ECO4VET

The project has already finalized some key stages.

One relevant project phase has been the identification and definition of vocational skills, knowledge and competence mismatches among professionals of the furniture sector, regarding concepts of Ecodesign and Sustainable Production and its integration in the furniture industry.

These mismatches have been identified through:

• Interviews with experts and questionnaires to furniture sector professionals to define the training needs.
• A research to identify current training programs on Ecodesign and Sustainable Production and its contents analysis in four European countries.
• A comparison between the contents of current training programs and the identified trainining needs.

These findings have greatly contributed to the design of the curriculum, another key step for the project that has been completed. Three qualifications have been defined that correspond to the three target profiles (general manager, production manager and designer). Each qualification has been named and weighted according to ECVET points and EQF level and also the possibilities of different and adapted training paths is being considered.

Qualifications and their units, recommended training and assessment methods have been summarised in the document “Training guidelines”. See current version of training guidelines

The two previous results are contributing as key inputs to the creation of the on-line platform framework that will host the online course and to the development of the training materials. These are on-going tasks and, by the moment, content for two units has been developed and one unit has been tested in an e-learning trial environment.

Other on-going activities of the project are focused on dissemination for spreading the objective, the evolution and results of the project and creating awareness among the project’s target users. See dissemination activities