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Social Inclusion in TVET and Skills Development

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Education and training play a crucial role in fostering social inclusion providing concrete opportunities for skills development that lead to individuals’ self-affirmation and the creation of diversified learning environments. Yet, rapid and increasing societal changes – as demographic trends, globalisation, and climate change – are bringing about an in-depth transformation of the economy and the labour market that often results in further constraints to inclusion and the societal wellbeing. This becomes even more relevant in the context of the pandemic, which has called for an increasing adoption of digital solutions.  

In the context of the Skillnet project co-founded by the Erasmus+ Programme, the Assembly of European Regions organised a webinar to address this key issue. The event was held on June 23rd and gathered regional authorities, European policymakers, and international experts of the TVET sector to learn about the framework established by the European Union to promote inclusion in technical and vocational education, as well as to exchange good practices of innovative TVET programmes and projects addressing social inclusion.

The European Framework for Social Inclusion in Education, Training, and Life-long Learning

As presented by Joao Santos, Senior Expert at the European Commission, inclusive skills development provides a concrete opportunity to foster individuals’ capacity to fully participate in the society.  Accordingly, the need to promote inclusive skills development and an inclusive VET framework has been reflected in the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan endorsed at the Social Summit in Porto on 7-8 May 2021, as well as the Council Recommendation on vocational education and training (VET) for sustainable competitiveness, social fairness and resilience of November 2020.     

At the same time, the European Union provides funding opportunities to support the development of inclusive TVET programmes. Specifically, fostering inclusion and diversity remains a key transversal priority of the new Erasmus+ Programme. Additionally, with the inclusion of the ‘small-scale’ projects, the new programme seeks to reach people and organisations that could not benefit from this funding before through a novel framework for simplified projects with reduced financial and administrative requirements. Lastly, increasing importance is given to local and transnational multi-stakeholders partnerships for developing inclusive excellence in learning. The Centres of Vocational Excellence initiative is aimed at supporting the development of multi-stakeholders partnerships at a global level involving policy-makers, employment agencies, regional development authorities, VET institutions, universities, research centres, companies, NGOs and CSOs for the development of joint actions and programmes that are interlinked with the local strategic development objectives and the social context. Hence, the initiative supports the integration of VET in the local territorial strategy by learning and connecting with networks across the world.

To know more about the EU framework to support social inclusion in TVET and learn about the good practices shared during the event, access the speakers’ presentations and/or the full recording of the webinar!

Available EU Funding Opportunities and Initiatives

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Not Just Another Workshop: Looking Back at the Includ-EU First Regional Peer-2-Peer Learning

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The project in a nutshell: The Includ-EU Project is funded by the European Union’s AMIF– Asylum Migration and Integration Fund Programme and aims at enhancing regional and local expertise with engagement of social cohesion in Europe. In this workshop, we brought together representatives from all the different countries involved in the project: Italy, Greece, Spain, Romania, Slovenia and the Netherlands.

Setting the Scene.

We live in an increasingly complex society. There are no easy solutions or easy answers to the many challenges we are facing today, and the ones presented by migration, integration and inclusion are no exception. Policies and service designers must make sure these mirror the complexity of realities around us.

That is why our first Includ-EU Regional Workshop focused not on discussing solutions, but analysing and sharing problems and challenges in our ever-changing Europe, in a collaborative way, and with peer-to-peer dialogue.

The past few months have been challenging for all of us. The restrictions affected our work and social cohesion, especially for migrants but there are a few lessons learned that we can bring with us and that can help improve the near-future situation, and in light of new  unpredictable crises.

In her opening speech Geertrui Lanneau, Senior Regional Labour Mobility and Human Development Specialist, at International Organization for Migration (IOM), reminded us how migration is still very high on the European Agenda  with the EU pact on migration and asylum passed last year and followed by the EU action plan on integration.

At the same time, she stressed how it is not the EU that finally implements the integration action, but the Member States, and  in particular, the local and regional levels are the centre stage. 

Geertrui Lanneau, Day 1

It is with this mind that we feel that with our project we can make a difference through the exchange of practices, region-by-region tailored SWOT analyses and especially with the pilot projects to be tested and implemented in the different member states.

Alas, also this time the consortium and associated partners didn’t have the chance to meet in person, but even virtually, we had an extraordinary time and opportunities to exchange our experiences. In particular, we collectively brainstormed around new challenges raised by the pandemic as well as old challenges that the pandemic might have exacerbated, both in the way we work and provide services, and in the way migrants and vulnerable communities would interact with the community.

The fact that all participants had experienced similar challenges, had seen similar opportunities and learned similar lessons despite the different geographical contexts, was very surprising and helped create a warm atmosphere of collaboration that lasted throughout the workshop, which lasted 2 days, and it felt a very special and unique moment!

The visual result of our peer-learning exercise on Mural, Day 1

Let Your Imagination Soar!

Before getting into the second part of the first day of the workshop, we did a quick icebreaker activity, where we split in 3 teams of five, and each group took 5 minutes in separate breakout rooms to brainstorm together and draw 50 apples, with only one applicable condition: ALL THE APPLES MUST BE DIFFERENT.

It was hilarious and mind-opening at the same time to see how different groups came out with absolutely different ideas, stories, concepts, or how they decided to devote their time: some shared memories associated with apples while others exchanged about different way to say “apple mus” in different languages, but fun fact: none of the teams reached the 50 apples goal. 

In short, this exercise tells it all about the very purpose of the workshop itself, meaning it is not about the destination, and focusing on solutions, but about the journey and what you learn along the way.

Becoming familiar with design for change

In the second session of the day, we worked together with Abram El-Sabagh, a service designer and the founder of Design for Impact, who led us through some exercises and discussion on good service designing, while sharing his own personal journey.

“It was in mid-2019 when I realised I could spend less time working, and more time helping others create impact.

The truth is it was a difficult decision. My day job is about using Design to create impact. I’ve been able to travel around the world to places as far as Marshall Islands, Kenya, China, and Bhutan. All to help coach others and build their ability to create positive impact using Design. But something was missing.

I had experienced what it was like working alongside others who genuinely want to make our world a better place, and there is no feeling like it. It’s euphoric.”

“No passion to be found in playing small”

Innovation Systems are extremely complex, Abram goes on explaining, as there are many different components and they all interact together. Imagine for a moment the healthcare system for instance:  How many hospitals and doctors are there only in your area?

Another thing to keep in consideration is that experiences regarding the system depend on each one’s different pathway. In healthcare, the experience will change depending on which doctor I talked to, which disease or illness you have, to mention only a few variants.

Migration is of course, a very complex system affecting real people who are facing real challenges.

It is easy to read 10 books about system change and design, but it is harder to apply all the theories that you learn in real life. Abram explained how his path led him to go into the field, talk  and interact with different people from many professional and social backgrounds, rather than keep learning on his own. Eventually, he gathered more and more skills that are useful to design services and testing powerful ideas, until he was skilled enough to lead his own project.

KEY CONCEPTS OF DESIGNING SERVICES IN COMPLEX SYSTEMS

If a 1.5 hours session couldn’t of course cover and teach participants hard and soft skills harnessed through years of experience and exercise, Abram gave us the key concepts needed to start understanding how to create change thanks to design.

He touched upon many concepts, but few of them resonated particularly among the participants.

Emergence is one key concept in complex systems that is worth explaining, as  it means that because of the complexity and the many actors involved, one cannot predict behaviour, or be sure of what will happen before you test an idea and that’s why it is therefore important to test hypotheses.

As a consequence, running parallel fail-safe experiments and interacting with the system is the only way we can truly understand it.

When running an experiment, it is important to test behaviours and not intentions, as many times these intentions do not translate into behaviour (just think about your new year’s eve resolutions..).


A final concept to keep in mind in testing hypotheses  is that correlation does not equal causation -although these two often get mistaken- meaning that just because two things correlate does not necessarily mean that one causes the other.

Main takeaways from day 1

The big finale of day 1 came with an interactive exercise where participants were asked to design, in teams, a new policy or service to help people get vaccinated.

The special feature of the exercise was the identification of the team members with multi-level stakeholders, meaning that each team member represented a different perspective and therefore brought an additional value to the co-creation process.

Each team formed several hypotheses around why a specific cohort of people (migrants over 50 rather than young people living in the periphery) are not getting vaccinated enough and generated experiments to test each hypothesis.

What did participants learn?

Mainly 2 things came up from the different teams:

  1. You need to involve many people, not just the usual suspects. 
  1. It is important not just to co-design services in a participative way but we should also aim to co-create and co-decide on a political level. It is essential to cooperate at all stages of a project or process, “ If you want to go far, go together”.

All in all, we can safely and happily conclude that by reflecting on the challenges the pandemic created or worsened, speakers and participants shared their concerns around the needs of their regions, but also injected optimism in the future on integration and inclusion, while giving us reasons to believe that design and multi-stakeholders approaches can be powerful tools for creating sustainable and innovative services, solutions and policies.

Angelique Petrits with some of the participants, day 2

DAY 2 -Good Practices and Hard-won Wisdom through the Includ-EU Marketplace

After the insightful and comprehensive presentation by Ms Angelique Petrits  (DG Home, European Commission) on the new Action Plan on Integration and Inclusion (2021-27) and its 4 key areas -Education, Employment, Health, Housing-, the morning of Day 2 continued with a dynamic market-place exercise.

Here different regions and municipalities presented their own future strategy for integration, but showcased good practices and successful projects from the past programming period. We are happy to share here all presentations which are available below for you to browse.

Strategy on Migration, Valencia

Pilot experience of community sponsorship in the reception and integration of migrants, Valencia, Spain

Regional Plan for the socio-economic integration of TNCs, with focus on COMMIT Project, Tuscany, Italy

Project School for Adults, Jesenice, Slovenia

Integration Strategy, Cluj Napoca, Romania

Project Murcia Acoje (Welcoming Murcia), Spain

For more information, contact: [email protected]

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REGISTRATION OPEN: Social Inclusion in TVET and Skill Development – Leaving No-one Behind

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TVET policies and programmes are of core importance to ensure that all people can enjoy inclusive skill development leading to both individuals’ affirmation and the creation of diversified learning environments.  As reported by Srinvas Reddy, Chief of the ILO Skills and Employability Branch, “inclusive skills development and lifelong learning opportunities are vital to prevent people from being left behind, to maintain people’s employability, and to ensure that economies and enterprises recover promptly from the crisis”.  (Guide on making TVET and skills development inclusive for all, ILO Skills and Employability Branch, 2020).

Yet, as a result of rapid and increasing societal changes – as the digital transformation, climate change, globalisation and demographic trends – in-depth transformation have been taking place in the labour market creating further constraints to inclusion and societal wellbeing. This condition has been further amplified by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the creation of the so called ‘lockdown generation’.

The AER has been actively working on societal challenges throughout the past years. In 2018, it adopted a Position to express the need for new solutions (societal innovation) to societal and territorial challenges while ensuring quality public services and jobs.

In this context, public authorities, VET experts, and civil society organisations have a primary role in re-defining and improving the TVET system at the local level and developing societal innovation to ensure that learning opportunities address everyone’s needs and specific conditions.

The webinar aims to contribute to foster inclusive TVET systems and skill development by offering first hand insights from the European Commission, as well as a space for the exchange of knowledge and practices among policymakers, VET experts and practitioners.

The event will be held on June 23rd from 10 to 11 am CET. Visit the EVENT PAGE to access the agenda and register to the webinar!

The event IS part of the Skillnet webinar series AER is organising, which provides an opportunity for mutual learning around topics identified by AER members.

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Call for Proposals: Social Economy Missions

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“Social economy missions” aim to accelerate the development and awareness of social economy potential within the European Union, in particular at local and regional level. Often the commitment towards this mission is insufficient with a lack of active collaboration.

The European Commission, through the “COSME programme”, launched a call for proposals tailored to engage a network of regional and local authorities established in the EU and COSME participating countries to constitute a space for inter-regional learning and collaboration.

Sharing of good practices and mutual learning

The call will support consortia in sharing and replicating best practices, creating opportunities for future inter-regional partnerships on priorities related to “social economy missions”.

The expected result is to support the development of the European social economy community by encouraging interaction between different partners, both at public and private level.

Boosting social innovation at inter-regional level is fundamental to shift towards a more sustainable and green economy. The Social Economy has the potential to support the green transition within the new European Green Deal.

The call requires applicants to clearly identify a topic and specify the objectives to be achieved by the mission. Listed below are the main topics. Nevertheless, consortium partners can propose any other topic with relevance to the development of the social economy.

  1. Building resilient regional and/or local ecosystems;
  2. Socially responsible public procurement;
  3. Building Clusters of Social and Ecological Innovation or participation in traditional clusters;
  4. Support to social economy business development;
  5. Support to local and regional initiatives in the area of green and digital transition;
  6. Local or regional measures tackling unemployment;
  7. Sustainable agriculture and rural development;
  8. Education and training to develop the social economy ecosystem;
  9. The development of horizontal policies to support social economy at local or regional level;
  10. Social economy initiatives to integrate migrants;
  11. Other (identified by the applicants).

Who is eligible ?

  • Participants must be legal entities forming a consortium established in EU member states or COSME countries.
  • The coordinator must be a regional or local public administration
  • The consortium partners must be regional or local public administration
  • At least 3 regional or local public administration from 3 different countries
  • The participation of the same regional or local public administration in more than one proposal is not permitted

What are the activities ?

  1. Kick off meeting with the EASME and the European Commission in Brussel
  2. Online or offline session with invited representatives of the consortia, organised by European Commission to release guidance on participatory methods for planning and organising workshops
  3. Organize three compulsory workshops in the field of priority of “social economy mission” (read the call for the details)
  4. Optionally, other additional learning activities such as workshops, webinars, peer-to-peer learnings, etc. can be organised

All the proposals have to be submitted through the Funding and tenders portal before the 9 of June 2020 at 17.00 (Brussels time). Applications must be sent in one of the official EU languages.

The total budget is estimated at EUR 1 900 000, the maximum grant per project is EUR 100.000 and in total EASME is expecting to fund 19 proposals.

Before submitting the proposal read carefully the call text and the guide for applicants released by the European Commission. If you have additional questions you can address them to [email protected] . All the collected questions receive an answer in the FAQ’s document regularly published and accessible to everyone in the COSME webpage.

Photo by Shane Rounce on Unsplash

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European Youth Foundation: Funding Opportunities Responding to COVID-19

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If you are a local or a national non-governmental youth organisation looking for funding for activities aimed at demonstrating solidarity and supporting all persons affected by the COVID-19 crisis, this call is made for you.

The Assembly of European Regions (AER) is happy to share this special call from the European Youth Foundation (EYF). The EYF is a fund established by the Council of Europe providing financial and educational support for European youth activities.

For this call, priority will be given to pilot activities that aim at demonstrating solidarity and support to all persons affected by the COVID-19 crisis, such as:

  • Reaching out to and supporting particularly vulnerable groups of people, including homeless, refugees and asylum-seekers, people with disabilities, people living in isolation or in remote communities;
  • Support to health, social and educational services;
  • Education and awareness-raising of the importance of human rights in responses to the COVID-19 crisis.

Important to note: pilot activities MUST respect the sanitary and safety measures implemented by health services or national/local authorities. There should be coordinated with competent authorities and indicated in the project proposal.

 The maximum available EYF grant for a pilot activity is €10,000.

Only youth organisations which are registered with the EYF can submit applications. The youth NGO must be located in one of the 50 signatories to the European Cultural Convention. More information on registering can be found here. 

Deadline:  10 May 2020

For further information (see here)

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the AER Secretariat. 

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Interested in collaborating with Castilla y León, Spain on innovative financing for social services?

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Gerencia de Servicios Sociales de Castilla y León, which is the Public Body competent on Social Services in the region of Castilla y León (Spain), is searching an additional partner for the project proposal they are developing within the IV Call of the Interreg Europe Programme.

The project aims at helping regional and local governments across Europe to develop and deliver better societal impact policies. It is set to drive societal impact by accelerating Social Impact Investments (SII) and it focuses especially on Social Impact Bonds (SIB). By learning from the most advanced/experienced regions that have already implemented SIBs in their territories, other regions in Europe can start testing the validity of this novel instrument and, if successful, induce a policy change to improve regional policy instruments.

Is it the area of inter-regional cooperation on innovative financing for social services something that you are interested to work on? Do you wish to focus on SIBs to finance societal? If so, you can canditate to join this project!

The ideal partner should be public administrations (preferable regional ones) with great interest in Social Impact Bonds (SIBs), mainly in social services or healthcare areas, able to influence their Structural Funds programmes (ERDF/ESF), especially those under the Investment for Growth and Jobs goal, on the topic of innovation.

If this is you and this proposal raises your attention, please get in contact with us by 7th June at the latest.

Contact

European Projects

Agnese Pantaloni

Phone: +32 2 400 10 52
E-mail: a.pantaloni(at)aer.eu
Skype ID: agnesepanta
Languages: it, en, pt

Articles by Agnese


  • EU funding
  • Calls for projects and tenders
  • Partner search

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Bureau Members adopt AER’s political priorities for 2018-2019

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During the AER Autumn Bureau Meeting, that took place on the 29th of November in Maastricht, Bureau members voted on the 2018-2019 political priorities for AER.

It was an interesting process, as the priorities were drafted and voted on, in the same day. The discussions leading up to this were therefore very dynamic and fruitful.

Setting the overarching political goal

Members and guests sat in 5 groups of 12 to 15 and each group was asked to develop a sentence made of 10 words, outlining the global political priority.

After this session was complete, Bureau members were invited to vote for the one they thought fit the most with AER’s ambitions.

Defining the political priorities for 2018-2019

Once the political goal was voted on, the next step in the process began.

Groups were once again created and asked to develop 4 points each based on the above-mentioned priority. With 5 varied, engaged and dynamic groups, this process ran very smoothly and the priorities quickly appeared from the various gatherings of regional politicians.

The rapporteurs from each groups were then asked to gather all the suggestions and merge them in a one-pager outlining the AER political priorities for 2018-2019.

See the political priorities here.

The vote

Once the one-pager was ready, member reconvened and constructively amended the document, making it ready to be voted on.

The vote was unanimous, as all members voted to adopt these political priorities for the 2018 – 2019 period.

What next?

Now that the political priorities have been adopted by the AER bureau, they must be ratified by the General Assembly, that will gather in Oppland in May 2018.

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Human Culture in a Digital World

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Future artificial intelligence (AI) programs promise to alter our understanding and experiences with human culture. From the music, to language, to art, AI will play a more prominent role in human culture in the years to come. AER’s event Artificial Intelligence: Are Regions Up to The Challenge? will bring together field experts, academics, artists, politicians, and stakeholders to discuss these coming changes, providing an excellent learning opportunity for each involved.

Redefining Human Culture

The name for the human species, Homo Sapiens literally translates into wise man. The name we gave ourselves was a compliment to our intellectual abilities, a nod to the notion that humans possess abilities no other animal does. For hundreds of years, skills ranging from cooking to painting have been considered the sole domain of humans. But as machinery and AI have progressed, humans have had to adjust their perception of inherently human abilities. During the first industrial revolution thousands of textile workers and craftsmen were displaced by machines, jobs that had been performed by humans for centuries. In the 21st century as AI has displaced larger and larger swaths of human society, some have claimed that culture is the last bastion of human tradition, immune to AI’s disruptive effects. However, as AI continues to make headway in the arts it is likely people will be forced to redefine what are considered uniquely human abilities once again.

AI and Art

Al already can perform complex analysis of art by comparing hundreds of images to one another, with Rutgers University’s AI program at the forefront of the industry. When the program examined the Mona Lisa, it came back with interesting insights, scoring it lower on its creativity scale than far less regarded Leonardo da Vinci paintings. Beyond critiquing artwork, it confirmed the widely accepted belief among art historians that French impressionist Claude Monet was a primary influence of American impressionist Childe Hassam’s by noticing the similarities between their works. Art historian Marian Mazzone thinks that AI has the potential to upend the art industry, with its ability compare enormous amounts of visual material at once. AI is not only capable of analyzing art, but of producing high quality art as well. Rutgers University’s AI art program recently generated artwork which 53 percent of viewers were unable to distinguish from a human composition. Meanwhile, Google has also invested in Deep Dream, which alters pictures to produce digital art such the piece below.

#deepstyle #hq

A post shared by Deep Dream Generator (@deepdreamgenerator) on

 

AI and Music

Computer scientists are also beginning to make strides in AI generated music. While programs are still unable to compete with bestselling artists like The Rolling Stones or U2, they will still have an increasingly large impact in the music industry. Industry leaders believe that some programs have progressed enough to start appearing as background music in elevators or in video games. Other advancements in AI generated music are not even aimed at producing consumable music. Australian company Popgun’s AI program Alice can accompany humans playing the piano in a duet of sorts. Musicians play the first notes and Alice guesses at what comes next, creating a duet. Spotify has also heavily invested in the industry, hiring François Pachet away from Sony whose AI program created the song Daddy’s Car designed to mimic The Beatles, albeit with human vocals and song writing.

Personalisation of Culture

As the algorithms which make personalised recommendations continue to advance, AI will not only transform the way creative arts are produced, but also change the way people experience them. One of Spotify’s most popular features, Discover Weekly, which delivers a weekly playlist to users that they are expected to like based on their streaming history, provides an ongoing example of personally curated music.  Throughout 2017 Spotify continued to pour resources into improving its music suggestions, acquiring four startups specialised in content recommendation. Not to be outdone, television streaming giant Netflix and Ebook company Kobo are also investing heavily in improving their recommendations to users. For years, people relied upon the radio, lists like the NY Times Bestsellers, or word of mouth to find the latest the creative arts had to offer. The improved accuracy of AI recommended music, television, and literature promises to change this process by placing quality entertainment a click away.

Growing With, Not Against AI

While AI will certainly disrupt the arts and culture industry, not all see the coming changes negatively. Many believe that AI will provide new jobs and opportunities for people to enrich human culture. Indeed, this would not be the first time professions have grown alongside computer assisted technology. In the 1984, graphic design was transformed with the arrival of Apple’s Macintosh computers. The profession changed from one involving painstaking physical work to one conducted digitally, an event that is now called the desktop publishing revolution. AER’s partner in its event, GLUON aims to achieve similar harmony between AI and artists in the 21st century. GLUON brings together academics, artists, entertainers, and innovators to provide an opportunity for them to learn from one another and grow together. They will be present at AER’s event on AI on November 30th where Christophe De Jaeger will moderate the discussion group on culture. In the evening there will be an art exhibition from artists at GLUON at AER’s end of year reception. AER’s event on AI will give the regions the space to see what other regions are doing to prepare for the changes AI will bring to culture, hear from artists who will be affected by them, and learn from field experts. Culture has never been a static entity in human society. With each era, it has evolved alongside new technologies that have emerged. The progression of AI may represent the latest development in the transformation of human culture.

 

Photo Credits: Martin Toma, Wikimedia CommonsFollow AER!

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Skills and Competences in an AI era

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In the next decade, it is a virtual certainty that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will begin to replace increasing numbers of labourers. The outsourcing of labour to machines will alter the skills and competencies which are valuable in a competitive labour market. At AER’s event on Artificial Intelligence, speakers will address this topic, highlighting the challenges and solutions that exist for regions as the skills and competences that are important in society begin to change.

Changes in the Workforce

In late 2016, Amazon debuted ‘Amazon Go’, its first checkout free grocery store. With Amazon Go consumers were simply able to walk out of the store with their goods and have the charge added to their online accounts. While the store demonstrated Amazon’s growing capabilities in Artificial Intelligence, it also offered a glimpse at the future of work, a world in which human labourers are made increasingly obsolete. As highly intelligent machines continue to to play a larger role in our daily lives, society’s labour force will be radically transformed. According to an estimate made by Rice University Professor Moshe Vardi, 50% of current jobs could be lost to automation. As AI rapidly progresses in its ability to perform physical and analytical tasks, the skills that were once vital to obtaining a secure, well paying job, will diminish in importance. Given the restructuring of the workforce which is already underway, it is worth considering the skills and competences that will be most valuable going forwards.

Emotional Quotient over Intelligence Quotient?

Many suggest that the ability to relate to and understand fellow human beings will become increasingly valuable as AI becomes more adept at performing analytical functions. According to this view, jobs that require that ability to perform emotional labour will become highly sought after. If this is the case, jobs that were once derided as ‘women’s work’ or low skill labour will grow in their importance to society. Others, like anthropologist Yuval Noah Harari in his book “Homo Deus” counter that AI will eventually develop the ability to read and understand emotions better than humans themselves, rendering most workers dispensable.

Changing Educational Priorities

In response to the inevitable changes in the work force, institutions have begun to recommend ways to prepare people for the forthcoming changes. Just last year, in its Global Challenge Insight Report the World Economic Forum concluded that education systems’ priorities will have to be shifted to reflect the skills and competencies that will be valuable in an AI dominated era, to ensure that workers are not learning skills that will become irrelevant midway through their working careers. Some have suggested that answers lie in emphasizing the importance of lifelong learning and encouraging students to be curious and creative, enjoying the process of learning itself rather than simply memorize answers for an exam. This line of thinking says that humans need to better develop their abilities to creatively think in order to determine what tasks AI assisted programs actually need to complete. Others advocate for mandatory computer science classes so that children develop a deep understanding of the digital world in which they live. Many including the PEW Research Centre claim that going forwards both the state and employers will have to invest in worker retraining programs as humans become displace by machines.

Learning From the Past

It is instructive to remember that this is not the first time society has been disrupted by an industrial revolution, but the fourth. In the early 20th century, a large percentage of the workforce was concentrated in the agricultural sector. Now, the majority of the population is employed in urban centres as much of farming became outsourced to machines. Society is likely to eventually grow to complement the machines that inhabit our world as has been done in the past. As put by Vishal Sikka from the Financial Times, “breakthroughs can only be achieved if man and machine work together on a set of shared goals. When we achieve such a symbiosis, the potential for our species will be immense”.

A Topic that Transcends Boundaries

At AER’s event on Artificial Intelligence in Brussels politicians, civil servants, entrepreneurs, academics, and stakeholder groups will have the opportunity to take part in a genuine exchange on AI. They will be able to share stories about how AI is impacting their regions and effecting areas as diverse as education, health, culture, or health, and identify fields for cooperation. The impetus for the organisation of this mutual learning event came from Committee 1 president and Chair of the working group on SMEs & Investments, Jean-Luc Vanraes. At the plenary meetings in London, Jean Luc Vanraes offered to organise a mutual learning event on a current topic to exchange experiences, challenges and potentially identify new areas for cooperation between members across committees.

This unique event will give participants the chance to engage actively in conversations with stakeholder groups and experts about what they feel are the biggest challenges and opportunities to regions as AI keeps progressing. While the social and economic challenges posed by AI to human society can seem daunting, regions can learn from one another’s experiences and act right now.

Event on current & transversal topic: AI

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For a general approach to inclusion

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To share good practice on inclusion and develop a general approach to inclusion, Committee 2 President Mihai Ritivoiu would like to initiate an interregional project.

Different regions, similar approaches?

What if inclusion were first and foremost a question of approach? This project idea, which was announced at the AER Spring 2017 Plenaries in London, and included in the Committee 2 work programme is based on the idea that inclusion strategies across Europe are likely to share commonalities. By identifying these commonalities regions could develop a grid for understanding, evaluating, improving and transferring policies.

The process

At the upcoming Committee 2 Plenary meeting in Nancy AER members will discuss the issues addressed by this project,  identify needs and stakeholder groups as well as useful outputs. This conversation is already starting in the AER Committees Slack team, if you are an AER member region and don’t yet have access to this team, please contact AER Coordinator for Policy and Knowledge exchange Johanna Pacevicius.

Based on the results of the Committee 2 Plenary meeting discussion, the AER Secretariat’s European projects team will identify potential funding opportunities. Further project development meetings will be organised throughout the year.

Can I join?

The project idea is at an early stage and it is still possible to contribute to shaping this idea into the best social policy practices exchange project ever! Regions and organisations interested in developing such an interregional project are invited to get in touch with AER Coordinator for Policy and Knowledge exchange Johanna Pacevicius

For detailed information check out the Commission 2 for Social Policy and Public Health Work programme.

 

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Breakfast Briefing on Urban mobility

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At a Breakfast briefing at the Spring Plenaries in London last week, we had the pleasure to listen to Mr Philipp Rode, Director of LSE Cities and joint Research Director of the “Towards New Urban Mobility” paper.

Mr Rodd presented the report ‘Towards New Urban Mobility: The case of London and Berlin’ which provides insight into how urban transport policy can better leverage new and emerging mobility choices in cities.

Today the policy makers must embrace an increasing number of alternatives, including cycling and walking as main modes of travel, bike and car sharing, multimodal travel options and electric vehicles, as changes in urban mobility patterns no longer follow traditional patterns of motorization. Smartphone applications now support people’s travel decisions as they move through the city, opening possibilities of combining public transport, taxi services and shared car use.

Policy interventions more likely to result in changes

This study identified six mobility attitude groups, where the attitudes towards travel, the environment, technology use and residential preferences were used to identify mobility attitude group.  Attitudes and values are key factors in the choice of transport modes since they reflect group specific needs, constraints and preferences in travel.

This report argues that policy interventions sensitive to group attitudes are more likely to result in behavioural change towards transport alternatives. This includes understanding which transport alternatives are more acceptable to each group and how best to target communication.

This report ties very well to the Action Plan from the working group “Transport and Mobility ” Committee 1,  Knowledge sharing on “Nudging”.

Update Regional Airports

The next speaker at our breakfast briefing, was our AER expert on Regional Airports, Mr Roger Estefors. He gave us an update on the current changes in regulation concerning regional airports and the usage of ERDF and regional airports.Follow AER!

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Quebec: AER signs a joint Declaration with the LOJIQ in favour of youth mobility

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An ambitious plan in favour of mobility and youth employment, regions are mobilising

Québec (CDN), 5 May 2009 

Michèle Sabban signs a joint Declaration with Alfred Pilon, chief executive officer and Secretary General of the Youth international Offices of Québec (LOJIQ), in favour of youth mobility (see below).

In the context of the major economic and social crisis, regions are mobilising towards a future program in favour of youth employment and mobility.

Faced with youth unemployment, it is only a matter of observing local authorities within the European Union to see that initiatives do exist. These initiatives should in turn be more valued and encouraged. Indeed, interregional cooperation, namely in the domain of employment and the international mobility of young people, offers a number of opportunities for training or work experience. We are also aware that these experiences are important for the education and integration of young people, particularly in the context of an increasingly uncertain labour market.

Under the EURODYSSEY exchange programme, the Assembly of European Regions (AER), the largest network of regions in wider Europe, signed a joint Declaration to promote youth employment.

Partnership agreements are therefore being made between European local authorities and the LOJIQ. In Ile-de-France, there are nearly 100 people, apprentices, unemployed and job-creators, who spend professional time in Quebec each year. The contribution of mobility programs established by local authorities is essential to tackle youth unemployment. Furthermore, meetings with our friends in Quebec will be an opportunity for us to reiterate community commitment in the fight against youth unemployment.

Download the Quebec Declaration:

For more information: [email protected]

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