Project Idea
The project idea starts from the convincing hypothesis that the competitiveness of the ‘European System’ depends heavily on the ability to innovate and, above all, on the acceptance of the technological innovation it produces.
The ability to innovate grows out of the technical competences and prototyping expertise of human resources, from technical thinking that develops over time as a kind of forma mentis constituting solid roots on which the specialist knowledge that will be updated throughout life can be grafted.
Project Background
The motivation for the C4C research arises from the fact that technical skills, as linguistic skills, have been identified as a key factor in achieving the Commission’s Lisbon strategy (2000) goals to stimulate countries’ economic growth, competitiveness and employment through innovation and that the early identification of skills needs is fundamental for the economic growth and development of a country.
Especially, the “capacity to innovate” of a country has to be considered one of the strategic priority for its development and the welfare, one of the most important factors for the international competitiveness to the extent that recently European Parliament create the EIIT – European Institute of Innovation and Technology – to boost Europe’s innovation capacity operating.
Aims and objectives
The main aims of the research project are to analyse the qualitative and quantitative needs of technical personnel in each country involved in the project, to build survey tools to identify employers’, job agencies’, others actors expectations of technical/technological competences, to facilitate development and innovation and provide information and results to local and national policy-makers as a real-time input to the formulation of education and training policies that help to improve understanding of links between VET, higher education and working life and also raise the attractiveness of technical training paths so empowering the innovation capability at European level.
