Assessing and Validating the EYES Training Programme:

The project enters in its next phase

EYES (Enlarging Youth Entrepreneurial Spirits) is an international project co-financed by the European Commission under the Erasmus+ Programme; the project is implemented and developed by six organisations from six countries (Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Spain & Sweden) sharing the ultimate aim to support professionals in vocational training and integration in changing their teaching practices, to promote the development of a collective entrepreneurial culture and democratic values among young people.

On February 26th, the EYES Consortium held online the third Transnational Project Meeting to discuss and exchange views about how to conduct, develop and implement the piloting phase of the training content elaborated by partners in the previous months.

COVID-19 restrictions posed major challenges for the execution of such delicate phase; partners were supposed to meet with targets groups so as to re-assess the efficacy / pedagogical accuracy of the educational material. However, digital technologies will allow partner to leverage on the numerous opportunities offered by new remote learning frameworks; in the hope that some of the activities might occur vis-à-vis later in the year.

The overall supervision of this activity is assigned to ELDERBERRY; the Swedish partners provides for the operative framework, the methodology and general guidance. The following action plan for all partners benefits from a high degree of flexibility in the internal definition of the schedule, timelines and strategies of targets’ engagements.

During the process, all organisations will collect feedbacks and impressions from targets so as to get a sense on the outsider’s perception of EYES’ training programme, the reliability of the material and actual consistency with their expectations.

The feedbacks will be rearranged in a comprehensive report the will represent the operational memory of the piloting phase; partners will share the document with the Ruse Chamber Of Commerce and Industry who in turn will be responsible for the draft and finalisation of the so called “Global Report”; a final synthesis that corroborates results form all participating organisations. The document will identify the perspectives for further exploitation of EYES’ deliverables and outcomes.

Before engaging the targets, in late March partners will spend together three days in which they will exchange views on the final version of training material. A formal peer review has already been carried out in compliance with Quality Assurance (QA) and Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) standards; partners will take this opportunity to stocktake on each other’s piloting strategy, share relevant international experiences and lessons learned form others projects that might give precious inputs to colleagues. During the meeting, partners reviewed important Project Management priorities such as Communication, Dissemination and Project’s Online / Offline visibility. Throughout the next few months, partners will kick-start a widespread communication campaign at EU and National level aimed at mainstreaming the project among policy makers, public authorities, Third Sector’s representatives and strategic stakeholders in the domain of social affairs, equal opportunities, employability and inclusion.

Call for papers

ESSEI provides a platform to publish research on different issues of European affairs and welcomes contributions from scholars, practitioners and experts. ESSEI accepts papers for publication on its website and for the most relevant contributions ESSEI grants a prize of up to 500 EUR. Contributions from young researchers are particularly welcomed.

There are no specific deadlines for contributions: abstracts can be submitted anytime and will be reviewed by ESSEI’s Editorial Board at specific cut-off dates, as follows:
– 28 June 2019
– 28 October 2019

The Editorial Board of ESSEI accepts submissions of papers on different topics on European affairs. The following themes are of particular interest:
1. Trends and drivers of growth in global economy
2. New scenarios of international social and cultural patterns
3. Jobs of the future
4. Technology and innovation: impact on socio-economic integration
5. Sharing economy: threats and opportunities
6. Circular economy and societal changes
7. Europe as a global player
8. An outsider’s glance of Europe: the perception of the European Union in other cultures
9. Multiculturalism within Europe

Please contact us at networks@essei.eu to submit your abstract or for more information.

Abstract should be submitted exclusively via email using the following address: networks@essei.eu

Abstract must be in British English, between 3.000 and 5.000 words and in PDF format

When submitting an abstract, please clearly state the field being addressed selecting from the above mentioned thematic areas.

Submissions that do not meet these requirements WILL NOT be considered.