Innovative VET devices in rural territories Erasmus Project

Project Title

Innovative VET devices in rural territories

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 vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Overcoming skills mismatches (basic/transversal); Inclusion – equity; Rural development and urbanisation

Project Summary

A small video of 8 minutes summarizes the steps of the program in pictures.

password: 8min

The second was a wink to the good atmosphere and confidence that greatly helped to facilitate the work in the group during these 2 years:

password: 1234

In addition, the group has chosen to focus the information and learnings of the project on a website:
innovet-project.eu

It contains the stages (episodes) and the report of visits and workshops. The territorial profile part corresponds to the analyzes and the result of the use of the grid validated together in Figeac.
Finally, the resources section includes the tools and approaches used during the program.

The context in which this program took place is that of the economic and social balances of the rural territories put in tension by the economic globalization. Actors are seeking to improve the dialogue between training provision and the demand for skills to keep these rural territories alive.
The challenge is to enable all assets to adapt to changes in the productive system and to promote the competitiveness of SMEs and very small businesses. This project also has a civic dimension with the idea that everyone has something to contribute to territorial dynamics.

The objectives were to search for tools and methods that facilitate active listening of the territories and facilitate the development of the most strategic skills for the actors of the training but also for the whole territorial system.

The number and profile of participants was generally the same at each session: managers and teams of training organizations, organizations supporting training and the rural world, territorial institutions linked to companies.

The description of the activities corresponds to what was foreseen in the application:
– a kick off meeting in Brussels coupled with a visit of OFFA partners to understand the context in which this partner works. The final workshop in July 2019 was also held in Brussels to facilitate dissemination.

– 2 action learning sessions were held as planned. The first in Figeac to start from the experiences of the previous program, to allow the group to build up the basis of a common experience and lead to jointly specify our roadmap, our method and tools to implement.
The last session took place on Reunion Island to test learning in a new territory for the majority of partners. it is also a way of putting the ultra peripherical region at the center of European concerns by making this part of Europe a reality for the group. The diversity of contexts observed during the two years gave the participants confidence and resulted in the writing of the guide on territorial cooperation in the appendix.
– The transnational meetings (Iceland, Romania, Lithuania, Slovenia) served both to pilot and manage the program but also as a case study to expand the typologies of territories with their characteristics and lessons learned.
They were supplemented by a first meeting in Slovenia to help the partner stay on track, a workshop on own funds in Bosnia and the closing session in Brussels.

The results are already visible even if it was not obvious at the beginning for a program of exchange of practices.
There are new practices : training, services and ways to organize or consider the mission of partner organizations. The guide on territorial cooperation has been developed together and translated.

The partners are reassured in their capacity to meet the needs of the assets (employees, young people, local populations, etc.) and local businesses by their (sometimes new) territorial approach.

The impacts, or rather the effects, are detailed in the dedicated part of the report but we can summarize by insisting on the changing posture of individuals and organizations (wider vision and with greater range) and a real change brought about by transnational meetings prepared in turn by each partner. They strengthened the link between the actors of the territories, their mutual knowledge and the consciousness that everything is there but that the dialogue and the pretext of an event to activate the territorial network were missing.

The long-term benefits seem many. There is a stronger political positioning of rural areas with the beginning of institutional dialogue on the contribution of vocational training to the development of rural areas, a change in the speech of the decision-makers of the partners and a strong desire of the partners to pursue together.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 186480 Eur

Project Coordinator

Union Nationale des Maisons Familiales Rurales d’Education et d’Orientation & Country: FR

Project Partners

• PORODICNI RURALNI EDUKATIVNI CENTAR
• ifocap
• Sol et Civilisation
• ASOCIATIA GRUPUL DE ACTIUNE LOCALANAPOCA POROLISSUM
• Office Francophone de la Formation en Alternance
• Verkmenntaskólinn á Akureyri
• BSC, POSLOVNO PODPORNI CENTER, DOO