Today’s global trends have brought new challenges to all communities, regardless of the size, geographical location, or position within the settlement hierarchy. This is especially true for rural cities and small settlements at the level of local society and economy, as well as at the level of individuals. In both the international and domestic literature, research on “smartness” has so far focused on big cities. Smartness was primarily tied to size, minimum population, urban functions, and the existence of a massive “hard,” i.e., physical infrastructure. The main goal of “getting smart” was accordingly focused on efficiency and technology.

The project Smart Communities 2.0 - How to be smart in the countryside? (SKHU/1902/4.1/027) aims to answer the “How to” question now, based on the experience of the previous project (Smart Communities - Virtual Education and Research and Development and Innovation Network in the Slovakian - Hungarian border region), to provide products and services and apply good practices to disadvantaged municipalities that: they help them become ‘smart’ by guiding development. As an experienced and locally embedded NGO, the project consortium leader will act as a bridge to local communities, and the consortium member higher education institutions will provide knowledge and development capacities on both sides of the border.

The project is realized in consortium with partners from Hungary and Slovakia.

The project is supported by European Union, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund in the framework of INTERREG V-A Slovakia-Hungary Programme (www.skhu.eu).

For more information visit: http://smartcommunities.eu/en

To bring Europe back to growth and higher levels of employment, Europe needs more entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship is a key competence – powerful driver – to increase the competitiveness and economic growth of EU economies. A number of tools have been created to support the development of an entrepreneurial mindset among EU citizens, among which HEInnovate for higher education institutions. The European Commission and the OECD have joined forces in the development of HEInnovate. HEInnovate is a self-assessment tool for Higher Education Institutions who wish to explore their innovative potential. It is free, confidential and open to anyone to use. The Council of the European Union invites the Member States to enhance the entrepreneurial and innovative capabilities of higher education institutions through the use of the HEInnovate self-assessment tool.

Wenn Unternehmen "umstellen" auf Selbstorganisation, wenn schwerfällige Modelle von formaler Hierarchie durch autonome Netzwerk-Stukturen ersetzt werden sollen (Stichwort "holacracy"), dann folgen frustrierende Erfahrungen meist auf den Fuß.

There are two objects taken as an exasperating and unavoidable duty by the vast majority of people outside my bubble: to study and to job. Therefore and amongst others, two vital and increasing societal movements alarm this vast majority: the so-called „lifelong learning“ and „to job up to your seventies“. The liquidation of former accepted age limits causes deep uncertainty.

EduTeach is an international, interdisciplinary and collaborative project funded by the European Commission under the Erasmus+ program. The aim of the EduTeach project is to design, test and implement a modular training program adapted to the needs and interests of those responsible in education and care for young children (0-6 years) across Europe. To allow both flexible and individual learning, the training offers will be based on ICT and incorporate a fair balance between interactive and self-study learning activities. Using results from a user needs analysis and evaluations of the implementation of trainings, EduTeach further tends to forward research and development on models, methods, and didactic strategies for effective online training to educators, preschool teachers and education directors.

Partners from the UK, Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Spain and Sweden are developing a new innovative method of training that will empower young unemployed individuals and/or NEETs. They will prepare participants to not only adapt to potentially stressful events and successfully assimilate these, but also to use these potential stressors as opportunities for positive growth based on identification and utilisation of key Positive Psychology constructs and processes. This will be accomplished by the development of a training curriculum "Be Positive". The end result is that organisations will have a resource that will address the psychological issues that are relevant to this group in a positive way.

Rooms to VET aims to maintain and increase the competitiveness of the European tourism industry through the development of an e-learning platform of 6 Modules to support the upskilling and professionalisation of tourism services provided by owners of private accommodations, small residences and family arrangements. This platform aims to become the ultimate guide for making use of all opportunities and tools available at national and European level in this respect.

Rooms to VET - Upskilling and Professionalisation of private tourism accommodation services is a 24-month (September 2015-2017) EU co-funded project under the Erasmus+ programme, implemented by 9 partners from 5 EU countries (Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Slovenia, Spain), experts in the fields of tourism and VET.

Intrapreneurship and the intrapreneur have entered the business vocabulary quite recently, but in a short time they have managed to attract interest, especially in the leading sector and industry of ICT. Competition, the need for the development of new ideas, the ever changing business and corporate environment, leave no options to simply overlook creativity wherever it comes from. Companies and businesses need all too often to rely on the innovative entrepreneurial potential of their human resources. What organisations have to do is allow intrapreneurship to flourish, stimulating and supporting potential intrapreneurs.

All too often projects fail to prove sustainable. Quite simply without external funding the products and practices developed do not survive. But sometimes they take off and resonate in new ways even without a financial stimulus. So it is with RadioActive. RadioActive was a project funded under the European Commission’s Lifelong Learning project to develop the use of internet radio with unemployed people and socially disadvantaged groups. And although the funding finished over a year ago, projects partners in three countries – Germany, Portugal and the Uk are still producing radio programmes.

On 28th Jan was London’s turn. At 1400 UK time, 1500 CET the University of East London presented a show entitled “DJ showdown: older DJs and today’s crop of Turntablists trade blows.” Is DJing an art form? With digital tech so easily available and virtually unlimited access to MP3s via a laptop, is everyone now a DJ? And if so does that mean older people who learnt their craft through hard graft have wasted their time? Don’t all the years of physically carrying lbs of vinyl to clubs and then actually mixing records live amount to something? We examine what does it mean to be a DJ in 2016 and how it has changed over the last three decades.

We compared the different styles of mixing music ranging from Geoff Humphries who DJ’d in the house music scene of Ibiza, Rhythm Vandals (mostly playing the clubs in Leeds in the 90s) right up to newest wave of teenage Turntablists where Abrakadaniel beat mixes for us. Tracks include the Sex Pistols, Madonna/Abba, the late Lemmy from Motörhead through to Soulwax. What influence have new techniques and digital accuracy that take account of key and time signatures actually had on mixing? We hear the likes of Titancube, RiFF RAFF, Skrillex, Datsik, Brillz & LAXX and more.

You can listen to the recording of this and other programmes at

Source: Pontydysgu - Bridge to Learning

Thanks to Graham Attwell for sharing with us!

We welcome you to join us for the CHOICE Final Event that will take place on the 19^th October 2015 in Lisbon, Portugal. This event will take place one day before the ICT 2015 event (Click here to know more details about this event), involving the high participation of the European Commission's policies and initiatives with regard to R&I in ICT.

The TIM project develops an on-line collaborative learning environment to develop creativity among workers in the metal industry so that they will be the drivers of the introduction of innovation in the metalworking companies. The steel industry is one of the key sectors at European level, not only for being one of the main generators of employment, but also for being one of the most profitable of all European manufacturing industries. This is recognized by the Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry of the European Commission in its publication “Spotlight on Europe’s invisible sector”, pointing to Germany followed by Italy, France, UK and Spain as the largest producers.

ReSoLVe aims at developing the German video platform draufhaber.tv to European usability. draufhaber.tv is aimed to become a European video platform which is used by young people during their vocational orientation or training in order to explain how to solve occupational tasks. Thereby it provides a module in European information space as well as in European space of lifelong learning. By applying highest European standards of data security, draufhaber.tv offers young people appropriate space for their self-produced videos. The platform will be translated into English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Polish, Romanian and Russian.

Most organisations have little knowledge of their own strengths and abilities to innovate. The project aimed at identifying and making the most of those, while raising awareness about shortages which might be hindering the company’s competitiveness. This was done by means of a diagnosis tool as well as a practice programme created according to the company’s needs, the implementation of which was facilitated by the higher education institutions.