Erasmus+ : 13 new projects selected for funding to develop excellence in vocational education The 2021 call for proposals for ‘Centres of Vocational Excellence’, under the Erasmus+ programme, has led to the selection of 13 new cross-border collaboration projects to develop excellence in vocational education and training in Europe. The thirteen selected Centres of Vocational Excellence (CoVE) are networks that involve 331 partner organisations from 37 countries. The 13 Centres of Vocational Excellence will be active in sectors such as green energy and sustainable water, agricultural and rural excellence, health care and tourism, among others. They will also support major European priorities such as the digital and green transitions, sustainable growth, and social fairness and inclusion. The initiative on Centres of Vocational Excellence (CoVE) supports a bottom-up approach to Vocational Excellence involving a wide range of stakeholders and enables VET institutions to rapidly adapt skills provision to evolving economic and social needs. Selected projects An overview of the projects selected for funding: AEDIL Dairy - European Excellence in Dairy sector AEDIL Dairy aims to foster Dairy competitiveness through smart specialisation strategy for lifelong upskilling of employees, potential recruits and teachers by strengthening collaboration between learning stakeholders with a strong vocational and work-based learning tradition. AgriNext - Agricultural and rural excellence AgriNext’s goal is to create a learning environment that responds to the skill demand on the job market in the field of Multifunctional Agriculture by enabling interaction between teachers, trainers, mentors from companies, students, and researchers. CATALYST - Sustainable Systems and Business Transformation CATALYST will contribute to the European Green Deal and the new Industrial and SME Strategies through the establishment of CoVEs in 5 countries. By creating educational offers for personal and organisational development, it aims to enable SMEs to re-think and re-design their business models. EULEP - innovative transnational C-VET training in AI, VR, & social innovation EULEP aims to make C-VET more attractive for lifelong learning whilst offering businesses new and tailor-made training modules that correspond to their skills needs in innovation-oriented subjects such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality and social innovation. EUVECA - European Platform for Vocational Excellence in Health Care EUVECA will provide future oriented skills for innovation and development of the health care sector. The aim of the project is to support digitalization, staff/patient involvement, and patient responsibility in order to gain maximum quality in care, patient safety, efficiency, and economic sustainability. FEA-VEE - Fashion Earth Alliance for fashion, textiles and apparel industries Fashion Earth Alliance aims to provide fashion and textile stakeholders with innovative tools for training and upskilling, both through traditional learning approaches as well as using digital technologies as part of an innovative Online Transnational Cooperation Platform, including mobility of learners and staff. LCAMP - Learner Centric Advanced Manufacturing Platform LCAMP aims to support and enable regional Advanced Manufacturing CoVEs to become more resilient, innovative, and better equipped to train, upgrade, and reskill learners, young and adults, to successfully face the digital and green transitions. MOSAIC Coordinated by the Societe D'enseignement Professionnel Du Rhone, MOSAIC aims to bring together EU and non-EU partners to foster Excellence in VET within the Arts & Crafts sector, ensure high quality skills that lead to quality employment and career-long opportunities for all. PoVE - Platform of Vocational Excellence Water Scale-up PoVE is a joint initiative of 8 VET schools, 7 Water industry professionals, 4 academic partners and 3 support partners, to educate and train VET learners to become agile, digitally skilled and sustainable oriented water sector professionals. SECOVE - Sustainable Energy Centres of Vocational Excellence SECOVE aims to establish a network of cooperation among CoVEs in 5 European countries, in the sector of clean and sustainable energy. The CoVEs will cooperate transnationally with each other through common structured forms of dialogue and communication. SEED - Sustainable Energy Education SEED will develop innovative vocational education and training, providing solutions for preventing global climate change and for Europe to become a fossil free energy continent. The project aims to create COVEs dedicated to sustainable energy in five regions, empowering regional innovation based on regional needs learning. Tour X - CoVEs for the Tourism Industry Tour X aims to develop a bottom-up approach to excellence in the Tourism Sector, where Educational Providers (VET, HEIs) are increasing their ability to rapidly adapt skills provision to evolving economic and social needs. T-SHORE - Technical Skills for Offshore Renewable Energy T-SHORE will develop and establish a European network of VET-schools and training centers in offshore wind energy. The aim is to create innovative approaches for skills provision in the offshore renewable energy sector by linking offshore-energy-hotspots spread across Europe and stimulate innovation and collaboration between VET providers, industry and research institutes. Background The first CoVE call in the current programming period was launched in 2021 (the first of the 2021-2027 programming period). It attracted 84 project applications mobilising more than 1700 partner organisations from 55 countries. Due to the high quality of the proposals, additional funding was added to the original budget of €44 million: finally 13 projects - instead of 11 - were selected for funding in 2021. The selected projects were announced on 16 February, and are now finalizing the contractual arrangements for the kick-start foreseen before the summer. Considering the success achieved in the previous edition, the budget for the 2022 call has been increased to €48 million, and is expected to gradually increase every year until 2027. Contact & information Would you like to receive more information about how to submit an application, visit our page about the 2022 Call for proposals for CoVE projects . Should you have any additional information do not hesitate to contact us.