In the ambitions to upgrade the teaching profession, much attention is given to Master’s courses for teachers. As such Master’s courses ask for considerable investment in time and money, the question can be raised to what extent the upgrading of teachers to the Master’s level will lead to improvement in teaching and learning at schools. This paper presents the outcomes of a small scale study in which 7 teachers who recently graduated at a Master’s program in the Netherlands were interviewed on the climate and conditions they experienced at the workplace in their schools to apply their newly acquired knowledge, skills and professional attitude in their daily work. This explorative study shows that teachers engaged in a Master’s program can meet considerable obstacles within the organizational culture of the school. There appears to be a considerable misalignment between the teachers engaged in the post-initial Master’s program and their supervisors. While the teachers see the purpose of the Master’s program both in private terms (personal development) and public terms (contributing to school development), they experience an organizational climate that leaves no room for a wider public purpose of their studies, where they use the competences and qualities they have developed outside the boundaries of their own classrooms
In this policy evaluation report, the results of the first 2 years of the Interreg funded ABCitiEs project are presented. In total 16 entrepreneurship collectives have been studied in 5 partner regions, i.e. Athens, Vilnius, Varazdin-Cakovec, Manchester and Amsterdam. The report contains an analysis of the cases and gives an overview of the most important opportunities and challenges faced by these cases. On the basis of these result, 4 policy directions have been selected in which improvement are considered most successful, i.e. access to funding, intermediaries, monitoring and experimental learning environments. Also, the report presents the action plans that have been formulated on the basis of these policy directions for the cities involved in this project. In the last 2 years of the project, project partners will implement these action plans in their respective cities.
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This article addresses European energy policy through conventional and transformative sustainability approaches. The reader is guided towards an understanding of different renewable energy options that are available on the policy making table and how the policy choices have been shaped. In arguing that so far, European energy policy has been guided by conventional sustainability framework that focuses on eco-efficiency and ‘energy mix’, this article proposes greater reliance on circular economy (CE) and Cradle to Cradle (C2C) frameworks. Exploring the current European reliance on biofuels as a source of renewable energy, this article will provide recommendations for transition to transformative energy choices. http://dx.doi.org/10.13135/2384-8677/2331 https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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CIVITAS is a network of cities for cities dedicated to cleaner, better transport in Europe and beyond. Since it was launched by the European Commission in 2002, the CIVITAS Initiative has tested and implemented over 800 measures and urban transport solutions as a part of demonstration projects in more than 80 Living Lab cities across Europe.The ELEVATE project aims to increase the Europe-wide impact of Research and Innovation Actions on urban mobility policy-making, thereby advancing the CIVITAS community to a higher level of knowledge, exchange, impact and sustainability, while guaranteeing essential high-quality support. ELEVATE is committed to achieving the following objectives:1. Developing the CIVITAS knowledge base and transferring new knowledge.2. Enriching the current CIVITAS generation and feeding future EU initiatives.3. Building a European mobility community able to navigate transition.4. Representing CIVITAS on the international stage.Breda University of Applied Sciences is work package leader for a work package on incubation and CIVINETs.Main collaborating partners:Mobiel21 (project coordinator), DTV Consultants, INOVA, TRT, ICLEI
Background:Many business intelligence surveys demonstrate that Digital Realities (Virtual reality and Augmented Reality) are becoming a huge market trend in many sectors, and North America is taking the lead in this emerging domain. Tourism is no exception and the sector in Europe must innovate to get ahead of the curve of this technological revolution, but this innovation needs public support.Project partnership:In order to provide labs, startups and SMEs willing to take this unique opportunity with the most appropriate support policies, 9 partner organizations from 8 countries (FR, IT, HU, UK, NO, ES, PL, NL) decided to work together: regional and local authorities, development agencies, private non-profit association and universities.Objective of the project:Thanks to their complementary experiences and know-how, they intend to improve policies of the partner regions (structural funds and regional policies), in order to foster a tourist channeled innovation in the Digital Realities sector.Approach:All partners will work together on policy analysis tasks before exchanging their best initiatives and transferring them from one country to another. This strong cooperation will allow them to build the best conditions to foster innovation thanks to more effective structural funds policies and regional policies.Main activities & outputs:8 policy instruments are addressed, among which 7 relate to structural funds programmes. Basis for exchange of experience: Reciprocal improvement analysis and 8 study trips with peer-review of each partner’s practices. Video reportages for an effective dissemination towards other territories in Europe.Main expected results:At least 16 good practices identified. 8 targeted policy instruments improved. At least 27 staff members will transfer new capacities in their intervention fields. At least 8 involved stakeholders with increased skills and knowledge from exchange of experience. Expected 17 appearances in press and media, including at European level.
The program is structured in five tasks, of which three are technical by nature and two are on integration and enabling aspects. The technical tasks are infrastructure, offshore and large-scale storage of hydrogen. The enabling task is safety, standardization and regulation, which is a key boundary condition for the successful development of a hydrogen infrastructure. As overarching task the aspect of upscaling and system integration is analysed. Both the enabling and overarching tasks are strongly linked to the technical tasks and require active interaction between those tasks to be successful. Our consortium enables productive interactions by facilitating knowledge sharing, joint research projects, technology transfer, policy advocacy, public engagement, and standardization efforts. These interactions not only enhance the research and development outcomes within the consortium but also contribute to the broader societal and economic benefits of a hydrogen-based energy transition.
