Comunity Learning Incubator Program for Sustainability Erasmus Project

Project Title

Comunity Learning Incubator Program for Sustainability

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

CLIPS (Community Learning Incubator Program for Sustainability) has 10 partner organisations (Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden) and 2 umbrella organisations, ECOLISE and GEN International, as primary associated partners. The project is a follow-up of the strategic partnership „Sustainable Communities Incubator Partnership Programme“ (SCIPP), with 8 partner countries from 2015-2017. SCIPP developed as its most important results a comprehensive conceptual framework for Incubator trainings and an Incubator ICT platform.

The target group of incubator trainings are active citizens involved in community-led sustainable projects, especially start-ups e.g. transition initiatives, ecovillages, permaculture projects, co-housing settlements etc. Many community-led sustainable projects are currently blossoming all over Europe, working towards a more sustainable path of life; worried about the climate crisis and searching for more sustainable lifestyles, connecting the local with the global, aligning with the UN Sustainable Development Goals in a local and citizen driven mode of implementation. Often, members of such projects cooperate with and respond to political priorities for local municipalities as well. These conditions jointly form the background for this project.

A notably high number of groups starting sustainable projects fail within the first 2-3 years. CLIPS addresses this issue with its mission of providing learning materials for trainings and Incubation programs which assist these groups to succeed and to continue thriving.

Most of the partners are networks of grassroots initiatives, mostly national umbrella organisations and many from the ecovillage movement. It was decided to include four new countries, for enhanced outreach and new perspectives.

The CLIPS project pursued the following goals:
– Addition of specific developed CLIPS tools and methodology catering for different learning styles
– Build the capacity and increase the pool of CLIPS trainers
– Introduce and spread CLIPS to additional countries

The OVERALL OBJECTIVE of the project was to assist COMMUNITY-LED PROJECTS TO THRIVE through adequate and customizable tools and methods.

There are two main target groups involved in this project, being active citizens creating community-led sustainable projects; the target group CLIPS trainings are designed for – and trainers working with the CLIPS framework and tools, delivering CLIPS trainings

The partnership produced 3 main outputs using a participatory approach co-creating innovative learning tools. These cater to different styles of learning, bringing additional practical, playful and inspirational tools:

1. CLIPS Method Toolkit -25 methods for CLIPS trainings with a detailed how-to description for trainers (minimum 12 of them have been translated in all partner languages)
2. A didactic board game on group dynamics as an interactive learning tool (translated in all partner languages)
3. Best practice examples and success stories, using a storytelling approach to portray real life examples, including inspirational videos (a pilot in three countries).

The project activities included many events, besides Transnational Project Meetings (of which one was cancelled due to covid restrictions). The designing of a didactic board game needed extensive testing to optimize the rules, conducted through national activities of selected partners, multiplier events targeted at trainers testing the prototype. The CLIPS Method Toolkit has been tested in a blended mobility of learners in the form of a pilot training. The entire project team of all participating trainers is trained in the use of the intellectual outputs through internal training. Additionally trainers from each partner organisation were trained in a ToT event, thus contributing to capacity building of qualified trainers. Also national Multiplier Events contributed to disseminating the project results to 150 trainers from different organisations. Furthermore, national Incubator trainings have been organised by partner countries, targeted community-led sustainable projects.

The expected results of the project include, in the long term:
– Empowerment for people to become active and start community-led sustainable projects
– Quality improvement in the design, management and implementation of community-led sustainable projects
– Higher success rates for community-led sustainable projects starting up.

This project is part of a bigger vision and the continuation of a longer process. The incubator is intended to become a widespread and much needed and demanded service. With CLIPS, the Incubator has been introduced in 13 European countries. The aim is to spread it to at least 20 countries over the next years, as a programme shaping the future of citizen-led transition. All results are available on the webpage: https://clips.gen-europe.org/

Project Website

https://clips.gen-europe.org/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 181743 Eur

Project Coordinator

GLOBAL ECOVILLAGE NETWORK OF EUROPEEV & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Asociatia Romania in Tranzitie
• Felkelo Nap Kozhasznu Egyesulet
• Stichting GEN-NL
• MiMundo
• Ekobyarnas riksorganisation
• Asociacion Red Iberica de Ecoaldeas
• Rete italiana villaggi ecologici – RIVE