European Training Partnership on Sustainable Innovation

The proposed partnership is formed by a large group of well recognized institutions in the field of sustainable development from all over Europe. They represent different actors involved in VET: universities, research centres and other organizations which through network activities and projects have for several years been engaged in education and in translating innovative sustainability strategies and instruments/tools into training concepts and contents.
Taking the climate change and ecological footprint challenges into account and in view of their experience and previous cooperation, partners have identified the need of a European Training Course on Eco-efficiency that will contribute to tackle the EU goal of reducing energy consumption by 20% below 1990 levels by 2020. Therefore, part of the collaborative activities of the present project will be dedicated to developing the concept of such course, targeting technical staff from companies and municipalities. The needs of trainers will also be taken into account, in view of building the necessary capacity for its successful implementation.
Another very important outcome of this partnership will be the design of sector or area specific training courses, with a similar target group. Although it is a task of the partnership to define these courses, in the framework of the meetings that will be organized, it is anticipated that they will address sector or areas of major concern in the context of sustainable development and innovation: building and construction, food, mobility and/or energy-related products (i.e., in line with the focus of EU sustainability and environmental policies).
In addition, the partnership will reflect on how to successfully integrate sustainable innovation concepts and practices into the European VET system, in the context of the upcoming conference on Knowledge Collaboration and Learning for Sustainable Innovation (October 2010, further details below). This will not only work as a learning and debate platform that will inform the subsequent partnership activities, but will also result on the formulation of recommendations to VET systems at national and European levels.
The variety of countries represented in the partnership brings a real European dimension to this project: through meetings, workshops in relevant conferences and other events partners will address the specificities of different regions and therefore the projects' results are expected to have a high impact in the VET system in Europe.