The PuRPOSE project’s main objective is to promote research attractiveness in the fields of entrepreneurship and management studies by developing new training approaches and tools in order to contribute to overcome obstacles such as lack of interest, network, knowledge and skills that prevent students from engaging in PhD studies. The private sector will be strongly involved in the project in order to increase relevance of activities, favor a practical approach and allow students to develop their network.The project will go through three phases:-A development phase during which the partners will carry out an inventory and analysis of existing good practices, define strategies and create the tools for increasing research attractiveness-A pilot phase where the tools and concept created will be tested on Master’s students during the learning teaching and training activities carried out.-An analysis of the tools and concept created following the experience of the pilot phaseThe first intended result is an analysis of good practices and obstacles in partner HEIs. This output will lead to the development of strategies and recommendations for fostering research attractiveness and to the refinement of the MiniLabs pilot concept.The second intended result is the “MiniLabs pilot concept”, a comprehensive Learning, Teaching and Training concept. This MiniLabs pilot concept will be based on a series of principles, tools and training methods with the aim of favoring research attractiveness for Master’s students. It will be conceived as an idea to help trainers provide an attractive and innovative pedagogical approach to give students the necessary skills, knowledge, interest and practical know-how to get involved in research/PhD studies after their master’s degree. The MiniLabs will include two main features: collaborative work by international student teams on research projects through online and face to face coaching, and an online training module in the form of a series of videos.The third intended result is the MiniLabs Guide for promoting research attractiveness. The analysis of the MiniLabs pilot concept will lead to the production of a guide for promoting research attractiveness that will be easily transferrable through the consortium’s networkIn terms of long term impact, the final expected results are the dissemination of the MiniLab's guide for research attractiveness, the replication of the MiniLabs concept and the creation of a European network working on themes revolving around research in entrepreneurship and attractiveness, exchange of good practices and encouraging research in management studies involving external actors.

This is a new and innovative project which is based on the need to enhance the youth work skills of young people and youth workers in a multi-media context. The world of multimedia changes rapidly. Youth workers need to understand and capture this environment to ensure relevance and ongoing enhancement of the young people they work with. In turn, young people need to be supported to use their skills in this virtual world of communication to enhance and not isolate - to develop associations with each other both virtually and also in real time. This project will bring three groups of young people together within a moderated online progressive gaming environment to develop technical and collaboration skills as well as encouraging engagement with and an understanding of the communities in which they live. Participants will work together to locate, design and construct the town, researching and negotiating the various considerations and dilemmas inherent in such a project. The work will be undertaken within their country teams and in collaboration with the teams in the other two countries. Participants will base the designs on replicating buildings in their own towns, thus encouraging them to get out and learn about their own built environment. They will also be encouraged to research the housing of vulnerable groups, refugees, travellers, disabled people and the homeless within our communities. The project will then expand in year three creating a multiplier effect across the partner countries as 3 new groups are introduced to the concept and encouraged to create their own versions of youth town bringing the project directly to another 30 participants and 6 youth workers, in each country. Towards the final stages of the project, once the platform and the methodology has been established, each participant will be encouraged to invite 10 of their friends to visit youth town and to learn about the project, this will directly access 300 people in each country. The final conference will be an opportunity to launch the methodology to youth work organisations and other relevant stakeholders. A community of youth work practitioners will be encouraged through the project website as will interaction between a growing number of young players on the games platform and the social media.The training methodology will be:Based on non-formal education principles
Encourage self-directed learning
Include reflection
Rely on peer-to-peer learning and sharing
Incorporate experiential learningDirect accredited training programme through LIT RATIONALEThis project addresses the fact that increasingly young people are spending significant amounts of their time playing online games and investing much of their creativity, their personal and collective identities in computer gameMcGonigal points out that, “every single day, gamers worldwide spend a collective 30 million hours working on world of warcraft (the largest global MMORPG)” McGonigal (2011;60). Statistics for Minecraft, while not available would be consistent with this scale. According to Ceclie Peasce this intensive, prolonged, interaction can generate a strong sense of community and collective identity which she describes as a ’CoLiberation’, Pearce (2006). This ability to play with, and assist friends in such a casual and accessible manner builds the social connections of players and, according to McGonigal (2011:87), helps address the decline in social capita within “real world” communities.This project will seek to address the prolonged and sometimes obsessive exposure by young people to unmoderated negative behaviour in games by designing a game based on youth work values and approaches. This project seeks to address the decline in civic engagement by young people and seeks to implement the recommendations of recent European Commission JRC research on the use of games for social inclusionTrasnational Rationale, The transnational element in this project strengthens its appeal and benefits to young people and enhances its potential as a youth work tool across the EU

SchoolBreak's main objective was to exploit the educational advantages of escape rooms. Escape rooms are a relatively new entertainment form in which small groups of players work together over a set time to solve puzzles - and escape a real life locked room. Educational advantages relate to their motivational impact (e.g. challenge, group work, competition, story immersion) and their educational methodology, partly based on cross-curricular skills (e.g. experiantial, problem-solving, cognitive activation). On this basis educational escape rooms (eER) can also be designed to meet specific curriculum goals.From this two partial objectives of SchoolBreak are derived: - providing easy to play educational escape rooms for different topics (taking into account the topical specializations of the partner organisations)- providing a framework for the usage and design of eERs by teachers and students - mainly for secunday education. On the project website - combined with additional information and resources - SchoolBreak offers a set of 25 eERs, plus 17 translations into other partner languages, plus 1 in an additional online-version.Also on the website SchoolBreak presents five manuals in five languages (English, German, Spanish, Italian, French):#1 Using escape rooms in teaching#2 Designing educational escape rooms (i.e. by teachers)#3 Learning through escape room design (i.e. by school students)#4 Puzzles and other things to unlock#5 Plot-Puzzle for Educational Escape Rooms DesignAdditionally introductory videos in German and Italian.SchoolBreak was heavily affected adversely by the covid-crisis. The original plan to work with school students became very difficult for most partners. If there was face-to-face teaching at all, externals were often not allowed to enter schools and most of all teachers set other priorities than testing new training methods. Therefore SchoolBreak targeted more teachers and teacher trainees and disseminated more via digial media. The extension of the project until Aug. 2021 did not change the situation significantly. Overall the outreach into schools was not as systematical as intended. In a number of international, national and regional workshops and courses more than 54.000 teachers and teacher trainees could be reached.The exploitation of results by the partners is going on this way also after the project lifetime.

CONTEXT/BACKGROUNDSubstantial research shows Outdoor Learning (OL) to be highly successful and sustainable in nurturing transversal skills crucial for employability, active citizenship, and personal wellbeing. Nevertheless, hardly any country embeds OL systematically in formal or non-formal education. The NEF+ consortium partners have been working together since 2018 using an OL model to promote transversal skills in young people. To mitigate impact of Covid-19, digital learning solutions have been devised which produce unexpected added value from the combination of OL and digital learning. OBJECTIVESNEF+ will augment these insights and good practice within the Consortium and among VET practitioners and experts on regional and EU level. The project creates professional development opportunities on OL for VET, e.g. through a digital open access repository with self-led learning materials and best practice guidelines on OL for VET in non-formal education and workplace settings - with a special focus on ways to digitally enhance OL. To achieve sustainable impact, the existing New Education Forum (NEF) network will be expanded and digitalised to enable professional development, knowledge exchange and lobbying of (digitally augmented) OL for VET beyond the funding period. PARTICIPANTSNEF+ serves three beneficiary groups: 1) VET educators - in and outwith the Consortium members' institutions - active or interested in OL for VET (min. 300 educators engaged in NEF+ online and live knowledge exchange activities).2) Experts (professional associations, OL training institutions, good practice providers) contribute to the state-of-the-art knowledge base and the network (min. 60 new members, i.e. 20% increase of current network).3) Decision-makers on regional and EU level carry forward OL for VET sustainably on a wide scope (support of min. 2 EU institutions, 180 attendees at live/online multiplier events).ACTIVITIES & METHODOLOGYTo achieve the objectives, the NEF+ Consortium:•Moves the existing NEF network online and expands it through digital engagement tools for professional development, knowledge exchange and networking. •Provides an open access digital repository for information on OL for VET, incl a summary of existing research on OL for VET and ways of digital enhancement of OL and VET. •Showcases OL for VET Good Practitioners who achieve significant impact on employability and citizenship. •Obtains sustainable commitment of regional and EU policy- and decision-makers for NEF+ and OL for VET beyond the funding period.•Conducts live/online events in Brussels connecting all target groups in networking, knowledge exchange, and lobbying. The project combines digital engagement and live knowledge exchange and networking tools. The state-of-the-art is elicited through a traditional, interdisciplinary literature review, a scoping exercise for good practice, and expert discussion in the online network. EXPECTED RESULTS AND IMPACTThe main results of NEF+ are:•A digitally enhanced network for (NEF+ Consortium and other) educators and other stakeholders interested in OL for VET, sharing and expanding the state-of-the-art in (digitally augmented) OL for VET•An open access online repository with OL for VET-related resources•A summary of existing research and list of indicators to self-evaluate and identify ‘Good Practices in OL for VET’•Information on and insights gained from at least 10 Good Practitioners in OL for VET•3 regional plus 2 international multiplier events (over 300 participants total)•Guidelines for implementation of OL for VET The impact envisaged of NEF+ is that at least 10 regions in Europe (start to) implement OL for VET in Europe, and at least 300 educators have started or expanded their practical use of OL for VET in their work practice. In addition, the networking opportunities are expected to spark inter-sectional collaborations on OL for VET and beyond.LONGER TERM BENEFITSThe NEF+ online network will continue to provide professional development on OL for VET for educators in the Consortium member institutions and beyond. Inter-sectorial knowledge exchange and collaboration between different stakeholders and professionals will improve the educational landscape and state-of-the-art in using OL for VET in Europe. Furthermore, interregional and transnational cooperation between public authorities in education (especially VET), training and youth will be established and strengthened. This will help to raise the ratio of youth in employment, education and training, especially during and beyond the pandemic. Widening and refining the use of OL for VET and ways to digitally enhance it will also bring about the other benefits known of OL – for health and wellbeing, environmental protection and social equity – thus making active and effective contributions towards no less than three UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Every year public authorities in the EU spend around 14% of GDP on Public Procurement (PP), which amounts to more than EUR 1.9 trillion. To this end, ‘Greening’ public procurements is among the key factors that stimulate the transition to a resource efficiency and green growth, as it is strongly highlighted in the recently launched EU Green Deal.Especially for construction works, public sector is a key source of demand. Considering that the construction sector is one of the most resource-intensive sectors, Green Public Procurement (GPP) in the sector is a key driver for works with limited environmental impact, as well as a major contributor to reaching the EU environmental, sustainability and energy efficiency targets.Nevertheless, EU countries face many obstacles in implementing GPP policies, ranging from lack of information, training, and knowledge for establishing criteria and standards eligible with GPP, along with inadequate capacity building of the PP workforce and limited knowledge transfer between practitioners and the educational sector.In this context, the GUPP project anticipates to tackle the aforementioned challenges and needs through developing capacity building and increasing learning opportunities of the public procurement related staff and public and procurement authorities in implementing GPP that address green criteria and standards in construction works.With this respect, the project envisions to have overall impact on the construction sector, by responding to current, emerging and growing needs of the sector for accelerating transition to a resource efficient and circular economy, towards EU's energy and environmental goals. In parallel, with view to the training system, the expected impact is to enhance the education’s sector capacity building towards meeting the abovementioned challenges by integrating innovative learning tools and resources and facilitating the supply of high quality learning opportunities for adults, through making available flexible learning offers tailored to their learning needs. Overall, the project foresees to:-Enable behavioural changes of key stakeholders involved in a PP process towards a sustainable, greener and circular economy.-Create new opportunities for public authorities to stimulate resource efficiency and green growth.-Facilitate knowledge transfer between key stakeholders involved in PP processes, as well between practitioners and the educational sector and raise awareness about the lifecycle environmental impacts of projects.-Strengthen synergies and empower transnational social dialogue between all relevant stakeholders.The aforementioned results will be achieved through the implementation of complementary activities and innovative outputs, as follows:-The development of a Green Handbook: An instrument on GPP Regulatory Framework and Practice on Construction Works, that will provide a general understanding of the GPP process and challenges faced upon its implementation on construction works.-The development of the GUPP capacity building program that will provide participants (public procurement staff, professionals of construction works), with up-to-date knowledge and advanced aspects of GPP in construction works, facilitating deeper knowledge and familiarity with GPP.-The development of the GUPP Web Platform, an online hub for GPP that will serve as an innovative e-training and e-learning tool and will bring together all the latest news, events, and resources on GPP and enhance retention and learners engagement, as well enable social dialogue and knowledge transfer on the subject matter.-Engagement with GPP in construction works, which will be further facilitated through piloting the capacity building programme in min. 100 public procurement related staff and workforce, delivering all data and information collected in the framework of the previous outputs and providing/ delivering relative policy recommendations to a growing number of key stakeholders and public authorities (min. 40).The target groups addressed range from Public Authorities, contracting Authorities in local, regional, National level, including Public procurement staff, to key stakeholders representing the construction sector, policy makers, social partners and entities involved in procurement processes, as well as education’s sector stakeholders, including training and adult learning providers.The envisioned impact will be enabled through the involvement of 5 project partners, coming from 4 EU countries: France, Slovenia, Greece, Ireland, that represent the construction sector, the education sector as well as public authorities in regional and national level. Their complementary backgrounds and expertise, familiarity with the project topic and close proximity with the target groups will ensure the projects’ high sustainability, dissemination and exploitation impact.