Skills in STEM are becoming an increasingly important part of basic literacy in today’s knowledge society. In line with an important benchmark of EU strategies for 2020 (at least 95% of children - from 4 to compulsory school age - should participate in early childhood education), the project addressed the need for a systemic and integrated approach to ECEC by identifying key issues and questions for an effective STEM education. The project consortium, coordinated by Jesuit University Ignatianum in Krakow, included 5 partners coming from 4 European countries: IT, PL, ES, IR. The project aimed at enhancing the quality of ECEC by A/ strengthening the scientific and methodological skills of preschool teachers by providing them with a collection of innovative resources and creating social network to exchange ideas and support each other in implementing innovations in their own environment; B/ supporting scientific thinking development in young children by providing them with positive, joyful experiences in learning science, strengthening their engagement and cognitive curiosity, thus preventing under-skilling in STEM learning in the future; C/ supporting parents involvement; D/ raising an awareness of school managers and policy makers responsible for implementing STEM ideas into the preschool core-curricula. The following actions were taken within the project frame:1/ The „Report” from international comparative research was published - the diagnosis of teacher’s knowledge and opinions about the possibilities to introduce STEM education on a preschool level. The diagnosis included data on both, qualitative and quantitive analyses, along with the selection of important literature available in English and national languages and comparative analyses of core-curricula in project countries. As a result, the matrix of core STEM skills for preschool children was designed; 2/ The collection of STEM resources for young children (Teaching Set) was designed and published on project website. The idea of a “poor” lab (equipped with easily accessible tools, materials and reagents) was used to relate STEM activities with food and cooking process - „Preschool kitchen as a scientific laboratory”. Thanks to such connection STEM activities offered in the project might be easily re-created at home environment. Exploring basic scientific concepts related to food (e.g oxidation, fermentation, CO2, sweetness, density etc.) should not only help children to perceive food as an object of scientific investigations, but also make learning experiences meaningful, realistic, useful in real life context, and as subsequently develop healthy eating habits;3/ Learning Communities were created on different social media - 4 national and 1 international: to test and evaluate the Teaching Set. An international audience was invited to verify the resources collected by project team, exchange ideas, search for new innovative methods of teaching, design new resources. With the help of teachers network video instructions were created, to provide methodological support to everyone interested in using STEM activities in real-life context. The community will remain open after the end of the project, producing benefits even beyond the duration of the research and involving an increasing number of users.4/ Participants of Learning Community were invited to test educational effectiveness of STEM resources with children. Learning Pathways were designed as a flexible tool allowing teachers to perceive STEM education as a long-term process rather than a single experiment. Each Learning Pathway was described as a logical sequence of lesson scenarios - a kind of intellectual road which needs to be taken by a learner to master certain skills or concepts. 5/ Finally, all the described elements were integrated into one interactive, user-friendly Toolkit providing the teachers and educators with both, methodological and theoretical guidelines for early STEM education. The Toolkit is now available in 5 languages: PL, EN, ES, CA, and IT.Generally circa 1881 participants were involved in project actions, including 135 inservice teacher, 579 pre-service teachers, 636 parents and 566 children.The Klab4Kids website not only created a map of the European best practices in innovative science education methods which allows the participating universities to reinforce ECEC curricula by introducing STEM ideas into existing courses. Currently it serves as a tool to promote an international exchange of best practices in fostering active STEM learning, and to encourage teachers to find new, modern and interactive methods for effectively science teaching. In the long term, the Klab4Kids action will also contribute towards achieving the Europe 2020 education target by improving STEM skills among young people – less than 15% of pupils under-performing by 2020 – and increasing the range of innovative products that reflect societal needs.

<< Objectives >>The objective is to provide practitioners and students with a set of practices, approaches, and tools to address the assessment needs of STEM education in remote, considering gender issues. The goals are to:- Detect the appropriate approaches and practices for assessment of STEM students in remote, considering gender equity.- Develop benchmarks and guidelines, according to the EQAAs (External Quality Assurance Agency) requirements, to implement and successfully evaluated the learning process<< Implementation >>The main activities will be:- Mapping and clustering of main established remote assessment systems in STEM in Europe.- Gap Analysis to provide an in-depth and grounded understanding of the current needs in the assessment systems and evaluation of remote learning in STEM, considering gender issues. - Definition of benchmark and guidelines to implement and evaluate remote learning assessment. - Design the roadmap and recommendations for improving learning experience in remote learning.<< Results >>The main results of the project will be: - A thorough and comprehensive review of current assessment and remote learning practices in STEM.- A benchmark to provide an understanding of normative actions that need to be implemented to properly assess and evaluate.- User-friendly guidelines, supported by agencies, to improve the students’ learning experience, considering gender issues.- A roadmap and sustainability plan to implement the normative actions, methods, and recommendations.

Several tens of millions of European citizens are partially edentulous and have insufficient bone for placement of dental implants. Following FP7 REBORNE project on bone regeneration, the MAXIBONE consortium coordinated by INSERM wishes to perform a randomized controlled clinical trial on alveolar ridge augmentation in mandibular and maxillary bone. This late stage clinical trial will aim at comparing the safety and efficacy of autologous bone grafting (gold standard) with culture expanded autologous bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) associated to a synthetic bone substitute covered by a resorbable membrane in 150 patients. The recruitment will be performed in 10 major hospital centres while the production of MSC will be done in the German and French blood transfusion institutes. Medical imaging, direct measurements and histology of core biopsies before dental implants will ensure the evaluation of bone regeneration. Cost-effective monitoring using a secured internet platform (eCRF) will produce a clinical database for evaluation of safety, efficacy and health costs in both arms. The participation of the innovative biomaterial SME Mimetis and the industrial leader in dental implantology Straumann will further contribute to the dissemination and exploitation strategies of future personalized regenerative medicine treatments in Europe.

According to recent estimates on the availability of healthcare professionals in the Member States, the EU is expected to be confronted with a shortage of approx. 1 million health professionals by 2020. Researchers indicate that shortages are expected to be particularly for Critical Care Nursing (CCN) , elderly care and general practice professionals (Kroezen, M. et. al. 2018). In this context, reducing nursing staff turnover and increasing the appeal of the nursing profession becomes of paramount importance for the European Union Member States. In this context the project we propose will focus on CCN staff and suggest an intervention aimed at reducing staff turnover and rates for nurses leaving the profession by supporting critical-care nurses in developing the skills required for a healthy work environment.The project OBJECTIVE is to develop the first open and multilingual blended (online and face to face) training course for nurse training professionals to develop Healthy Work Environments (HWE) knowledge, skills and competences for CCU nurses. To this end, a sectoral partnership was created consisting of organisations in five different countries. Organisations active in the (continuous) development of CCU nurses in Cyprus, Spain, Poland and Croatia are joined by a company highly experienced in the development of customised training curricula in soft skills from Romania in order to jointly develop the first blended training course in HWE. Partners will work together to develop the blended training content according to their experience and expertise.A healthy workplace is one where workers and managers collaborate to continually improve the health, safety and wellbeing of all workers and by doing this, sustain the productivity of the business (Burton, J., 2010). Research in this field indicates a positive correlation between healthy nurse work environments, nurse job satisfaction and retention, and patient outcomes (Ulrich, B. et. al., 2014). The content of the blended training will be addresses at trainers working with CCU nurses. Trainers will develop relevant knowledge, skills and competences in HWE and will become able to train CCU nurses in this field. The blended training content will comprise the following 4 modules:- Module 1 – Facilitator content: aimed at familiarizing trainers involved in the (continuous) development of CCU nurses with the notion of HWE, the relevant knowledge, skills and competences required. The module will also comprise detailed guidelines to support trainers in the design and delivery of HWE training. - Module 2 – Toolbox: a set of methods, tools and supporting materials for HWE development. - Module 3 – Student content: one detailed Lesson plan for each of the six dimensions of HWE: Skilled communication, True collaboration, Effective decision-making, Appropriate staffing, Meaningful recognition, Authentic leadership. - Module 4 – Assessment and Recognition tools for trainers and CCU nurses completing the blended training solution.The blended training solution will be developed by the project partners based on their experience and expertise. In order to evaluate how effective the online training is, the blended training content will be tested in four pilots with the support of 8 trainers and 32 CCU nurses in Cyprus, Spain, Croatia and Poland. This step is an essential one in the completion of the training content as it will allow project partners the opportunity to collect valuable feedback regarding the content proposed, its suitability and accessibility, as well as the functioning of the online platform from both trainers and CCU nurses. The online training course will be hosted in an e-learning platform, accessible from computers, tablets and smartphones. The platform will be available in six languages: English, Spanish, Greek, Croatian, Polish and Romanian.At the end of the project, the blended training content will be available online, as an Open Educational Resource, to be accessed freely by any interested party. The content will be available in English, Greek, Romanian, Croatian, Polish and Spanish. The blended training content has increased potential to be exploited by a wide range of organisations and individuals across Europe. This is why project results will be disseminated by project partners among training professionals involved in the (continuous) professional development of CCU nurses in different professional organisations (i.e. universities, healthcare organisations and other professional bodies), policy makers, CCU nurses staff and the local, regional, national and European media. Project results will be disseminated to at least 250 professionals involved in providing education and training in the healthcare field, 1.000 CCU nurses, 50 policy-makers and 50 media across Europe, through the project dissemination networks, as well as a minimum of 200 professionals in nurse training, CCU nurses and policy-makers through the Multiplier Events.

The Employment Package (2012) recognised the potential of entrepreneurship in contributing to a job-rich recovery, while the Entrepreneurship Action Plan 2020 highlights that universities should become more entrepreneurial, recommends promoting entrepreneurship education and to support groups that are under-represented among entrepreneurs. In addition, the European Parliament’s report on EU policy for cultural and creative industries (June 2016) recommends to the EC “the creation within HIE institutions of relevant joint programmes between arts & culture, business and technology for the development of work-learn trajectories”.Europe's cultural & creative industries (CCIs) offer a real potential to contribute to the EU 2020 strategy. Studies show that CCIs represent highly innovative companies with great economic potential and are one of EU's most dynamic sectors contributing around 4.5% to the EU GDP and providing quality jobs to around 3.8% of total workforce. CCIs are also important drivers of economic innovation in other sectors.At the crossroads of creativity and entrepreneurship, it remains difficult for CCIs to find creative arts graduates with a mix of creative and entrepreneurship skills to set-up companies. One of the main reasons for that is that HIE is not following in entrepreneurship´s footsteps. In fact, in the EU, only one-third of entrepreneurs have tertiary education (Eurostat 2014). You have more possibilities to become an entrepreneur if you don’t pursue university careers! There is clearly a lack of innovative entrepreneurship education for creative arts graduates throughout EU.A pan European investor network for the CCI (MEDIA DEALS), 4 universities with mixed teams from creative arts & business departments (EUC, UAB, UPV, UIC) and a SME focused on EdTech and on digital art (MYD), declare the ambition to create synergy of expertise and innovate through a specific targeted entrepreneurship methodology, supporting curricular materials and IT tools for faculties in cultural and creative arts fields so that once graduated, alumni will create their own businesses. 4ArtPreneur project wants to empower culture & creative arts faculties, deans, students, professors, professionals and policymakers so they become more permeable to the acquisition, validation and share of entrepreneurship skills aligned to the specific needs of the entrepreneurship world in the CCI.One of the most effective ways to introduce the entrepreneurship is through Project-Based Learning (PBL) and Student-Centered approaches. 4ArtPreneur will not tend to have a singular focus on students taking more business-oriented courses. It will tend towards the acquisition of INNOVATIVE THINKING competences needed for starting up the new type of CCIs SMEs that operate in a complex and fast-moving eco-system, where networking and experimenting are paramount. Teaching innovative thinking competences well beyond traditional business skills, exploring target group specific methods to simulate the business behaviours at the university; providing innovative digital tools to evidence the learned competencies for when the moment will come to face financiers, are new framework conditions that 4ArtPreneur will pursue.4ArtPreneur develops next IOS:• An innovative methodology supported by several teaching & learning SYSTEM DYNAMICS materials. System dynamics models will put forward and simulate the behaviour of business cases suggested by partners and local working groups. The models will be used for computer simulation.• A modular ENTREPRENEURSHIP CURRICULUM, that will correspond to 3 ECTS credits, will be developed and integrated into the system dynamics methodology. The curriculum´s teaching & learning materials will be embedded into the system dynamics models that simulate the business cases/topics.• The adaptation & improvement of a European E-PORTFOLIO (IT tool) so that creative arts students can collect and show evidence of their entrepreneurial skills to confront future investment prospects. By identifying the entrepreneurial skills, a student has gained through his various experiences and how they relate to the business career he is interested in and by putting them in an easily understood e-portfolio format, will help him better articulate his skills when facing investment opportunities being offered while simultaneously alleviating investor fears and concerns.Training & face to face or blending learning implementation actions, one transnational and several local ones, will ensure that the project is not only FOR creative arts professors, students & alumni but also BY them.With 4ArtPreneur, professors, deans & policymakers will dispose of an adequate framework. Obviously, they can find already shaped entrepreneurship competencies frameworks. The difficulties come when they want to implement these non-specific frameworks to make creative arts degrees more permeable to entrepreneurial skills. 4ArtPreneur will provide it.