Tech-STER aims to enhance (international) entrepreneurial and soft skills and attitude of teachers and students in HE by creating an entrepreneurial dimension to technical education and strengthening the local and European (industry) network of HE institutions. This offers a solution to EU wide unemployment by enabling young people to create their own employment and become successful entrepreneurs that look beyond country borders. The materials will be easy to implement in existing education, where the primary goal is not specifically to teach how to become an entrepreneur.Tech-STER has a strong added value at EU level, as it encourages cooperation of different nationalities, cultures and fields of education. The lack of entrepreneurial behaviour of technical students has been recognised all across Europe, HEIs have a common issue to work on. By collaborating internationally, it’s possible to gather best practices, examples and experiences EU-wide.As the project focuses on the entrepreneurial and soft skills, it is needed to explain both, taking into attention that soft skills are part of entrepreneurial skills. Entrepreneurial skills, in the context of the tech-STER project, are not primarily meant to start a business, but for the students to use in the future work places. So in this case it is more about trying something new or making the process better to enhance efficiency or increase results while working for an employer. These skills also contribute to the process of starting own business. These skills, could be problem solving and analytical skills, but also influencing skills.Soft skills are complementary to hard skills (which are needed for a specific job) and involve living and working with other people. Soft skills are related to communication, teamwork, leadership and organizational skills. There are different academic disciplines and corporate cultures which have different terminologies for each of the mentioned concepts (Jafari-Marandi, R., Smith, B. K., Burch, R. F., & Vick, S. C., 2019). The need for the tech-STER project is there, as more and more jobs require soft skills from their employers. When taking the technical aspect, several studies have shown that there is a need of a good balance between technical competences and non-technical skills for the recruitment of professionals in the Information Technology field (Fernández-Sanz, L., Villalba, M. T., Medina, J. A., & Misra, S., 2017). Food Scientists and Technologists (FS&T) for example, do not only need the technical skills to meet the needs of a globalised food and drink sector, but also the generic or intuitive soft skills (Flynn, K. Ho, P., Vieira M., Pittia, P. & Dalla Rosa, M., 2017). It shows through the fact that when the European FS&T employers brainstormed about the ideal employee skills, 76% of these skills consisted of soft skills (Flynn, K., Wahnstrom, E., Popa, M., Ruiz-Bejarano, B., & Quintas, M. A. C., 2013).Tech-STERs has three major objectives:1) Strengthening the technical education already in place in HE and enhancing competences of HE teachers in teaching entrepreneurial behaviour and skills.2) Equipping HE students with the necessary mind-set, skills and competences they need to succeed in their future careers, based on entrepreneurial and soft skills.3) Raising the awareness, motivation and knowledge level of important HE stakeholders on how to embed an entrepreneurial dimension into the existing curricula. Even though the need for entrepreneurial and soft skills programmes in education is clear, no programmes are in place that embed the promotion and development of entrepreneurial behaviour and soft skills into existing technical educational programmes. The innovative and pioneering tech-STER project will change this situation by exploring which tools and materials could be easily implemented in existing technical educational programmes, without offering a full programme. All students should address these skills and competences, not only the students that consciously choose e.g. a minor in entrepreneurship or a full education on entrepreneurship. The tech-STER will develop 5 main outputs:• research on the need to include soft skills in current curricula and identification of needed soft skills• teacher toolbox to promote (international) entrepreneurial behaviour/soft skills• teacher guide on how to embed entrepreneurship tools into the classroom• road map to embed the tech-STER approach throughout the whole institute• online community to get in touch with like-minded peopleThe project will have an immense impact on all target groups and the participating partner organisations. Having on board supporters of great importance in the educational world, we expect a high ‘market’ penetration of the tech-STER programme during and after the project has finished. High quality tech-STER products combined with strong dissemination efforts by partners ensure that universities all over Europe benefit from the resulta of the project.

CONTEXTDigital technology has transformed the way we use visual resources to share knowledge. Today’s business executives prefer processing information through non-text formats, including infographics, photos, graphic storytelling and video and both the influential enGauge report and the EU’s work on digital media literacy has established the importance of visual literacy in the 21st century because of its relation to critical thinking and learning to learn.The topic is especially relevant to engineering education, across all disciplines from mechanical and electrical engineering, to automotive, environmental and computer engineering. While sketching was traditionally used to cultivate spatial reasoning and problem solving, the recent digital technology transformation has rekindled debate how today’s engineers should use the myriad digital tools available to them. Put simply, engineering is a strategic sector in European economies driving innovation and growth. If we want our engineers to be more creative, productive and competitive, and produce more value for our economy and society, we can do through improved visual literacy. Yet, paradoxically and worryingly, visual skills are almost entirely absent from engineering curricula. Updating research carried out by our colleagues at UPM, in 2018 the NOT team found only two European HEIs that offer engineering graphics courses linked to creativity and that visual literacy is entirely absent from engineering VET. OBJECTIVEHence, the objective of our project is clear: strengthen the visual literacy of engineers across participating countries and further afield by introducing innovative visual literacy training into our vocational teaching and provision. ACTIVITIESTo achieve our objectives, we will undertake the following activities: Catalogue and communicate the specific visual competences that most contribute to engineers’ creativity and productivity by producing the VLEE Competence Framework - so that stakeholders and VET organizations are motivated to introduce this new element of teaching. Carry out rigorous testing to determine the most relevant, useful and easy-to-use digital graphic, image and video technology and share this knowledge with the VET sector so that engineering teachers have the knowledge, skills and resources to improve teaching and learning using visual content - VLEE Toolkit. Produce the first visual literacy for engineering VET training course to enable engineers to develop their visual competences in a very practical manner - VLEE online course.PARTICIPANT PROFILEThe project will respond to the following needs of these target groups: i) ENGINEERS. Students attending vocational colleges and working engineers need practical training opportunities to become better at problem solving, innovation and communication, and to stay up-to-date with the technologies affecting their sector ii) VET TRAINERS need support in modernizing their pedagogic approach and strategic use of digital technology in ways that better cater to students’ learning needs and future performance in the workplace. iii) VET ORGANIZATIONS AND STAKEHOLDERS, from technical colleges to professional membership bodies, education policy makers, need cost-effective, scalable solutions to improving the quality of education and its relevance to real life work skills.RESULTSWe will produce 3 main results:1 Visual Literacy for Engineering COMPETENCE FRAMEWORK, a digital publication that introduces our target groups to the concept and benefits of visual literacy education and the digital innovations that help teach it effectively. 2 VLEE TOOLKIT, an interactive publication providing practical guidance on the top 20 digital technologies, tools or platforms can be used to teach different aspects of visual literacy in engineering and advance students’ visual competences.3 Visual Literacy for Engineering ONLINE COURSE, a multilingual e-learning course & user driven platform which consolidates learning for students who have received classroom teaching, and enables distance/flexible learning for engineers already in employment irrespective of age, level of study or geographic location.IMPACTVLEE has been carefully structured to enable VET Schools & providers of professional education for engineers to better respond to labour market needs by enabling the introduction of high quality visual literacy education for engineers. All of our project’s outputs, combined with our dissemination/exploitation strategy, are focussed on both raising awareness of this gap, & equipping educators with the means to better teach these competences. As a result, thousands more engineers will have the skills they need to flourish in an ever-changing labour market.Furthermore, the unique structure of the VLEE project provides a reliable means of introducing and scaling improved visual literacy competences for engineering students & engineers in the workplace across Europe.

EMERGE is an EU Erasmus+ project bringing together project partners and experts from Poland, Denmark, Norway, Turkey, and Ireland. This project aims to increase the number of female entrepreneurs in engineering by transforming their access to and the quality of the training they receive from Entrepreneurship, VET & HEI institutions.Increasing the number of female entrepreneurs is a key priority in the EU for reasons linked to economic and social development. The lack of female entrepreneurs is particularly evident in the field of Engineering. Despite high profile role models, overall female innovativeness and participation in the engineering sector have decreased, and ‘an unconscious bias’ still prevails.Poland, Norway, Denmark, Ireland, and Turkey are among the countries that have introduced measures to improve the institutional framework for female enterprise, but more needs to be done to overcome individual barriers, making sure that sure the small but growing number of females studying/working in Engineering are helped to identify entrepreneurial opportunities and build their business skills. The problem is that our VET and HEI institutions are ill-equipped to do so: most are unspecialized in the specific strategies that are shown to work best with female entrepreneurs; their staff is trained in generic/traditional business models (not Engineering specific) and they are not connected to universities/HE institutions to recruit graduate females emerging from Engineering subjects.The EMERGE online community, learning resources, and training events connect users to expert knowledge and advice. The first step is to join the EMERGE online social media community of engineers, lecturers, business advisors, and education providers.

<< Background >>PRODISK responds to a need detected in the implementation of a previous Erasmus + funded project (LINCE) carried out between 2017 and 2019. The results of LINCE included the implementation of collaborative projects by VET students following a project-based learning methodology developed by the partnership to favour employment. One of the conclusions of this previous project was that VET teachers involved in subjects with few technological components do not have often available resources and tools to assist the instruction and to assess the digital competences required by the students in order to face the labour market. The most specific detected lack by the participating teachers was a contextualised practical frame to enable mapping the activities of the students with the practiced and acquired digital skills. The teachers and VET centres involved indicated that without the additional support of the international project the quality of the students' results would have been reduced. Former partners have continued the work in the past months and the COVID-19 pandemics has made even stronger the need of the mentioned resources with the requirement of the instruction partially conducted in distance learning modality. In PRODISK proposal we have contrasted our needs diagnosis with the diagnosis of the European Commission in the recently published Digital Education Plan for the 2021-2017 period and other specialized research sources in this field quoted in our proposal. We have realized that our need responds to a priority for the digital transformation educational goals in Europe.All the partners in our partnership bring a number of experiences in the use of digital skills for practical purposes in the fields of vocational and higher education. We want to apply for PRODISK project to strengthen our previous partnership and benefit from the international cooperation to respond to the need detected by our target groups.We consider that the cooperative approach, providing our intended product with a broad international context to practice and assess digital competences will enrich its quality and the possibilities to use it with a larger impact that those expected with single local initiatives.<< Objectives >>The specific objectives of PRODISK proposal are the following ones:1.- The development of a Digital Skills Evaluation e-learning course to assist VET teachers to recognize and ultimately certify the digital competences acquired by the students (from initial and continuous VET) in the development of their VET cycles.The course will be based on DigComp, the digital competences framework elaborated by the European Commission. 2.- To integrate the Digital Skills Evaluation course in a digital Learning Environment addressed to VET teachers and students. The learning environment encapsulates PRODISK main result and builds on additional results obtained in previous projects. In order to make this learning environment clearer in our proposal, we present a specific learning frame in the section devoted to results. The ultimate purpose is to adopt this Learning Environment as a resource in the Curriculum of VET centres participating in our project. 3.- To disseminate the Learning Environment in which the Digital Skills Evaluation course is integrated to VET centers in the three participating countries with the support of the official partners of the partnership and associated partners. And to extend the promotion of this resource internationally to any interested party for online use as an Open Educational Resource, including the own calls for didactic materials of the European Commission related to DigComp. 4.- To achieve relevant indicators of sustainability at the end of the project by applying our learning environment to certifying practices and pilot actions for employment purposes.To achieve these objectives, we have designed a specific workplan to develop the main result. In addition, we present in the proposal our management plan, our dissemination plan and our quality plan to ensure that the development of our main result is obtained with the intended quality and it produces the expected impact.Impact goals have been established with qualitative and quantitative indicators focusing on the target groups of teachers and students of VET centres, and with civil society institutions (chambers of commerce, professional associations and regional education authorities). Impact goals have been defined as well at broader international level through specific promotional activities including participation in international events, publication of specific papers and making our main result available in online educational platforms.<< Implementation >>In line with the specific objectives of PRODISK proposal, our workplan includes the following groups of activities:1. Related to the achievement of the first two objectives associated to the development of the main result. We have organised them in different phases.Phase A (completing competence mapping): Each country has selected 2-3 key digital competences according to the DigComp frame which are relevant for their target groups in the preparation of this proposal. They cover most of the competences in the two first competence areas (CA) of Digcomp: (1) Information and Data Literacy and (2) Communication and collaboration, and they extend partially to the other areas, in particular (3) Digital content creation. Activities.A1. Review the choice presented in this proposal and enabling the partners' discussion on the interactions needed to cover the full range of competences within the scope of the PRODISK project in a coordinated way. Phase B (Selecting and creating contextual elements): Partners in each country will identify existing audiovisual elements and create new ones that will be used as a context to practice the digital competences mapped in phase A. Activities.B1. All partners will select the elements, which in general will be audiovisual productions like short videos. Some of them may originate on the basis of local/ international projects and other will be created specifically to address the goal of practising digital skills in a realistic environment. B2. Partners will produce elements to tackle partially the competence: developing digital content. This will have also the purpose to involve teachers and students in an early phase of the project through consultation processes. Phase C (Design of Interactive activities): This is one of the core innovative parts of our product. ActivitiesC1. Each country will design specific interactive activities for the students to practice digital skills. These interactive activities will help the teachers to evaluate the digital competences mapped in phase 1 and contextualized in phase 2 . Phase D. (Technical production): This phase will integrate technically the interactive activities in the contextualised audiovisual elements. Activities.D1. The partners will carry out the needed technical tasks to implement the interactive activities for practising digital competences. Phase E (Development Learning Environment): Finalisation of PRODISK main result as an accessible open educational resource.Activities.E1. The main activity will be to encapsulate the e-learning course with the assembled interactive activities to produce the online learning and evaluation environment.2. Related to the adequate management of the project and the accomplishment of the last two objectives of PRODISK project associated to promotion and sustainability of its results. We have organised them in the following transversal core activities.Management.a) Preparation and signing of agreements to be taken between FEI and each partner. b) Drafting, discussing and approving the management guide establishing the funded activities, the protocol of periodic reporting and performance controlling.c) Monitoring and follow-up control tasks. This involves periodic reporting from partners to the promoter through specific management tools described in the proposal, aiding quality control.d) Transnational meetings for coordination purposes every 6 to 8 months.Promotion and Dissemination.e) Creation and periodic update of the webpage of the project f) Dissemination at local/regional/national and international level including: i) Periodic Newsletters. ii) Participation in info session and events. iii) Writing promotional articles related to the progress and outcomes of PRODISK. iv) Maintaining PRODISK website.g) Organising multiplier events in each of the participant countries towards the target groups.Quality Control.h) Evaluation of project outcomes by the partnership and external stakeholders.<< Results >>The main project result consists of an e-learning course integrated in an open Digital Learning Environment to facilitate the instruction, evaluation and recognition of Digital Skills. TARGET GROUPS: teachers and students of initial and continuous VET courses, including social and professional subjects. Aim: To practice digital competences in working environments with initial and intermediate levels of difficulty according to DIGCOMP. Covered needs: 1.- Bringing DIGCOMP closer to VET schools with practical application of digital competences in regional and work-related contexts. 2.- Helping teachers to evaluate the students' practised digital skills with specific tools oriented to certification for initial and continuous VET. 3.- Assisting socioeconomic organisations (chambers of commerce, professional associations) in certification methods of digital competences for employment and career development purposes.In addition, we present other outcomes related to the management transversal tasks to be used as verification sources of our work that we will make available to SEPIE.1. Signed partnership agreements establishing the rights and responsibilities of each party in the project. 2. Management Guide as approved by the partnership, including: a) Description of the flow of information. b) Management tools and description of how and when to use them. c) Decision making procedure for relevant contractual issues (technical or budgetary performance, for instance). 3. Minutes, list of participants and certification of participation for the Transnational Meetings.4. Compilation of the timesheets accrediting the deployment of human resources. 5. Dissemination plan as approved by the partnership, including: a) dissemination objectives; c) visibility tokens (logo and project webpage) according to Erasmus + visibility policies; c) dissemination method including planned activities; d) multiplier events approach; d) timing of the dissemination plan; e) tools to register the dissemination activities and estimate their impact.6. Compilation of the dissemination activities with indication of nature of the activity, target groups, impact reached and supporting evidences, which will contribute to achieve the impact goals and the sustainability of the main product.7. Multiplier Events individual reports, including: a) the description of the event, b) signature list and affiliation of the participants, c) evidence of the organisation of the event: agenda, pictures, presentations and other testimonials.8. Quality Plan, as approved by the partnership. It encompasses the management and dissemination plans as contributing instruments, and it includes in addition: a) principles of evaluation; b) methodology of the evaluation; c) action plan with evaluation tasks to perform with the assistance of questionnaires, interviews and other consultation methods.

CONTEXT: The EU Logistics sector, including transport and supply chain industries, is one of the largest and most developed in the world: fast growing and constantly adapting to new technologies and global business practices. In recent years, the spotlight has been shone on gender diversity across all sectors of our economy, especially the relative lack of women in senior positions in the scientific and technical sectors. Yet in this aspect, the logistics industry is consistently falling behind. The sector is believed to only have 10% of women working at board level, and female participation across the industry currently runs at less than 25%. This is of significance to Poland where the transport and logistics sector is a €56.9 billion industry, making it the biggest market in Central and Eastern Europe, and the seventh largest in the EU. A 2017 Polish market survey to assess confidence and expectations in the sector, establishes human resources development and retention of human resources as a key challenge to continued growth in the sector.OBJECTIVEFor these reasons, the objective of Wil Power is clear: to develop innovative vocational education and training that will assist women working in transport and logistics to progress to leadership roles within their companies and organizations. ACTIVITIESTo achieve this, we develop and deliver three Intellectual Outputs: IO1: Training Course for Women in Transport and LogisticsThe course will target women already working in the sector and includes the development of a unique curriculum, materials development and transfer to a digital platform for standalone online delivery. IO2: Professional Women in Logistics Network Will use the principles of women-in-business networks and mentoring programmes, which have been proven to be highly effective, to boost skills and confidence of potential female leaders.IO3: Good Practice Toolkit for promoting Female Leadership in Transport and Logistics Aimed at Transport and Logistics companies directly, this resource presents practical opportunities for companies to encourage equal opportunities and diversity in the workplace.NEEDS & TARGET GROUPSThe project addresses the needs of three target groups: 1. Women working in the transport and logistics sector Women of all ages in the sector, want to progress but face internal and external obstacles to career advancement. They need guidance on the knowledge and skills needed to progress; this includes industry-specific know-how, a fast track to update skills and knowledge that currently enable career progression, but also the soft skills relating to confidence, leadership and self-efficacy in a male dominated industry. VET Providers Vocational training providers, especially membership organisations, have long catered to the industry-wide needs of their members, but this has been gender-blind. They need to develop new gender-aware approaches to VET that better serve female participants in VET. Transport & Logistic companies The transport and logistics industry needs a more diverse workforce, not only because of ethical or moral drivers, but because it will improve business performance. Many HR departments recognise they suffer from poor perceptions about career opportunities and poor support for female staff. They need support for the recruitment, development, retention of talented female staff but lack knowledge and budget to invest in bespoke solutions. RESULTS during the project’s lifespan: 4 Female Network Clubs will be established across partner countries, engaging 64 women in the Transport and Logistics industry and upskilling them in line with desired leadership qualities. At least 320 women will access the WIL POWER Online Training Course via our online platform and be equipped to become leaders within their field.At least 600 Transport and Logistics companies will engage with our bespoke Toolkit, resulting in a shift in their mindset about gender equality within the industry.IMPACT: The Transport and Logistics’ sector organisations and those who support them will for the first time have access to education on the benefits of female leadership within the industry. By showcasing positive examples of women working in management and leadership roles WIL POWER hopes to create an enthusiastic response from these organisations and incite change within their practices. Updating their practices and policies in line with EU standards can have a positive impact on staff morale, in addition to this business will be viewed as progressive agents for change. There is also the economic benefit which stems from equality in hiring and promoting female individuals. By utilising practical examples, we engage these organisations in a way that they can understand and relate to, by helping them to overcome risk factors and by showcasing the success of others in the industry.