The unemployment figures in Europe have been representing a desperate trend over the recent years. Especially during 2013, this trend has reached a peak because of the economic crisis and left the unemployed individuals, NEETs and higher education students about to graduate to face the difficulties in finding jobs in recessive economy. On the other hand, dynamics of global economy is changing and SMEs, which are the backbone of European economy, need to adapt those changes in order to remain competitive and continue their existence. The intersection point of these situations is the need for contemporary and transversal skills which are fully embedded in human capital. In traditional terms these skills are regarded within the scope of entrepreneurship. However, while traditional model of entrepreneurship is no longer applicable in modern business world, a more valuable term arises; ‘innovative entrepreneurship’.The purpose of INNOGROW is designed for increasing employability levels of and new business creation by young unemployed individuals (including NEETs) and higher education students as well as developing initiative taking of key SME staff by the use of an innovative ‘learning path’ method which includes; self-assessment tool, self-learning materials on innovative entrepreneurship/intrapreneurship (such as; creative thinking, problem solving, risk taking, team work, innovation management and etc.) and also business idea development tool in one integrated and mobile assisted eLearning software, all to be supported/strengthened by tutors and classroom trainings. The general aim is then to bring a new and learner-centred pedagogical approach to entrepreneurship training by use of the most appropriate transnational expertise in this field. The partnership involves organisations which; have expertise in entrepreneurship training provision (MAKRO-TR, KU-UK), active in innovation systems (KIM-ES, KINNO-EL), representing SMEs (CNIPMMR-RO) and technology-based enterprises (GAZİANTEP TEKNOPARK-TR). The methodology pursued to achieve project objectives with descriptions of intellectual outputs is as follows: The partnership will conduct an in-depth research on SMEs and their key staff on how they are innovative which will help the development of a competence profile of an innovative entrepreneur. A self-assessment tool and innovative entrepreneurship eLearning modules will be developed on the basis of this profile as well as a business idea development tool and all to be uploaded on a web-based and mobile assisted eLearning software. In order to support the learners from the target groups given, tutors will be trained on the system and its contents. These tutors will then organise local dissemination events in order to disseminate the major outputs and to address/reach relevant number of learners to participate virtual trainings on the system. A relevant number of learners who complete their learning process and develop business ideas on the system will be invited to a short term classroom training where they will be trained on the training subjects and a workshop will be realised for finalisation of feasible business plans developed in the system. Lastly a final dissemination event will be organised for ensuring the sustainability of project outcomes. The major impact envisaged by the project is the increase in the numbers of; initiatives for new business creation, individuals from main target groups who have more chance to be employed and SMEs which become more innovative and thus competitive by the use of improved capacities of their key staff. By bringing a new methodology and an innovative approach, the project will have a positive longer term impact on the countries’ VET training materials on entrepreneurship and help to increase the quality in this field.

The demand for human platelets (plts) for medical research and clinical applications is massive. The primary goal of SilkFUSION is to engineer groundbreaking 3D nanotechnologies for large-scale production of blood plts for human transfusion from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs). Our hypothesis is that plt production ex-vivo can be optimized by providing megakaryocytes (Mks) with the correct physical and biochemical environment. To prove this, we will develop a unique technological platform by engineering non-thrombogenic silk-fibroin biomaterial with proteins, that were proven to promote a 55-fold gain in plt production, to create a three-dimensional ex-vivo bone marrow model that will enhance plt release from Mks derived from hPSCs. Our platform will include (i) novel applications to study pathogenetic mechanisms in patients with inherited platelet production disorders using genetically modified hPSCs; (ii) screening technology for predicting therapeutic efficacy of drugs for thrombocytopenic patients. The development of this technology will exploit an extremely innovative approach using silk-fibroin as a bio-ink for 3D printing a "live chip" containing viable Mks for reproducible drug testing. Our long-term vision is to foster the production of plts in-vitro for clinical transfusions in humans at a scale and cost that will address current supply challenges regarding (i) immunologically matched products to alloimmunised patients; (ii) “supercharged” platelets with recombinant FVIIa generating plts specifically suited for patients with acute haemorrhage resulting from trauma, surgery and wounded in conflict zones. The successful development and distribution of the SilkFUSION platforms will also offer researchers and clinicians specialized precision instruments and bio-ink kits for determining the safety and efficacy of drugs, reducing costs of ineffective therapies while promoting affordable functional strategies for the development of novel molecules.

Aprender Jugando is an initiative carried out by organizations from Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom. It includes schools, public research and curricular supervision organizations, and nonprofit companies and civil society organizations that develop training materials with innovative approaches and formats.The project has helped to improve the acquisition of key competences in the Mathematics and Language subjects by elementary school students, as a measure to improve academic performance and prevent early school leaving, which was the initial objective of the project proposal. In addition, this objective has been extended to other educative cycles, including early childhood education, adapting a part of the results developed with the project, and complying with a measure already foreseen in the initial proposal. The project has developed an educational resource consisting of an entertaining interactive software, which proposes the resolution of exercises, inspired by the game of chess and the game of wordwrangler. The resource addresses practical applications of curricular elements contained in the official curriculum and incorporates technical indications for the teacher, self-contained in the exercises themselves.This resource is complemented by a second result: a Methodological Guide with audiovisual format and didactic purposes to facilitate the practical transfer of resources developed to the curricular programming of schools, and to extend the scope of application to other educational cycles and other subjects. The main component is teaching units aimed at teachers, which are completed with additional resources and examples of good practices compiled by the Partnership itself.The project has complied with the objective of directly involving about 150 students, 20 teachers and 20 technicians in different essential areas for the creation of the results, during the development and validation phases. In fact, this goal has been almost doubled. The objective of directly reaching more than 500 people from the target groups (schools, teachers, students and civil society entities related to school education) in the dissemination and promotion phases carried out during the implementation have also been fulfilled, as well as the objective to reach a total of about 1500 people from these groups through the multiplier effect of the dissemination events and electronic channels such as the project website.The products are designed to be used by participating schools in support of teachers for the delivery of official curricular subjects, and have been made available to the public openly through the project website and the product repository enabled by the Erasmus + program. Preparations have also been initiated to promote the results through platforms for disseminating educational results internationally.In the medium term, and through the integration of the results in the curricular programming of the participating schools, and the multiplier effect of the promotion and dissemination activities, the initiative aims to achieve sustainability. In fact, the transfer of the resource to other schools and support to competent local and regional entities in the primary education sector have already been achieved. Some organizations have shown explicit interest in promoting the results in their areas of competence in the three participating countries.Finally, the Partnership hopes to continue collaborating in this type of initiatives in the future and to apply the knowledge acquired in new tools and pedagogical approaches that improve the quality of the teaching provided to their students and to inspire other schools.

LUMENTILE originates from an idea of disruptive innovation, where the joint use of new technologies creates added value and new functionalities for traditional materials, thus turning the classical ceramic tile into a “multifunctional electronic luminous tile” realized by large area and organic electronics. LUMENTILE can be also considered as design-driven innovation, where we give a different meaning to the use of light driven by the design, by empowering it to be used as a radical different designed element for architecture, as a skin integrated element for interior design, lighting or advertising purposes. The demand for aesthetically integrated and creative construction elements is steadily increasing in many areas of business and industries. A growing number of designers, architects and industrial manufacturers across the world share a common interest in having new elements capable to create surfaces or coverings as creative and multifunctional solutions. LUMENTILE aims, on one side, to fill the gap between a simple construction element and a luminous surface element, and gooes far beyond, by developing a cutting-edge technologic module (the luminous electronic tile) that is capable of displaying lights, colors and images that can be used as a chameleonic display to be employed as a skin for horizontal (floor) or vertical (wall) applications. The final product will be an “on-the-fly” high energy efficient device that can be considered as a sustainable and competitive lighting element. On the other hand, the possibility of adding other sensors internally to the electronic tile enables it to increase the above mentioned properties (such as the detection of people walking onto it) and also to empower other creative or multifunction purposes. This project will address the above-mentioned challenges by exploring and developing new materials and integrated systems, manufacturing processes and business scenarios in luminous designed tiles and architecture.

<< 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.