Textile Strategy for Innovative Higher Education Erasmus Project

Project Title

Textile Strategy for Innovative Higher Education

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 2017

Project Topics

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

Project Summary

The textiles and clothing manufacturing sector, one of the largest and most important in Europe, now more than ever, needs workforce qualified to manage research and innovation actions; one that should have the right mix of skills, both professional and transversal, in order to demonstrate their competence for applied research, development and technological transfer. In this context, the TEXSTRA project developed the tools necessary for skills enhancement, targeted to higher education, in relation to research and innovation, in order to obtain its objectives: to strengthen the knowledge triangle, i.e. the cooperation and networking between HEI’s, research organizations and companies in order to reinforce the textile research position in the European context as a potential development key; to promote research & innovation based actions, testing and development of new e-learning tools for students, trainers and professionals; to promote the application of good practices for the enhancement of innovative skills; and to provide knowledge, skills and competences by using virtual tools.
The TEXSTRA partnership comprised 10 institutions from 8 European countries (Romania, Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Lithuania, Bulgaria, and Italy) presenting a balanced geographic coverage. There is a mixture of institutions with different profiles, capacities and complementary competences that are appropriate for the development of the work programme (higher education institutions, private and public research and training centres, SME’s companies, non-profit institutions, and business associations).
A set of implementation activities led to the achievement of the project objectives supported by preparation, management, quality and dissemination activities that ensured the propagation of its results even after the project has ended. All of the project results are the outcomes of four (4) Intellectual Outputs (O2, O3, O5, and O6).
The activities included a) the development of a training programme and e-learning material for transferring research and innovation to textile and clothing students and companies in the form of the TEXSTRA e-book, b) the development of an online platform for transferring research and innovation through project based training , c) the development of a Book of lectures “Innovative and Creative thinking in the Textile & Clothing manufacturing sector”, that served as the training material related to Innovative and Creative thinking in the Textile & Clothing sector for the intensive summer course C1 organized in Portugal by UMINHO, and d) the development of a “Project handbook of good practices & open challenges: training tools and methodologies to foster creativity and innovation within the textile and clothing manufacturing sector”, containing all relevant information related to the project and its achievements as well as open challenges to be tackled. A Project Ambassadors Group has been created based on partners from TEXSTRA consortium in order to disseminate the handbook of good practices through a LinkedIn group, among others.
In addition, two support actions have been implemented 1) the Need Analysis report , based on desk and field research, depicting the state of the art for the skills and training in the textile and clothing manufacturing industry related to research and innovation, has been created based on questionnaires surveys, 2) the Virtual Internship, a form of internship was started online on the project e-Learning platform, in the form of tutorship of teams of students by companies on specific projects/challenges. In Virtual Internship platform are already enrolled a number of students and companies.
The intensive study programme (C1) organized in Portugal by partner UMINHO have been attended by selected students of the universities involved in the project; it has involved training sessions, combining e-learning sessions and physical presence, mixing different learning tools and methodologies, such as flipped classrooms, company visits and testimonials.
With the realization of TEXSTRA, members of the target groups, students of HEI’s, trainees of textile and clothing manufacturing enterprises, managers and potential ones of Textile/Clothing SME’s, as well as other stakeholders in the field, have benefited from the project results during the lifetime of the project, either by their participation in multiplier events and workshops or by subscribing to the Virtual Internship platform, by using the TEXSTRA E-book, by participating in the multiplier events (E2-E7), in the intensive study programme for HEI learners (C1) and by getting informed by the newsletters. After the project conclusion, the platform will remain operational and it will host the final version of all project outputs which can by freely downloaded by external stakeholders; moreover it will be available for further development and testing by the partners.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 254679,87 Eur

Project Coordinator

INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE-DEZVOLTARE PENTRU TEXTILE SI PIELARIE & Country: RO

Project Partners

• ASSOCIACIO AGRUPACIO D’EMPRESES INNOVADORES TEXTILS
• UNIVERSITATEA TEHNICA GHEORGHE ASACHI DIN IASI
• CIAPE – CENTRO ITALIANO PER L’APPRENDIMENTO PERMANENTE
• CREATIVE THINKING DEVELOPMENT
• MATERIAL CONNEXION ITALIA SRL
• KAUNO TECHNOLOGIJOS UNIVERSITETAS
• Institute for Technology Transfer and Innovations