“Development of opportunities in the field of design for technical careers through innovation-laboratories” Erasmus Project

Project Title

“Development of opportunities in the field of design for technical careers through innovation-laboratories”

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 higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills

Project Summary

In line with the Strategic Framework for European Cooperation in Education and Training and the Education and Training 2020 Forum on the implementation of this framework within the new European priorities in education and training, higher education systems should boost the knowledge economy and respond to labor market needs and contribute to the demands of a changing labor market by raising skills and applying innovative approaches to improve the relevance of curricula by enhancing the transition to the employment of university students, as well as promoting gender equality. The EU estimates that there are 900,000 unfilled technology jobs by 2020. In this context, improving the development of high-quality education in technical careers is the basis for the full achievement of the Innovation Union and the European Research Area.

In the field of technical careers, a series of shortcomings have been detected in young professionals, since the existing gap between European labor market needs and the competencies that are being developed through academic programs. The labor market demands skills in more multi and interdisciplinary profiles and the curricula are lagging behind these expectations by not fulfilling these necessities. At the same time, in the field of design careers, while design methods and tools have increasingly become a channel to achieve transformation and integration of cross-sector achievements, a debate on the ability of the design curricula to provide itself with the capacity to fully respond to the ever-evolving demands of the changing society and labor market has begun. It is necessary to adequately “adapt” and equip students in these technical careers with a wide range of capacities and skills by applying an inter and transdisciplinary (and innovative) approach that promotes going beyond the multidisciplinary (and traditional) one and therefore, seeking interpenetration between disciplines thus generating new knowledge and methods.

On this basis, the approach of INNO-TEC-LAB is twofold: firstly, to advance technical careers by enhancing the relevance of curricula in adapting to current labor and societal needs, secondly, to set-up a joint undertaking in educational and methodological innovation cross-careers. The main objective is thus to create and validate a model based in interdisciplinarity to support innovation in the field of design in technical careers through a network of innovation laboratories that will be connected to each other and will serve to improve learning tools, knowledge exchange, training of learners and researchers.

A community of laboratories will be created through which the necessary tools will be developed and an approach and learner-centered model in the field of design to technical careers will be adopted. This framework will have an interdisciplinary perspective that will enhance the capacity of students in these careers and help develop high-quality competencies focused on learning outcomes, and other transversal skills. As a result, it will encourage the development of a change in curricula to equip students for the European labor market and its growing digital needs. In addition, the project will also have as objectives:
-To initiate the creation of a transdisciplinary framework through careers
-To develop a digital platform that connects innovation laboratories and facilitates the generation and exchange of knowledge
The target groups of the project will be students of technical careers, teachers of the HEIs, staff related to them, related companies and Public authorities, policymakers, and the business sector.

The project involves 7 entities from different fields (universities, non-profit associations specializing in education, training entities) from 6 different countries in Europe (Italy, Poland, France, Lithuania, Netherlands, and Finland)
Four intellectual outputs will be developed in the project:
– INNO-TEC-Lab learning module
– Online “train the trainers”
– INNO-TEC-LAB courses
– Creation of a platform of innovation laboratories
2 multiplier events will be developed at the European level that will help the dissemination and extension of the project activities and the sustainability of the project after its completion.

A digital platform will be developed to help connect the innovation labs and facilitate interaction between teams for knowledge generation and exchange. The innovation laboratories will host pilot activities to test and validate the new academic approaches and feed results back into the transnational research platform for the enhancement of the curricula, methods, and tools. The international network of innovation laboratories will summarize the findings, paying particular attention to the gaps that curricula cannot complete without taking a step further in the methodology. These elements will be the basis for the conceptualization of a new transdisciplinary framework for higher education.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 188918 Eur

Project Coordinator

IED Istituto Europeo di Design S.p.A. & Country: IT

Project Partners

• METROPOLIA AMMATTIKORKEAKOULU OY
• VsI Socialiniu inovaciju centras
• SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT MANAGEMENTINSTITUTE ET INSTITUT DE MANAGEMENTDU DEVELOPPEMENT DURABLE
• European Digital Learning Network
• Media Dizjan
• STICHTING HOGESCHOOL VAN AMSTERDAM