Current Projects

• COMMIT - Committing to the social dimension in universities
  Project 539519-LLP-1-2013-1-BE-ERASMUS-ESIN. COMMIT intends to increase commitment to the social dimension of higher education and support strategies for increasing attainment. The project builds on the work of a previous project – ALLUME – which developed 3 self evaluation tools for universities to review their strategy for implementation of a comprehensive and coherent LLL university. This COMMIT project will review those 3 tools, refining and adapting them and adding new features which take on board a wider and clearer idea of the social dimension of HE; it will also design and develop a new tool for monitoring attainment in HE and integrate these tools in HEIs management systems.
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  Connect-VET: Vocational education and training connecting HE and rural companies
  Leonardo da Vinci, Transfer of Innovation. Submission ID 542692. This project coordinated by the University of Helsinki -Ruralia Institute- will focus on transferring and further developing organisational innovations in the VET sector. The existing good practices for SME-VET-HE/R knowledge chain together with selected models will be piloted in the nature-based entrepreneurship (NBE) sector in 5 countries and based on the pilots long term co-operation plans made. In each country the aim is to form "a trinity" VET-SMEs-HE/R to carry out the piloting.
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  TALOE - Time to Assess Learning Outcomes in eLearning
  Project 543097-LLP-1-2013-1-PT-KA3-KA3MP. This project coordinated by the University of Porto intends to provide a practical tool to suggest an adequate e-assessment strategy. EUCEN's role will be connected to the Exploitation of the project and also to Dissemination.
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  PACE - Project actors community in Europe
  Project 543137-LLP-1-2013-1-AT-KA4-KA4MP. This project coordinated by dieBerater seeks to establish a platform for the partners from projects to share, develop and disseminate existing project support products. EUCEN's role would be mainly linked to the Dissemination package in this project.
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  PACT - Project actors capacity training in Caucasus
  Project 544047-TEMPUS-1-2013-1-GE-TEMPUS-JPGR. The main aim of this project coordinated by the David Tvildiani Medical University (Georgia) is to successfully transfer existing knowledge funded by the EU for project developers in the Caucasus Region and sharing experience of EU-universities in project development. EUCEN will co-lead the Dissemination package of this project.
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  VALERU - Validation of non-formal and informal learning in Russian HE
  Project 544405-TEMPUS-1-2013-1-AT-TEMPUS-SMHES. This project coordinated by the University of Krems intends to build capacity in VNIL in Russian HEIs in line with the EU2020 strategy. EUCEN will co-lead the Dissemination package, including the co-organisation of the final conference of this project. More...

On 19 to 28 May 2014 experts from Africa, Asia and Germany met at the International Conference on Non-formal Adult Education in Wuppertal, Germany.  The primary objective of this meeting was to generate recommendation-based action plans concerning adult education.
The event was organized by the United Evangelical Mission (UEM), a faith-based global communion of churches in Africa, Asia, and Germany that work together to promote adult education within a lifelong learning perspective through a variety of institutions and projects. Angela Owusu-Boampong, Programme Specialist at UIL, delivered a presentation on CONFINTEA and lifelong learning. The presentation outlined global issues concerning adult education and presented the CONFINTEA process including the second Global Report on Adult Learning and Education (GRALE). This resulted in a discussion about several UIL activities currently underway in countries at the Conference.
Results from discussions regarding conceptual issues for practitioners working in the field of adult learning and education will be submitted to the UEM to inform their biannual general assembly. More...

Cedefop report finds that to best serve individuals, validation of non-formal and informal learning must take experience of companies into account.
Most of the European debate on validating non-formal and informal learning focuses on how such mechanisms are organised within national education and training systems. Meanwhile, many companies systematically assess employees’ competence and skills, mainly for purposes of recruitment and to formulate personnel management and training strategies. A new Cedefop study, now out in print, has found that most such in-company assessments are not linked to national validation schemes. More...

Par Alain Meignant. À l’ère du numérique et du Big Data, beaucoup des produits ou des services qui occupent les premières places des marchés ont été imaginés par des innovateurs, et souvent des réseaux d’innovateurs. L’histoire longue de la formation oppose régulièrement ceux qui considèrent que sa finalité première est la transmission d’un savoir existant à ceux pour qui elle est avant tout de former des esprits libres et créateurs, en les aidant à transformer leur expérience en connaissance transférable et en action. Cependant, au-delà du socle nécessaire de savoirs fondamentaux, la connaissance stratégiquement différenciante est celle à laquelle les concurrents n’ont pas encore accès. Suite...

Within the framework of its CapEFA Programme UNESCO provides focused support to the government of Mali to reinforce the country’s capacities in the training of educators (formation des enseignants) with a view to achieving the EFA goals.
To review activities undertaken so far to achieve a unified policy for the training of educators  and to plan additional steps, a reorientation workshop was organized by UNESCO on 10–12 February in Bamako. It brought together all relevant governmental actors and representatives of the units involved from the UNESCO family, including HQ, UNESCO-BREDA, IIEP, IICBA and UIL. Werner Mauch, Programme Manager of UIL’s Adult Learning and Education Programme offered advice on how to reinforce existing non-formal education provision with a focus on continuing education concepts and practice. More...

The Moroccan Ministry of National Education and Vocational Training, in collaboration with the European Union, is organising a seminar on “the future of non-formal education: stakes and challenges”, on 21 and 22 February in Rabat. The event aims to highlight the new strategy of non-formal education as well as the results and recommendations of EU technical assistance on this matter. Representatives of ministries and national and international bodies, as well as researchers, experts, civil society associations and young beneficiaries will take part. More...

SOLIDAR has released a briefing paper on “Empowering people through non-formal and informal learning”, gathering many innovative good practices from the network and policy recommendations which value non-formal and informal learning as a tool to empower people, so that they fully participate in society in a democratic, social, economic and cultural way. See also SOLIDAR project on “Building Learning Societies: Promoting Validation of Non-formal and Informal Learning” partnering EUCIS-LLL and EUCIS-LLL task force on validation and related documents.

By Inge Ignatia de Waard. Although developing informal badges are one of the key debates in MOOCs and online learning in general today, not all institutes belief it to be worth investing. Which is a pity, as open badges in a more 'formal' (if that is possible) way might allow people to really add credentials to their name and build up a reputation (even an expertise) from there.
My first encounter with informal badges was through discussion forums where the more reputed, helpful participants got several stars next to their name, indicating their answers were worth reading. But as time went by those informal badges captured the attention of public, learning projects. One of which was the iSpot project, a UK start-up that started out as a mobile learning project to allow amateur as well as expert explorers of the wild natural environment to exchange notes, learn from each other and gain extra expertise. More...