curriculum with teachers on LTT activity (In-service teacher training) and with students (in formal VET and non-formal VET (employees)4. Setting up a dendrology laboratory as a concrete/ physical learning unit for practical learning and virtual laboratory (vDIab) which will complement in-person learning process via digital way. In order to reach this objective we will perform the following tasks: g.Determination the methodology of collecting, organizing and classifying of material necessary for the Dendrology lab h.Collecting physical materials in line with the determined methodology i.Photographing of the collected materials j.Positioning of the materials in the dendrology lab in an organised wayk.Preparing textual material for the vDlabl.Collecting and uploading the graphical material to vDlabThis activities also support objective 2 and 3, because they are interrelated (there cannot be good arboricultural training without basic dendrology knowledge)5. Development and implementation of in-service teacher training to conduct training for ‘urban arborist’ with emphasis on inclusion of participants with fewer opportunities for which a specialized guidelines will be developed for this purpose. - This objective will be reached through LTT activity, which will take place in the last stages of the project and will also serve as a pilot testing of the curriculum, training contents and training platform, so it will also serve reaching objectives no. 2 We will reach objective of inclusion of people with fewer opportunities (especially mild disabilities) by developing guidelines for employers, that will help them to distinguish abilities in employees, delegate the right tasks with proper adaptations.6. Promotion of arboriculture and its importance for urban areas through further education, adult education and non-formal education and validation through the use of European references tools.<< Results >>The main outcomes of the project are 6 project results: R1 – 3 National and 1 Summary report on the state of the art on VET in arboriculture in participating countries and EU. This result will give us a comprehensive overview of existing VET programmes in formal and non-formal education for arborists and will thus enable us to find gaps between the training needs (based on the experience of employers in this field) and supply in the field of arboriculture. It will also include presentation of existing good practices of arboriculture training in Europe and will also present an awareness raising toolR2 – a basis for a good arboriculture technician is recognition of wooden plants, so during this result we will set up a dendrology lab in three participating schools and we will also establish virtual dendrology lab (vDlab), that will support on spot recognition of wooden plants.R3 – based on the National & Summary Reports we will design a curriculum to obtain basic arborist knowledge, essential skills and needed competences (including transversal) . The curriculum will thusus serve as a basis for the next project result:R4 – Based on the curriculum structure and in line with EQF level 4, we will develop training contents for blended learning program: Urban arborist. The practical part of contents (formative) will be implemented face to face, while the online part of the training contents will be available on the developed:R5 – Training platform for blended learning program: Urban Arborist will be developed in line with stat-of-the art digital technologies, including different interactive apps that will enable better and versatile learning experience for the students. Part of the training platform will include also vDlab. The most powerful part of the training platform will be the fact, that the “urban arborist” will be able to have the platform in their pockets (smartphone compatible) and will be able to use it with their day to day work in arboriculture, which will enchance their learning experience even more and even after the end of the program. After the training platform will be established and training contents uploaded to the platform, we will perform two pilot tests: -among teachers in the form of joint staff training event (LTT activity) for 12 participants (teaching staff).- among students (including secondary VET students and employees in relevant companies dealing with aroboriculture) – 45 participantsBesides pilot testing of the curriculum, contents and the platform, the LTT will also serve as an in-service teacher training with objective to train and empower teachers to be able to carry out VET program ‘Urban Arborist’ for studentsR6 – At the final stage of the project, we will prepare Guidelines for employers for inclusion of people with mild disabilities in arboriculture. In this result we will present how to include people with different disabilities in task related to arboriculture according to their abilities, and demonstrate how to make necessary adaptations in order for them to perform those tasks as effective as possible. WIth this result, we would like to increase inclusion of people with disabilties on the workplaces, because we also educate these students and we know they are capable of proper employment.Besides those 6 results, we will also have other results related to other work packages Management, Monitoring and Evaluation and Dissemination and Exploitation-Management&administrative guidelines-4 transnational project meetings and 4 virtual ones-established project management platformWP Monitoring and evaluation:-established Monitoring and evaluation committee-Project risk analysis-5 financial reports -2 general evaluation reports +-14 specific evaluation reportsWP Dissemination and exploitation:-project graphic design-project sub webpage on PPs’ websites-profiles on social media-mailing lists-4 Newsletters-advertisement on informative channels-informative project brochure

Europe and the whole world suffer from unemployment problems and it is met mostly by low-skilled adults having a problem of integration into the labor market. Now, when our world is improving very fast, basic skills such as writing, reading, use of computer and calculations are the priority. However, a lot of adults have big gaps in these competencies and cannot move on, integrate into society and labor markets. In general, MENNET increased the participation of low-skilled adults and adults with fewer opportunities in lifelong learning and improved their skills which help to integrate into society better and easier. Also, the created results helped people to easily gain knowledge and fill in the gaps they had by evaluating their knowledge and learning things they do not know with mentor support which prevented dropouts from the courses. The main objectives of the project, which were completely achieved were these: 1. evaluate the level of low skilled adults and adults with fewer opportunities competencies for writing, reading, calculations, and use of computer; 2. encourage the continuing development of low-skilled adults and adults with fewer opportunities by using the innovative education models; by creating training programs with sub-modules 3. create a mentoring platform for competencies improvement The consortium of the project, in order to achieve these objectives, was selected very carefully and in full understatement about their capability to be involved:1. CPIP is a Romanian s committed to mainstreaming the principle of equal opportunities for all citizens in the public policies and associated practices, as an integral part of democratization and the creation of an open society, to re-define the status of community co-production in all areas related to lifelong learning. 2. LSMCVA represents 23 formal adult education institutions leaders of Lithuania. The Association brings together Lithuanian adult education centers where formal and non – formal adult education takes place.3. OnProjects is a project managing consulting enterprise. They are focusing on advising enterprises, associations, public bodies, and other entities in managing, monitoring, and evaluating public-funded projects, planning activities, and implementing IO for the mentioned target groups. OnProjects are very experienced in project evaluation and lead all the activities related to QA.4. FuN holds specific expertise in the distance, flexible and online education for adults, including digital learning resources. We focus on developing new pedagogies and learning methods, also focusing on collaboration in online technologies. FuN gives high priority to quality assurance in online education.5. ZIPc was established by an active team of professionals, who have been working in the field of the labor market, adults, and vocational education quality research in Lithuania. They seek to combine labor market demand and VET sector supply, by working with VET schools and private companies in the Kaunas region, as well as are seeking to implement innovative training methods and learning technologies in the VET sector and work with adult education. Target groups: low-skilled adults and adults with fewer opportunities. It was people who are not employed and not at any educational level and those, who have just compulsory education and have a big gap. Totally 513 participants benefitted from the project. Impact on the participants: 277 people directly increased their competence in the foreign language and developed digital, numeracy, literacy, and calculation competencies by participating in O1, O2, and O3 activities. They have gained new knowledge on new learning approaches dealing with their personal and professional development. All partners worked with different groups of learners like disadvantaged groups, they have shared best practices and gained new knowledge and experience. The impact on participants has been measured by asking them to do pre-testing and do the post-testing after the training program. Results revealed that the participants increased their knowledge up to 80% after the training program. This project complemented to reducing social exclusion and disparities in learning outcomes of disadvantaged learners, enrolling them into active lifelong learning activities.

Currently, Europe experiences the by far most extensive wave of migration since the aftermath of the Second World War. According to the latest data available (EUROSTAT, May 2016) a total of 3.8 million people immigrated to one of the EU-28 Member States during 2015, while at least 2.8 million emigrants were reported to have left an EU Member State. On 1 January 2015, the number of people living in the EU-28 who were citizens of non-member countries was 19.8 million while the number of people living in the EU-28 who had been born outside of the EU was 34.3 million.For instance, for Germany alone, the newly arriving migrants and refugees in 2015 exceeded 1 million people and the number of asylum applicants per million inhabitants is nearly 3.000. The total number of arrivals to Europe by the end of December 2016 has been recorded as 387.739. Even though the numbers of arrivals have decreased in 2016, we still have to seek permanent solutions to support and facilitate migrants’ and refugees’ integration. In 2015, 40.2% of the non-EU-born population in the EU was assessed to be at risk of poverty or social exclusion (AROPE) compared with 21.7% of the native-born population. The integration would allow migrants and refugees to become economically productive and it would lead to self-reliance, dignity and social interaction.Socially integrated migrants may represent a resource for the whole society and especially for the labour market of the receiving countries: migrants may be part of the solution to the challenge of ageing and decrease of the European working population.In this context a fundamental part of the integration process is the professional development of migrants. Career guidance is proven to provide migrant workers with better information, increased self-awareness, self-confidence, motivation and autonomy, increased enrolment in C-VET and general education, higher rates of completion of learning and better understanding of the receiving country’s society and culture (CEDEFOP, 2015). Intercultural urban gardens have proven to be the perfect context for social integration: they gather natives and immigrants who work the soil together creating a field of learning and change that goes far beyond planting and harvesting garden produce. UGAIN provide a comprehensive training system that allow promoters of urban gardens initiatives, both ongoing and not yet started, to convert the urban garden in a meeting point for social integration and guidance of migrants.The primary target group of the project are NGOs, associations, municipalities, local governments involved in, or planning, an urban garden activity. The training materials and resources we have developed are aimed at training trainers/advisors belonging to such organisations.In this way, we want to make them able to provide refugees and migrants (especially the low-skilled and low-qualified ones) the basic training and guidance they need for social and labour integration.The main objectives of the project were: - To foster the use of urban garden initiatives as a meeting point for social integration and guidance of migrants; - To share good practices in this domain; - To provide a common ground for interaction between migrants and the local population thus improving the understanding of the receiving country’s society and culture and fostering an intercultural exchange; - To improve the employability of migrants and their possibility to access the labour market and the social services of the receiving country thus making possible an effective social integration.The main project product, which development followed the OER approach, is a web-based Training App compatible both with desktop and mobile devices. The main elements of the training app are: - A Summary Report about urban gardens for social integration and guidance of migrants; - 16 case studies gathering best practices related to social integration activities in a urban garden context; - Training modules providing the knowledge needed to turn an urban garden into a meeting point for social integration and 5 country information guides for career guidance and access to public services.The training materials (in English, German, Spanish and Swedish) are available free of charges on the project training platform and are also uploaded on the EPALE resource centre.The project partners are:TUM (DE): A University participating with the Chair Economics of Horticulture and Landscaping.SAEG (DE): The leading German networking platform and research foundation for Intercultural Community Gardens.OnP (ES): A project managing and project evaluation consulting enterprise.ACA (ES): An NGO which mission is the welcome and social integration of migrants.VGP (AT): An association promoting the idea of intercultural community gardens.FU (SE): An adult education provider.SF&G (UK): A federation of city farms and community gardens.

Recent demographic decline affects unevenly different population settlements across Europe: rural areas face high rates of depopulation, while urban areas experience higher population concentrations. Spain leads rural depopulation in Europe, with only a 25.7% of its population living in rural areas (Eurostat: 2017).The high rate of depopulation in rural areas also poses an important social challenge due to the related high risk of exclusion and poverty. In 2015, 25.5% of the rural population was at risk of poverty or social exclusion, while in cities it was 24%. The risk of social exclusion in rural areas affect the 27.1% of the population, while in the cities, the 24.3% (Eurostat: 2017). People living in rural areas tend to drop out of education and training earlier. In fact, according to Eurostat, the rate of young people aged 18-24 living in rural areas of the EU who neither study nor work is 3.7 points higher than people living in cities of the same age group.Given the cultural and natural richness of rural areas, heritage can definitely represent an alternative source of development for these territories.Ecomuseums work as shared processes of recognition, management and protection of cultural and natural heritage, aimed at promoting sustainable development. Ecomuseums are organised by its communities in an associated and cooperative way based on four main areas: economic, social, environmental and scientific-technological. Ecomuseums are able to generate incomes from culture, knowledge and services.EcoHeritage primary target group are rural communities, especially adult population, as well as ecomuseums in Europe. The secondary target group addressed are municipalities and local governments, cultural institutions, heritage research institutions and adult education providers. EcoHeritage will address these groups with the overall objective of contributing to the awareness and consolidation of ecomuseums as a model of sustainable and collaborative heritage management for the development of economic growth and social cohesion among rural communities in the consortium countries.The specific objectives of our project are:-To raise awareness about ecomuseums as a collaborative heritage management model, establishing a set of criteria for its recognition and a common methodology to improve its contribution to social, economic, environmental and heritage sustainability of rural areas.-To provide skills to adult learners in rural areas through the creation of innovative training materials on active citizenship promotion and participatory heritage management.-To generate steady communication networks between ecomuseums at national and European level thus fostering knowledge and good practices exchange that will contribute to the sustainability of consolidated and new coming ecomuseums.- To foster the creation of ecomuseums as an endogenous resource for competitiveness and social, economic and environmental sustainability of rural areas.To reach these objectives the following outputs will be developed:IO1 - Ecomuseums, social museums and other practices of collaborative management of cultural heritage: a report.IO2 - Ecomuseums Best Practices Manual.IO3 - Participatory heritage management toolkit and OERs.IO4 - Ecomuseums online network and web-based training app.The project consortium is made by the following partners:UJA (ES) is a university coordinating a Centre of International Excellence on Heritage (CEI Patrimonio), gathering 10 Andalusian public universities.OnP (ES) is a consulting enterprise specialised in project managing, monitoring and evaluation.The UAH (ES) is a university represented in the project by the Department of History and Philosophy where a specific line of research has been developed to study the evolution of social museology in Spain.MINOM-ICOM (PT) is an international network working on community museums, ecomuseums, museology institutes, groups focused on the organization of local cultural activities, cultural management and mediation, and grassroots cultural institutions.UL (PT) was the first university in Portugal to ensure specific teaching of museology at the masters and doctoral levels.UNIMIB (IT) is a university that has been working for years on the concept of community and sustainable local projects as a tool for the development of marginal rural territories.Parabiago (IT) is a municipality managing the Ecomuseo di Parabiago and participating in the steering committee of the Lombardy ecomuseums network and the international platform DROPS for ecomuseums and community museums.MiLA (PL) is a foundation that has disseminated the concept of ecomuseum in Poland, developing an original methodology for creating ecomuseums and supporting the development of several ecomuseums.