On 15 and 16 November the 2022 Forum on Vocational Excellence will take place in San Sebastian, Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, Spain, at the TABAKALERA International centre for contemporary culture.

The Forum will discuss the latest developments on the European initiative on Centres of Vocational Excellence (CoVE). The event is jointly organised by the European Commission and the Basque government, with the support of the European Training Foundation (ETF), Cedefop and EACEA, as well as the Community of Practice on CoVEs, and Katapult.  

It will include the participation of the partners of ongoing CoVE projects, as well as other Vocational Excellence initiatives currently being developed in Europe and beyond, that form part of wider partnerships and networks in Vocational Education and Training (VET). 

The event will also benefit from high level political representatives, including national governments (from both EU and ETF partner countries), social partners and their European level representatives, VET provider associations, regional authorities, International organisations, as well as European institutions and Agencies. You can follow the event online here.

The meeting will have the following objectives:

• Inform - To disseminate the initiative on Centres of Vocational Excellence, make it more widely known, support networking and partnerships to apply for Erasmus+ calls for applications, and increase the number of organisations working on the vocational excellence initiative.
• Involve - To raise the awareness, support and involvement of national and regional authorities in the vocational excellence initiative.
• Inclusiveness - To connect experiences and know-how of CoVEs with policy making for more impactful action on social inclusions.
• Inspire - To share and debate examples of on-going CoVE projects, as well as present the Basque vocational education and training system, as inspiring examples for other countries
• Learn - To engage in focused thematic discussions on core elements of vocational excellence.

Program

You can download the program below.

The event will include the following key elements:

• Main conference including High level interventions from policy makers, social partners, as well as education and training practitioners and their representatives. 
• Visits to Tknika and other Basque VET Excellence centres
• Ample time for networking, getting inspired and sharing your knowledge with others working on Vocational Excellence on the CoVE Expo
• Three rounds of breakout sessions focusing on

1. Presentations of concrete ongoing CoVE projects (Erasmus+ and others)

2. Networking and partner matchmaking opportunities for future Erasmus+ calls

3. Thematic discussions on topics relevant to Vocational excellence activities

Registration

The event will be hybrid, with a physical presence in San Sebastian, and with all the plenary sessions, including some parallel sessions, being streamed online.

The registrations for onsite participation in San Sebastian have closed on 14 October. Almost 600 people from 74 countries applied to attend the event.

To respond to the continued high interest in the event, we have now reopened the registrations for online participation only. You can now register to attend the event online. A link to the web-streaming will be sent to you a couple of days before the event.