"Project: Smart Skills for Smarter CitiesThe context of this project is that the new era smart cities need staff with new or upgraded competencies. The smart city competencies are specific, identifiable, definable, and measurable knowledge, skill, ability and/or another deployment-related characteristic, the professionals in the city government or related institutions need to possess in order to perform effectively the activities of governing the smart cities. Undoubtedly, taking into account the emerging technologies and digital transformation of cities the governance of cities requires new competencies that the education systems provide currently quite fragmented.The main objective of the project is to develop and test learning & validation tools for the training of experts, personnel and managers of the smart cities for their newly emerging roles/professions. These tools include a referent competence framework, new curricula and validation paths for these roles, based on common methodology and competencies map. The target group is those who can become agents of change in cities. They are experts or members of the urban and regional administration, representatives of the urban economic environment, architects, engineers, as well as technicians who work in the field of planning and implementation of smart IoT solutions, economists, geologists, cartographers, lawyers, among others. About 60 participants including experts from the project partners and associated organizations will be directly involved in the project and another 100 members of the target groups will participate in two dissemination events in Sofia and Cluj. The main project activities will be concerned mainly with studying, mapping, designing and verifying the two planned project outputs. Apart from the outputs several project management activities and resources will be performed in order to ensure the time management, workflow, quality, dissemination and suitability of the project results. The expected ultimate results of the project are: Intellectual Output 1 ""Toolkit for smart city competencies framework"" that integrates four user-end components (deliverables): 1) Smart city competencies map; 2) Reference competencies framework; 3) VET curricula; 4) User guide for implementation; Intellectual Output 2 ""Validation tools for smart city competencies"" that includes two user-end components (deliverables): 1) Guidelines for validating competencies for a smart city administration; 2) Rules for certification of smart city roles. Interim products: Project management plan; Dissemination strategy & plan; Project graphical and online identity - logo, website, and leaflet, posters, banners, etc.; Quality assurance plan and methodology for internal evaluation of the outputs; and Exploitation and sustainability strategy;Promotional & dissemination activities: 5 newsletters; 4 open transnational meetings; 4 focus groups organized; 2 national dissemination events in Sofia and Cluj; strong social media presence based on the common dissemination strategy.The methodology for carrying out the project will be as follows: all six partner organizations will work together but everyone will respond for the production of at least one output or deliverable, which are most relevant to its expertise. Every one output or component will be evaluated under common quality assurance rules and a set of indicators. All components will be tested and verified with the involvement of representatives of the associated partners, the stakeholders, and the target groups at specialized focus groups. The project impact envisages a rise of awareness on the new roles of the cities' staff regarding the smart city-related challenges and increasing the efficiency of the cities as a result of improved competencies of the HR of the cities. The last will be a result of a certified training based on the new competencies framework and the training curricula and materials, elaborated under the project. The potential longer-term benefits of the project will be described in the exploitation strategy. It is presumed that the reference competencies framework and the validation mechanism for recruitment, training or retraining personnel working on smart city projects will be linked to the national and European qualification systems and recognized on national and European levels."

School education plays an important part in the process of socialization, social inclusion and the building of representation of others. Using informal education outside the school walls, such as school trips, is one of the main challenges of the educational system in Europe for the upcoming years. School trips are widely recognized as valuable educational tools increasing knowledge and providing higher levels of thinking strategies. Research has highlighted that students tend to be more attentive when learning “extra muros”, whereas from the educators’ perspective trips are also a significant contribution to the learning experience as they are unique educational experiences for the youngsters. Traveling, with its transformative capacity at societal level, appears to be an adequate tool for preventing and reducing conflicts and deal in a constructive and peacebuilding manner with stereotyped representations. In that perspective educational school trips aiming at intercultural encounters contributing to reconsider negative stereotypes and reduce prejudices appear to be an innovative tool.The objective of the project was to develop intercultural competences and skills among students at secondary school of grade 10 (age 15) by assessing cultural representations, preparing and realising school trips to a partner country. The age of the participating pupils has been chosen for various reasons; they have acquired sufficient language skills but are still in the ‘impressionable phase’ or their development. The aim was to tackle and surpass the existing stereotypes and to lower prejudice by immersing the students in another cultural context. The project wished to go beyond general cultural representations and provide students with a deeper insight on cultural characteristics, such as lifestyle, cultural heritage and social habits.The project covers 4 academic partners (education, political sciences and tourism studies) and 4 education practitioners (teachers and principals) from 4 different regions from Europe (Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece and Spain).Participants were the students of the partner schools. The selected classes were in charge (with the support of their teachers) to prepare the incoming trip. They selected the activities and material they consider representative for their country/city and prepared the visits.Each school had two partners (IN and OUT). Proceeding like this, the project provided each partner school with two intercultural experiences:- Brussels’s school “visited” Sofia and hosted the pupils from Barcelona.- Sofia’s school “visited” Athens and hosted pupils from Brussels- Athens’s school “visited” Barcelona and hosted pupils from Sofia- Barcelona’s school “visited” Brussels and hosted pupils from AthensGiven the special circumstances caused by the Covid-19 crisis that greatly impacted the project activities the trips were adapted to virtual exchanges. The adaptation of the programs and activities was done with the active engagement of the participants and respected the initial spirit and aim of the project. The core objective was directly related to the need for a transnational approach, as in addition to the positive and constructive cognitive experience, the intercultural exchanges contributed to the shaping of a sense of place and a European identity through the building of bridges encompassing geographical and cultural boundaries.BAS developed a structured tool for organizing educational intercultural school trips. Working with several groups from different countries offered the possibility to measure preconceptions about other cultures. Following these groups over time (before, during and after a trip) provided the opportunity to assess changes in attitudes. The project used a combination of an online survey (measuring knowledge, attitudes, satisfaction levels) before and after the school trips, together with experience sampling measurements to measure perceptions and emotions on the spot during the exchanges.The outcomes of this project were:1. adjusting stereotypes of the participating students and building bridges and an intergroup contact between pupils from different communities.2. an innovative methodological tool to collect data on perceptions and cultural representations.3. scientific Insight in the most relevant variables influencing the effectiveness of educational school trips in curbing stereotypes.4. a toolbox for organising educational school trips, including guidelines for organising intercultural encounters between pupils of that age.5. dissemination through a multiplier event and existing networks.6. after the completion/implementation of the tested intercultural school trips using the toolbox at European level.The project can be extended to other schools from the region/countries. It provides a validated tool to organise effective educational school trips in adjusting prejudices and stereotypes and fostering European integration.