"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."