The project, coordinated by UNWE (Bulgaria), brings together 8 organizations representing 5 countries (Bulgaria, Italy, Germany, Poland and Romania), forming a transnational cooperation partnership with a balanced geographical representation of the Erasmus+ area.

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This three-year program has the aim to support adult trainers in teaching digital skills to low-skilled adults in Furniture Industry, in order to foster their employability, socio-educational and professional development.

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In particular, the project proposes to develop adult training curricula for acquiring appropriate Digital skills to be applied in the furniture industry sector.

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In addition, for reaching the ultimate aim of the project, Partners will also design DigiFInd Platform, a platform which will provide training in Digital skills and Industry 4.0

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Forest bioeconomy is becoming the guiding paradigm for the forest-based sectors. It links the whole forest value chain from management and use of forest resources in a sustainable manner to the delivery of products and services with higher added value. According to the EU Bioeconomy Strategy (2012) the bioeconomy in EU raises turnover of 2 trillion EUR annually and provides jobs for 22 million people out of which forest sector contributes with turnover of 269 billion EUR annually and employs 3 million people. Although the need for development of a new bioeconomy curricula and VET schemes is recognized in the EU policies, this topic is still not sufficiently present in VET and LLL programmes offered by main forestry related VET and LLL providers in Croatia, Slovenia and Austria. Hence, this project offers a unique forest bioeconomy training programme, which will be in line with the policy priorities defined in the EU 2020 Strategy, EU Bioeconomy strategy and goals of the ET 2020 Strategy to make LLL a reality, improve the quality and efficiency of education and training and enhance creativity and innovation, including entrepreneurship. 

MIMwood [Development of a Monitoring system for VET centres to analyse and apply those Innovative Materials to be used in the WOOD and furniture sector] stemmed from the detection of actual needs from the Intellectual Output O4 of a previous Erasmus+ project: FUNES – Furniture New European Skills 2020 (2014-1-ES01-KA202-004883, www.funesproject.eu. One of the identified skills was the lack of knowledge of new materials and their application in the wood and furniture industry (composites, plastics and materials with different properties than those that the wood and its derivatives possess). 

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Vocational and Education Training programmes can play a central role in preparing students for work and in responding to labour market needs, representing a smart and sustainable response to economic crisis and to decrease unemployment, especially for the wood and furniture manufacturing sector that is important for most of European countries. 
Start from this situation, WOODUAL project aimed at building up a strong and continuative partnership among different stakeholders in the manufacturing and furniture sector and experts in education and training issues in order to update and improve the current professional profiles in wood and furniture sector answering to the current skills gaps. At the same time, the project elaborated guidelines and new methodologies in order to open the road for a more extensive use of dual learning system.

To this end, the project will study the main legislative and voluntary instruments that can facilitate this circular economy transition and it will analyse how they are expected to a_ect and transform the European furniture sector in 2030, including the possible appearance of new business models.

SAWYER will study how this transition can a_ect the existing jobs and their tasks, workers’ health and safety risks and their new training needs.

Implementation period: 01/03/2019 - 28/02/2021

Results transferable to companies:

• Current status of legislative and voluntary instruments in circular economy within the European furniture sector and in some relevant countries.

• Sector possible future scenarios due to the companies’ transition to a more circular economy.

• Changes that the circular economy could cause in jobs and tasks, in occupational health and safety risks and in workers’ training needs within the sector.

• Knowledge about new opportunities and new business models.

FUNES [FUrniture New European Skills 2020] has stemmed from a latent need that wood and furniture companies are enduring. In the last 10 years, there has been a vast myriad of changes related to globalization, new ways of working, new consumer habits, product customization, etc. The rationale of the project was to solve this need that current and future workers bereft of, which was covering those skills that they are in need of acquiring, in order to develop a work with a optimum level of quality and standards required by their companies, due to new scenarios. 

Consequently, the aims of the project were to determine the emerging skills demanded by companies in the furniture industry regarding new scenarios, as well as developing an e-learning training material that will be facilitated to the target in order to achieve these new skills. 

ENCOURAGING SUnRISE project builds on the emerging needs of companies in the Wood and Furniture Industry to give employment to young graduated generations (in HE and VET) covering, in doing this, two objectives or challenges: students technically prepared and students motivated to work in this specific sector. 
To achieve both challenges, technical and attitudinal, the SUnRISE project will explore the use of gamification and the Simulation Learning Environment, which has already seen successful applications in other domains.

WOODigital aims at developing a dual learning system to enhance digital skills of young Europeans interested in entrepreneurial ad employment opportunities in the woodworking and furniture sector. The model proposed is thought to be strongly work-based and provided with a component of international mobility, so as to provide young learners with the opportunity to apply knowledge in real work-life situations. 
The action is targeted to help the EU youth becoming a key driver for challenging the emergence of Industry 4.0 and IoT, which have been soundly reshaping the woodworking and furniture industry in recent times. 

Some of the specific skills and competencies that stand out as critical for managers in the furniture sector are ICTs skills that are crucial to operate in a modern business environment. They may require attention in terms of additional training and adjustments in the official curricula.

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1. The main outputs of IN4WOOD will be:

2. A deep analysis of the furniture sector regarding the lack of knowledge and skills in Industry 4.0.

3. A complete and agile training path.

4. Dedicated training materials of the most useful key enabling technologies of Industry 4.0 including more than 300 videos.

5. A mobile based platform.

6. A joint curriculum for “manufacturers of furniture smart factories” IN4WOOD will modernize VET by focusing on the ICTs skills needs to increase competitiveness of the wood and furniture industry.

This Alliance, composed of VET technology providers, VET authorities and wood and furniture experts from 4 different EU countries, will strengthen the knowledge exchange and practice between themselves and the labour market and will increase the recognition of qualifications at EU level within production managers and the target industry.

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The IN4WOOD training materials will give to the production managers and CEOs an overview of the specifics needs of the enterprise regarding the several key enabling technologies of I4.0.

The DITRAMA project aims to provide an innovative MOOC for training managers (Digital Transformation Managers) to successfully lead and implement the digital transformation in FURNITURE companies along the whole value chain.

The project develops a new curriculum for DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION MANAGER and its modular training course

with the related skills and knowledge. 

The course will provide to participants with supporting them to guide and implement digital transformation within the companies of the Furniture sector.

It includes work-based learning and will be validated and recognized through DITRAMA national networks, involving EU partners and stakeholders in the sector.

Overall, the project contributes to improving and integrating EU vocational education and training systems and creating new long-term partnerships.