Geographic data are increasingly readily available for agricultural and environmental applications, as evidenced by the increasing use of satellite imagery and drones for image capture in agriculture and environmental management and the ubiquity of GPS technology in modern data collection tools. Professionals may also have access to vast amounts of spatial information through their own institutions (public or private) without having the necessary knowledge and skills to process it. Therefore, agriculture and environmental professionals, among others, must be able to acquire these new skills to extract and explore these important resources in current decision-making processes. To be able to meet these challenges, the user does not absolutely need to be an expert in GIS or statistics, but must have sufficient experience to solve common practical problems. The OpenSpat project aims to improve the skills of these professionals in this regard. It helps them use the open source tools available to extract and analyze spatial data in a way that is relevant to their professional activity. This project is being developed by three partners: the University of Lisbon, which has solid experience in teaching courses on GIS and spatial data analysis with R software, SupAgro Montpellier, which has skills in statistical modelling, experience in the creation of MOOC and has technical and logistical support for the project (including a video studio), and the University of Liège, which has experience in the organisation and management of master's degree courses in applied statistics and which has a department dedicated to higher education (IFRES) that can provide the necessary support during the construction and evaluation of the training modules. The first year was devoted to the creation of training materials. The many exchanges, whether via online communication tools or transnational meetings, made it possible to share pedagogical practices, meet local actors and integrate their constraints into the project, determine the final content of the training and the tools implemented. During the second year, the curriculum thus created was tested on a panel of students selected from among the 3 partners. The effectiveness of the selected learning techniques (video clips, blended learning) was evaluated and analyzed to refine the learning activities of the third year. The learning activities in year 3, corresponding to 6 ECTS of intensive courses on spatial data analysis with open tools, took place in Belgium, but will be transferable to the partners' institutions after the project. The activities take the form of an introductory MOOC followed by blended learning activities, with a maximum of two weeks of face-to-face activities, and are based on teaching materials created during the project: syllabus, presentation materials, data sets, exercises and computer scripts. In the second year, the first results of the follow-up of the project's learning activities were presented during the UseR2017 conference in Brussels, thus ensuring wide international publicity for the project. For target groups and stakeholders (public or private life sciences companies needing expertise in spatial data analysis), the project fills a gap in the training offer, allowing them to acquire key competences in spatial data analysis in an organisational design specially adapted to their needs and constraints and thus to increase the skills in applied statistics for spatial data analysis on the labour market and the high demand for spatial data analysis workers. In addition to the creation of the learning modules themselves and their availability via the European Valor/PRP platform, the project has enabled partner institutions to come closer together and new Erasmus+ agreements to be signed, aimed at ensuring the sustainability of the education offer thus created. At the end of the project, the training module based on the materials created during the project will be delivered each year alternately in each partner institution, starting with the University of Lisbon in 2019. The project also created an emulation between the project partners in the fields of data analysis and innovative pedagogy, which allowed the dissemination of new practices between partner institutions, such as new tools for active pedagogy, sharing, script editing, etc. Thanks to the experience in transnational education, the partners involved are now studying the long-term feasibility of a larger-scale transnational programme, such as a European Master's degree.

The EMJM programme in Groundwater and Global Change – Impacts and Adaptation, acronym GroundwatCh, aims to provide postgraduate education in the assessment, management and protection of the largest liquid freshwater reservoir on earth in support of sustainable and equitable development. GroundwatCh aims to attract the brightest and most motivated graduates and professionals to Europe to acquire and subsequently spread the skills and competences in this core field of groundwater and its interactions with climate, ecosystems and human activities. It does so by integrating the complementary expertise of IST Lisbon, IHE Delft and TU Dresden, building on its implementation in previous phases, seeking to create a programme that is unique in its content, applied character and link to professional practice, with over 40 associated partners promoting internships, thesis research, steering and visibility of the programme worldwide. New joint elements include: i) six jointly coordinated and reorganised thematic fields around the core theme, promoting innovation and interdisciplinarity; ii) close collaboration in interdisciplinary fieldwork and preparatory training; and iii) possibility for ECTS-credited internships in any of the HEI countries. Other existing joint elements are consolidated, including the shared management and administration of the programme, teaching at each other’s university and joint organisation of MSc thesis research. In terms of impact, through four new intakes, GroundwatCh aims to: i) increase its financial sustainability and enhance the (currently 30%) top-up of EU funding; ii) enroll 100 new participants (currently 145 of 46 different nationalities, 48% female); iii) consolidate the employment rate of alumni, aka “certified GroundwatChers”, currently above 90% and iv) through its global network build proactive responsiveness towards the ecological value and need for preservation of groundwater and its critical role in adaptation to global change.

The proposed EMJM programme FLOURISH seeks to address the need to provide a meaningful, relevant and balanced education for children growing up in adverse circumstances by focusing on their strengths and building their assets within protective contexts. It plans to address a clear gap in the field, namely the training and education of school teachers and other practitioners so as to be able to empower children and young people with the necessary competencies to deal effectively with the obstacles and challenges in their education and development. This need for practitioners’ education in resilience has been reported across cultures and regions of the world, and FLOURISH will address this need at both European and international levels by providing postgraduate, high quality resilience education for educators and other practitioners. The consortium partners have developed significant expertise in this area, including working on previous relevant EU funded projects, and together with the international expertise of the associated partners, they are very well placed to provide this much needed training. FLOURISH is the first international, Joint Master Degree in Resilience in Educational Contexts led by a consortium of 4 degree awarding partners and six associated partners. It is a two-year, full-time programme consisting of taught study-units, a practice placement, a dissertation, and a summer school, spread over four mobility moves. It will provide a showcase of good practice in capacity building and continuing professional education, integrating theory and practice within a strengths based, systemic perspective to education and human development. It becomes particularly pertinent and meaningful in the post-COVID-19 pandemic context, as more attention and priority is being given to mental health, wellbeing and resilience in education

Story Makers - Many Voices Many Lives will develop materials that enable youth workers to use the power of story-making to engage and work with socially excluded young people, equipping them with resilience, confidence, self-esteem and life skills. It aims to foster the inclusion and employability of young people with fewer opportunities, through the promotion of quality youth workThe project has been designed in the context of increasing concern about the growing gap between young people who engage in social, civic and cultural life and are confident about finding a job, and those with little hope of leading a fulfilling life, and risk exclusion and marginalisation. 13.7m young people aged 15-29 are neither in employment, education or training (NEET), and close to 27m are at risk of poverty or social exclusion. Young people with a migrant background, low educational achievement and health issues are most likely to become NEET and are least likely to participate in social and civic activities.Number and profile of beneficiaries: The project will engage and support 50 youth workers and 600 young people, of whom at least 500 will be NEET, and face particular barriers to engagement, such as mental and physical health and complex behavioural issues. Based on past courses, we expect approximately 80% of the young people to complete the training and tell their storyThe results of the project will be1. A manual for youth workers, containing the following modules:•the characteristics of socially excluded young people in each participating country. •Using story-making to engage and motivate socially excluded young people: Building on the notion that people connect with stories, young people will co-develop stories accessible through digital media and artefacts, which will push the boundaries of both literature and literacy. The opportunity to engage with story-making and -listening, can be expected to lead to improved engagement and self-esteem and provide opportunities for practising oral literacy •Using mentors to enhance the story-making approach: Mentors will largely be drawn from the local business community and will receive training to act as role models and ongoing support. Mentors will be a critical factor in helping mentees to think about and learn from the story that they are telling.•Where next: supporting young people to access further employment/education/support services.•Building partnerships across sectors: A model for developing and strengthening links between youth organisations, schools, VET, HE and the labour market •A measurement tool that can be used by youth workers to assess young people’s progress2. A multi-media film, produced by young people, presenting the project and its impact on them.3. An open access multi-lingual e-learning portal, targeting youth workers4. A minimum of four multiplier events and a number of local dissemination activities. The immediate impact will bea) Youth workers will increase their skills to engage socially excluded young peopleb) Young people’s creativity and initiative will be stimulated, motivating them about their futurec) Young people will become aware of services, support networks, and means of accessing qualifications for further education and/or employmentd) Participating organisations will gain skills and a wider European network, supporting internationalisation strategies.Longer-term benefits will be a reduction in youth social exclusion; a positive impact on the partners’ reputation, which can be expected to bring further financial support. At wider level: we expect to feed the lessons of the project into policy development at national and European levels. Future funding is expected to be acquired through mainstreaming and multiplying the project both at national and European levels.

"In the first phase of the corona pandemic, barriers to education affected nearly 1.5 billion young people worldwide. Even if schools are cautiously reopened, education is no longer possible in the familiar form. Particularly in the limited time span of vocational training, a quick, systematic, and professional approach is important to ensure the quality of training and to keep the chances of the students for their career entries alive.The pandemic has clearly shown the lack of digital structures in our school systems, both on a technical level and on a content-related-didactic level. Accordingly, there is a need to build capacities for online and hybrid learning, for high-quality content and, generally to further develop the skills of students and teachers for remote learning and teaching. New, innovative teaching formats that can be used in various scenarios - virtual, hybrid, or on-site - are therefore essential. The main objective of the project is to improve the digital skills of teachers and students and to provide teachers in vocational education with free resources so that they can react flexibly, with innovative approaches and high-quality concepts in various corona-related scenarios.Practical work is part of general school practice in vocational schools and essential for learning technical, IT, and scientific methods. However, due to Covid-19 measures, a lot of this has now become simply impossible. This is exactly where our project comes in: We want to enable vocational training teachers to carry out classic hands-on student experiments with virtual support in flexible locations - at home, in several locations at the same time, or with appropriate distance in a classroom - depending on the current (hygenic/security) requirements. A second challenge of the pandemic situation is the isolation of people, thus a lack of a 'school community'. By linking experiments as well as students, a shared experimental situation is created that awakens motivation and interest and promotes cohesion - both locally and in Europe. In the search for answers to the Covid-19 crisis, all sides benefit from European cooperation. The project partners cover the full range of expertise needed (hands-on experiments: DM, Copernicus; didactic: TUM, UL; online learning: UL) and will work closely and strategically together to quickly find tailor-made and transnationally applicable solutions. All partners have solid connections to schools and teachers in their respective countries, allowing direct feedback and effective dissemination. The resulting action-oriented concepts should be exemplary for other EU countries. Teachers from vocational schools are the main target group of the project. Through didactically based further training, we comprehensively promote their digital competencies. With having trained around 40-60 professionals at schools in each country, a first spread of the developed resources is ensured. Each country will develop a teaching concept for a different subject resp. a different vocational training. A compact analysis will assess the actual demands of schools and teachers to define the key features of the program. Teachers themselves will be involved as co-creators of resources. Implementation support will not only ease the uptake through the teachers but at the same time allows a continuous quality enhancement of the teaching modules. To enhance the sustainability of the intellectual outputs, the teaching modules will be accompanied by step-by-step instructions that enable independent implementation of the concepts. A standalone guidebook will instruct teachers, who were inspired by the project to develop their own concepts and supply the required framework for developing new units. At the end of the project, we will have at least three tried-and-tested teaching modules on different topics, each in four languages (DE, PL, PT, EN), that allow easy, direct integration into teaching.The dissemination plan is adapted to the current pandemic situation, running multiple smaller events, as well as using participants as co-multipliers. The events will give an overview of the training and an insight into the practical work. With the help of the guidebook, the developmental system established in the project will be made transparent and re-usable for participants. The desired impact is to provide schools, teachers, and ultimately students with high-quality learning opportunities even in pandemic situations. For teachers, the aspired effects are to further enhance their digital competencies, their self-confidence in handling digital technologies, and their self-image as learning guides for their students. For students, the aimed-at effect is a differentiation that enables them to learn according to their needs - with the focus on vocational students especially strengthening practical work. By doing so and fostering the schools' ""community feeling"", we also wish to promote joyful learning processes."