In Apeldoorn, housing corporations, researchers, and designers are joining forces to make neighborhoods more future-proof, livable, and resilient. Using data at both neighborhood and housing complex levels, they are developing Neighborhood Plans that combine social and spatial interventions. Through close collaboration with local partners, a well-founded and practical approach is emerging that enables municipalities and organizations to better respond to residents needs. The ultimate goal of this project is to develop a “data compass”: a methodology that supports stakeholders in making joint, data-driven decisions to strengthen neighborhoods.

"<< Background >>Virtual or blended mobility, or virtual exchange cooperations, need to be promoted within universities, academic faculty members need to be trained, infrastructure like digital platforms need to be fit for the cooperation of two or more partners. The fact that we focus on virtual forms of cooperation is based on the intention to make our cooperation both more inclusive and greener in the sense that we want to offer our students international experiences that take into account the need to make our lifestyles more sustainable. Environmental impact, climate change and pollution of our environment make no halt at national borders. This is why collaborating with international partners in this field is of the utmost importance.We focus on Education for Sustainable Development. All lectures and seminars we wish to introduce in form of a curriculum that is being developed will address issues connected with ESD. The target audience will be students of teacher education (TE), as all the partner institutions are specialised in teacher training. We include TE for primary and secondary education in this project. It is our belief that the target group of future teachers is the perfect group of multipliers for the important task of spreading the idea of a more sustainable and environment-friendly way of life. As we see the task of universities in the 21st century in combining teaching and research not only with the transfer of knowledge, but also with the renewal of our society, we consider our students as change agents. With our project we hope to contribute towards achieving the SDGs. But not only the ESD content, also the application of sustainable intercultural collaboration will be transported by our students to their future school classes: their experience of Virtual Exchange will be the basis for their own implementation of VE in schools. At some of our partners, seminars on ESD are already part of the curriculum or at least part of the offer made to students. At PUK, however, ESD is not at all part of teacher education programmes. This is why we decided to collaborate and to open the existing classes at the other partners to students of PUK. In order to do so, we need to change the teaching format: Teaching will have to be done virtually, and the classes will have to be delivered in English. Despite the fact that our faculty is familiar with online teaching, the format of Virtual Exchange is still new to most. This is why we will develop a staff training framework, addressing both the general aspects of design and implementation of Virtual Exchange in our context of ESD, but also adding a new component of how to mentor students in a virtual environment, enabling them to open up for the intercultural experience and for behavioral change, developing the attitude of a teacher as change agent. Having in mind that intercultural exchange does not always lead to intercultural learning and growth – not even by going for a semester abroad –, we will develop a systematic material collection for pre-trained faculty on virtual intercultural mentoring with a focus on our ""green"" context. Opening classes for virtual mobility also brings up the question of recognition. The development towards virtual mobility is not well represented in previous recognition processes at HEIs. There is currently no possibility of enrolling or recognising virtual mobilities. This needs to be addressed in the project, and put into relation to the Erasmus without paper (EWP) process that is about to start this year and to which we all committed ourselves. Lastly, as we realise the need for certified professional development of in-service teachers, we decided to provide micro credentials as a way of certifying the participation of in-service teachers in our ESD curriculum, strengthening the role of our institutions in lifelong learning.<< Objectives >>The goal of the partner organisations is to strengthen their cooperation through this project by introducing virtual forms of collaboration, in order to make internationalisation both more inclusive and more eco-friendly. The structures for this closer, yet ""green"" cooperation are to be set up by NETT DEVISE.In order to do so, we commonly develop a curriculum around Education for Sustainable Development for our students of teacher education. We involve our teaching faculty in this, create new courses (Virtual Exchange cooperations) and train the faculty members to better be able to design and implement those. Having more virtual offers and more offers taught in English is one of the objectives that all partners have. Another important goal is to strengthen the digital skills of both teaching faculty and students of TE, as well as in-service teachers. The current situation made it way too clear that a lot has to be done in this field - especially in Germany, where the digitalisation of schools has so far not been a political priority. Our students will be assigned tasks of virtual cooperation, and working on these tasks will help them to develop digital literacy.As the project takes a structural approach to introduce sustainable internationalisation in teacher education, the international offices of all partner institutions are involved as central coordinators in the administration of the project. These units have been chosen because we all want to build structures that facilitate and upscale virtual cooperation in the future, and secure the quality of Virtual Exchange for students. As the project also includes numerous activities relating to administrative procedures, further administrative staff will be involved (e.g. the responsibles for Campus Management Systems, E-Learning etc.), thus spreading internationalisation measures within our institutions.<< Implementation >>The overreaching subject of our cooperation is Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). With this in mind, we are planning on implementing the following activities:- Virtual and blended mobility offers, including two Learning, Teaching and Training Activities (LTTAs), as well as Virtual Exchange experiences in order to make international experiences more inclusive and facilitate the access and participation of target groups with fewer opportunities. All teaching activity has a focus on ESD. - A Virtual Exchange training programme for academic faculty, developed on individual needs and according to the objectives of all partner universities (we will develop a framework).- The development of a mentoring programme for students participating in the Virtual Exchanges (we will develop a tool kit for faculty).- An evaluation of the new forms of cooperation with focus on the achievment of intercultural competence.We are planning to use different digital tools and online platforms, for example Moodle and eTwinning, to further develop digital skills and competences of both students and staff.<< Results >>We plan to realise six project results and two LTTAs within NETT DEVISE. PR1: This project result consists of the development of a curriculum on ESD for students of teacher education and for in-service teachers. All partner universities will offer courses taught both in English and virtually for participation of the students and associated teachers of the project partners. Responsible project leaders are PUK and VIAA. PR2: Means to accredit the ECTS, full recognition of participation in virtual mobility, virtual exchange cooperations and blended mobility. PR leaders: LUE and PHFR. There are strong links to PR 1, PR 3 and to PR 4.PR3: Green intercultural mentoring programme/tool kit to intensify the experience for students. Leading institutions: PHFR, HAN and LUE. There is a link to PR 4.PR 4: Training programme/framework for academic teachers for designing and implementing class-to-class Virtual Exchange (and introduction of Virtual Exchange cooperations amongst the partner institutions). PR leaders: PHFR and PUK. This PR is linked to PR 3.PR5: Evaluation of intercultural competencies earned in the different mobility programmes – physical, virtual mobility, blended mobility, virtual exchange cooperations. PR leaders: VIAA and HAN. Links exist to PRs 1 and 4 as well as to the Learning, Teaching and Training Activities. PR6: Creation of a micro-credential for the participation in the curriculum created by PR 1. Project leaders: PHFR and LUE."

Hydrogen is a promising clean energy source, but producing it using renewable energy like wind and solar presents challenges. This research focuses on improving electrolysis processes (PEM and AEM) to make hydrogen production more efficient and cost-effective, even with fluctuating energy supply. By developing smart control strategies and enhanced technologies, we aim to reduce wear and lower costs. This contributes to an affordable and sustainable energy transition while ensuring that new knowledge is directly applied in both industry and education programs.

COMBINE staat voor: COmmunity driven Model Based INtelligent systems Engineering. Voorgaande RAAK-mkb projecten Fast&Curious en SMARTcode resulteerden een community van bedrijven en kennisinstellingen rondom HAN tools voor modelgebaseerde ontwikkeling van regelsystemen. De aanvankelijke focus lag hierbij op de prototype fase. Intussen is de focus verschoven naar serieproductie. Er is veel waardering voor de deling van preconcurrentiële kennis en ervaring in de community en de marktgedreven ontwikkeling van de tools, aangestuurd door de community. Diverse vakbladen deden hiervan verslag. De HAN tools richten zich tot op heden op het modelleren van regelalgoritmes. Nu de voordelen van deze technologie door de MKB partners worden herkend en ingezet, ontstaat de wens om vergelijkbare ondersteuning te introduceren voor het modelleren van het te regelen systeem. Een dergelijke aanvulling op de tools completeert de ondersteuning voor een volledige, modelgebaseerde workflow. Dit resulteert in een centrale MKB vraag naar de benodigde kennis en de tools om systeemmodellen snel, goedkoop en met de vereiste kwaliteit te kunnen realiseren en vervolgens optimaal te integreren in het ontwikkelproces. Naast de gewenste uitbreiding van de tools ontstaat er ook vanuit de Agri & Food sector een toenemende vraag naar de in de community beschikbare tools en de gehanteerde samenwerkingsvorm. COMBINE beoogt daarom twee doelen: 1. Het combineren van de sectoren High Tech Systemen & Materialen en Agri & Food op het gebied van modelgebaseerd ontwikkelen 2. Het combineren van nieuwe modelgebaseerde technieken op het gebied van systeemmodellering met bestaande low-cost tools Met de deliverables van COMBINE – tools, ontwikkelproces en preconcurrentiële samenwerking – worden bestaande oplossingen voor het MKB verrijkt op het gebied van systeemmodellen en direct gedeeld in een groeiende community die een breder applicatiegebied bestrijkt.

The Erasmus + KA2 project “X-factors” was initiated and conducted as a ‘strategic partnership for the exchange of best practices’ with the participation of WorldSkills Netherlands, WorldSkills UK, Hame University of Applied Science of Finland and HAN University of Applied Science in The Netherlands. The project started September 2017 and completed July 2020. The project’s aim was to generate and share knowledge and practices regarding the actual and potential use of Skills Competitions (SC). The project’s ambition was to initiate activities and produce tools and manuals that can be used to stimulate and support the practical use of Skills Competitions and its methods and instruments in vocational education. In most EU member states, Skills Competitions are strongly related to, yet organized besides the VET-systems. Competition activities for students are often regarded by teachers and VET colleges as extra-curricular activities . Further growth and development of national and international SC in Europe depends very much on the willingness, capabilities and enthusiasm of VET providing colleges and their teachers, as they form an important channel to stimulate, support and guide students to competition activities. Helping colleges and teachers to have a better understanding of the perspectives, possibilities and added value of SC in the overall quality of VET will strengthen the competitions over Europe and accelerate the use of the power of skills. Not only for those who participate in the competitions, but also for ‘regular’ VET-students. This can be done by using SC methods and instruments ‘within’ VET-curricula, assessments and exams. Thus, extra contributions can be made in the structural development of talents and excellence in VET. In the X-factors project, research and good practices have been shared and discussed to determine if, and how, SC instruments, content and methods can be more integrated in VET. The project team reported their preliminary results in the publication ‘Igniting Education’, identifying four major topics in which SC can be supported and add value at the same time. As a result: •SC activities are embedded in VET providing colleges,•SC activities, test projects and challenges and assessments are used in the development of curricula and the creation of education, •SC activities are used to provide teachers and trainers with extra pedagogical and didactic skills and new teaching and learning strategies, •National and international SC are used as a hub for further professional development of teachers and trainers.The partnership valued these four topics to be relevant in every EU member state, and other countries around the world. The publication was presented and discussed during the 2018 General Assembly of WorldSkills International in Amsterdam. The relevance was affirmed in this GA by the appr. 60 participants, representing several SC-organisations, that joined the round table discussions organized by the Xfactors project team. In the round table discussions, the participants raised similar issues of the SC advantages e.g. developing both technical and soft skills in students’ and teachers’ competences and the collaboration with the working life. Due to the outcome of the round table discussions, the partnership was stimulated to further explore these topics, aiming to provide practical tools and tips for VET-providers, teachers and trainers in order to help them integrate and apply SC in their daily work and responsibilities and profit the power of skills as much as possible. In the current COVID-19 crisis, the importance of this can only be felt more strongly. New and great challenges occur worldwide and we face the need for strong vocational skills to properly absorb the economic and social consequences. With this ambition, a toolkit has been produced as an output of the X-factors project. The toolkit will help promote delivery and further development of European approaches to embedding skills competitions to a wide range of national, European and global partners, through the EuroSkills and WorldSkills networks and with the support of partner Skills Competion organisations.Next to the desk research and exchange of information on relevant national and international research and good practices leading up to the publication 'Igniting education' and generating a toolkit, country audits were done in the three project countries aiming to build the evidence base and collect best practices. In the project teams search for best practices a learning teaching and training activity was held at Trafford College, Altrincham, Manchester, UK. This College was identified as a best practice in terms of applying skills competitions on a school level within a group of 9 colleges and using this to optimize the quality of VET-programs. The project team organized a LTTA together with teachers from the Trafford College to learn from their experience.