Woodlands in the continental Euro-Atlantic region became heavily exploited from the Late Middle Ages onwards. The timber demand of growing cities and fleets promoted changes in oak (Quercus sp.) forestry practices and long-distance timber trade, aiming to provide a fast and sustainable turnover of construction wood. Progressively, changes in timber-framed buildings and ship designs took place during the 15th and 16th centuries, concurrently with shifts in woodworking techniques. Whether and how these changes and shifts in wood culture were interrelated, is still a debated question. Dendrochronological datasets biased towards wood from old trees, limited archaeological records, and fragmented historiography have hampered thus far finding the answer. WoodCulture aims to explain changes on and redress biased perspectives about domestic forests, timber supply, building activity patterns and technological innovations in the continental Euro-Atlantic region during the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance (c.1300-1600 CE). I will retrieve the currently missing wood archive of young and fast-growing oaks from managed forests, along with its associated historical, technological and environmental context, combining isotope dendrochronology, archaeology and history with 3D scanning, AI and GIS. This ground-breaking interdisciplinary approach will provide a novel, empirically-founded narrative about changes in woodlands and interdependencies between timber products, construction designs and technological innovations in the continental Euro-Atlantic region. Moreover, it will reveal whether domestic forests became sustainable suppliers of construction timber at local/regional scales, putting the magnitude of timber trade into perspective. The developed set of tools will revolutionise fields of study beyond material heritage (history, archaeology, geography), allowing the systematic analysis of hitherto unstudied timbers in historic buildings and archaeological sites.

"Promote your Soft Skills with open Badges (SoftSkills4EU) is a 2 year international project funded by the EU within Erasmus plus KA2 , led by RIC Novo mesto (Slovenia) with cooperation of 4 partners from other EU countries.The main project result is developed platform for evaluating and upgrading of Soft Skills, which is accessible on https://academy-softskills4.eu/.The main objectives followed throughout the project were:• Identify the key soft skills needed in Europe.• Develop new e-tools for assessment and learning using the concept of 'digital badges'.• Develop an evaluation strategy that can also be used by employers, career consellors and other relevant stakeholders.It is a fact that soft skills are challenging to measure for several reasons, either because of the absence of appropriate tools and the unclear evaluation criteria used in the evaluation of 'hard skills'. Because of the different types of people, there are also different approaches and views, that is why knowledge, skills and competences are difficult to standardized. In addition, ""soft"" skills, competencies become visible only after a long period of working in practice.The main results of the project are mainly useful for the four target groups: jobseekers, employees, employers and adult educators, career counsellors. We gave special attention also to one of the target groups in the labour market - migrants.One of the main objectives of the project was to support the Europass European tool, namely to develop a European soft skills passport with integrated OPEN BADGES (in line with the standards of other Europass support tools).Our project had mainly focused on a systematic inventory of soft skills (research done during the project) and the development of innovative tools for the evaluation of soft skills. We have created the so called 'Soft skills Framework' for the five main areas of soft skills, namely: •Organisational skills, •Co-operative skills, •Creative thinking skills, •Social skills, •Personal skills (coping with stress).Due to the well-established term ""soft skills"" in the EU, we, in partnership, have kept the same denomination and in the naming of modules, despite the fact that our elaborate ""Soft Skills Framework"" includes not only skills but also knowledge and competences. The foundation for preparing the framework is the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) and we considered the placing of the knowledge, skills and competence descriptors on three levels (A, B, C). With the levels of knowledge named this way, we wanted the move closer the evaluation system to the Europass tools. The platform provides e-learning materials (base on gathered best practices and creation of new material) from five thematic areas (five educational e-modules). In addition to testing, on the basis of which participants receive ""badges"", which represent validation of knowledge and skills, the project also produced a system of validation of acquired knowledges, skills, competence in practice through the acquisition of the ""Good employee"" badge. Within C1 activity we trained 15 career consultants (Soft Skills mentors) to use e-tools and award OPEN BADGES and to help to train other potential professionals to gain mentors badge. Project enables also gaining of SOFTSKILLS mentors badge also after the end of the project.The possibility of using the results of our project is wide:-For raising awareness among jobseekers and employees about the importance of soft skills and their impact on motivation, career development and personal growth.-For preparation of better CVs using our results and Europass tools.-For supporting career counselling (our newly developed tool is accessible to career counsellors in secondary schools’, adult education, to employment services, assessment centres and other organizations. That is why we want to offer them a tool that will make their work easier.)-This tool (thanks to the integrated e-learning material) can be used in both formal and non-formal programmes in adult education or for young people or with staff in education companies.-The tool can be used by employers in recruiting new staff or in preparation of development plan for staff, in monitoring it, for organizing employees to other workplace that are more appropriate to their competences.With implementation of project ""face to face"" activities we have reached so far more than 1.600 persons from the main target group and stakeholders from relevant and approx. 35.000 via internet-based activities. Partners:•RIC NOVO MESTO, Slovenia (lead partner)•MINISTERIE VAN ONDERWIJS, CULTUUR EN WETENSCHAP, Netherlands•A&A EMPHASYS INTERACTIVE SOLUTIONS Ltd, Cyprus•VISOKA POSLOVNA ŠKOLA PAR, Croatia•PROMIMPRESA SRL, ItalyProject platform and webpage with results: https://academy-softskills4.eu/, website: https://softskills4.eu/, https://softskills4.eu/Video guides: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh0E4B-O0QxfTbPeukZplJg"

Open Badges are becoming the digital standard for recognising and communicating skills acquired through informal and non-formal learning. They are increasingly being explored for use within formal education, and by employers. They are particularly valuable for supporting transitions between learning and the world of work. This is because of the verified data they can convey, including the issuing organisation, links to evidence and learning standards - all linked to the individual's identity. The other advantage of Open Badges is their portability and visibility in an electronic world - they can be shared across various online platforms. The Certificate Supplement was designed to make vocational education and training qualifications more transparent both within, but particularly between, European member states. Whilst widely issued in some member states, it is less well known in others. The reasons for this vary and are dependent on each national context. In its standard form, the Certificate Supplement is a generic document, specific to the individual, but in some member states, the Certificate Supplement is an individualised supplement - essentially an enhanced transcript - that provides a record of what a student actually achieved. ESCO is a multilingual taxonomy for skills, competences, qualifications, and occupations and provides a common language for recording skills / learning outcomes required for particular occupations and qualifications. What these tools have in common is that they were designed to support the transition between learning (formal / non-formal / informal) and the world of work. ABECS aimed to combine the best attributes of electronic transcripts, the Certificate Supplement and ESCO and incorporate them in a modern, portable, verified, shareable, visible, electronic package - an Open Badge. The project piloted these badges in specific sectors across all the partner countries with carefully selected qualifications that provided proof of concept. The six partners involved in the project, deriving from five member states, were chosen for their knowledge and experience in various areas including Open Badges, digital student data and digital credentials, ESCO expertise, development of certificate banks and Certificate Supplement databases, electronic transcripts, individualised Certificate Supplements and curriculum development, to name a few. To achieve the project aim of developing enhanced electronic transcripts in the form of an individualised Certificate Supplement, using ESCO terminology and packaged as an Open Badge, the partners utilised a phased methodology to: - Select test qualifications for which occupational information already exists in ESCO and are offered across all partner member states - in particular, in sectors with high rates of international mobility. - Establish the content for the Open Badges by reviewing existing Certificate Supplement data (where available) and cross referencing to ESCO terminology and other occupational data - Develop / adapt / utilise an Open Badge issuing platform and establish how to populate the platform / badges with the credential content. - Develop guidance information for awarding institutions / organisations and learners to guide them through the issuance process and how to share the Badges once in receipt in order to optimise their visibility and use by employers as part of their recruitment - in particular, sharing them via online media. - Test methods for populating and issuing the Certificate Supplements as Open Badges - Reviewing the information included in the badge, translations into project partner languages and consistency of the learning outcomes. - Present the results of the pilot study in a report / presentation along with guidance for up-scaling the pilot across other qualifications, awarding institutions / bodies / sectors, member states, etc. - Disseminate these results to partner stakeholder networks and more widely using appropriate media. - Hold multiplier events to share the results / guidance to stakeholders and gather feedback. The aim of ABECS was to develop a workable model for issuing enhanced transcripts in the form of individualised Certificate Supplements using ESCO terminology, in multiple languages in an Open Badge format, and for those Open Badges to be shared and distributed to employers and other end users via online media such as LinkedIn. The longer term impact that the project intends to achieve is for the pilot to have demonstrated the feasibility of this model and therefore to see the process duplicated widely across Europe, hopefully including adoption by the European Commission into the new Europass portfolio. The consortium also hoped to raise awareness of the Certificate Supplement with employers and present the value of issuing such information in the form of an Open Badge, including better reputational assessments of candidates and access to a wider pool of talent.