Development of Critical and Creative Thinking Skills to Foster Employment and Impact Success in Job Erasmus Project

Project Title

Development of Critical and Creative Thinking Skills to Foster Employment and Impact Success in Job

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; Overcoming skills mismatches (basic/transversal); Enterprise, industry and SMEs (incl. entrepreneurship)

Project Summary

The project ACT2IMPACT aims to tackle the existing gap between the set of soft skills detained by young adults preparing to enter the labor market or recently in their first job and the needs currently faced by companies. Due to the fast changing business environment, were the technological advancements brought new challenges to the growth and competitiveness of companies, the set of skills needed from professionals is also changing. Alongside with strong qualifications and ability to learn, soft skills such as critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, collaboration, among others are becoming more and more relevant. These are not just the skills that will be required for the new jobs emerging from the technological and digital business transformation, but are also key skills that will support companies to be competitive in the market. While the topic of the “new jobs” has been under discussion for quite some time, already, the transformation in the labor market is already in place and will increase in a very short term. Therefore, while the traditional education system is still changing in a very slow mode, solutions to support young adults to face the new challenges of the changing labor market are already highly needed.
Based on the existing gap and aware of the urgency to develop innovative solutions to support the development of key soft skills among young adults entering the labor market, the partnership developed the project ACT2IMPACT. The project proposes the development of an upskilling pathway that, through an integrated approach, supports the development of Critical and Creative Thinking soft skills. Through the approach developed under the project, also Collaborative soft skills will be tackled. The project proposes a blended approach, based on short online training courses dedicated to Critical Thinking and Creativity, blended with “in-person” team work for an effective skills development.
The target group of the project are young adults aged between 20 and 30 years old.
From the project will result 5 Intellectual Outputs, that in the future can be used as an integrated approach, as proposed by the project or individualy: O1. Training package for Critical Thinking skills development; O2. Debate Forums – Methodological approach and guidelines for implementation; O3. Online platform – European forum and online training; O4. Training Package on Creativity; O5. Hackaton for new solutions – Methodological Guidelines.
To test the solutions and programme designed, the partnership will implement a piloting phase, in which will engage around 100 participants from the 5 countries of the partnerhisp. The piloting phase will allow to analyse the impact of the solution in the target group, collect feedback on improvements and/or opportunities to further develop the programme, and elaborate recommendations both for the implementation of the solutions by future users and recommendations for local/regional and national political decision makers in order to promote the programme as a tool to boost the competitiveness and atractiveness of the regions.
For the project development, a complementary team from 5 EU countries was gathered: FUNDEUN (ES) as project leader, E&D Knowledge Consulting (PT), EURO-NET (IT), University of Thessaly (GR) and Danmar Computers (PL).
The project will have the duration of 26 months.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 76925 Eur

Project Coordinator

FUNDACION EMPRESA UNIVERSIDAD DE ALICANTE DE LA COMUNIDAD VALENCIANA & Country: ES

Project Partners

• E&D KNOWLEDGE CONSULTING, LDA
• DANMAR COMPUTERS SP ZOO
• EURO-NET
• PANEPISTIMIO THESSALIAS