To ensure smart, sustainable and inclusive economic growth in Europe an ever increasing number of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) graduates is needed. Fostering competitiveness while addressing challenges as climate change, energy supply, healthy aging and digitalisation in our knowledge driven European economy, the demand for STEM talent is continuously rising. Whilst the qualified STEM population is ageing , Europe is confronted with significant youth unemployment. The imminent need for STEM competences, plus the fact that unemployment is 3 times lower amongst STEM graduates underlines the importance of STEM. Thus, the issues are1. Ensuring sufficient inflow in all levels of STEM education and the labour market2. The ‘skills mismatch’ between the skills of recent graduates and those required by employers-- The triple helix approachIn response to the demand for STEM competences for innovation and economic growth, several EU member states have successfully elaborated national STEM strategies. National STEM strategies are mostly carried out by national STEM platforms; so called ‘triple helix’ organisations that promote a wide variety of innovative education and training practices based on the triple helix of close cooperation between business, education and government. The triple helix approach underlines that the potential for innovation and economic development in a Knowledge Society lies in a more prominent role for educational institutions, industry and government to generate new institutional and social formats for the production, transfer and application of knowledge. An example of a successful triple helix initiative is Jet-Net (Youth and Technology Network) in the Netherlands. Jet-Net is a joint initiative of the Dutch government, leading technology companies and secondary schools. Together the triple helix partners provide students with experiences that show the challenging, meaningful and socially relevant nature of technology. Since 2002 Jet-Net companies support schools in providing an educational environment including practical and real life professional context. Jet-Net is funded by both industry and government, enriching the science curriculum through guest lessons, company visits, project weeks and national events. After the success in the Netherlands, the Jet-Net best practice has been successfully introduced in Denmark as "Jet-Net.dk."-- International cooperation and the EU STEM CoalitionAfter the initial success of transferring initiatives like Jet-Net as well as the STEM platform model to Denmark and Estonia, the national STEM platforms of Denmark, The Netherlands and Estonia have recently joined forces in the EU STEM Coalition in order to further accommodate international peer learning and increase their effectiveness. The mission of the EU STEM Coalition is to create momentum for the development and implementation of national STEM strategies across Europe. The EU STEM Coalition is a Europe-wide collaboration that activates, stimulates and supports member states to work on a national STEM strategy and platform. The two main goals of the EU STEM Coalition are: 1. To facilitate and promote the exchange of best practices between national STEM platforms through peer learning activities. 2. To support other member states in the establishing a STEM platform through targeted taskforce meetings.-- The project: Action Plan EU-STEM CoalitionIn the past months the EU STEM Coalition has been confronted with a rapidly increasing demand for support by other EU member states that are interested in establishing a STEM platform. Among these countries are France, Greece, Hungary, Portugal, Spain, Malta, Italy and Germany, as well as non-EU countries like Turkey and Ukraine. The EU STEM Coalition Action Plan aims to address this demand, by transforming the ad hoc bilateral relationships within the EU STEM Coalition into a solid, effective Europe-wide network.Finally, it is important to note that the EU STEM Coalition is first and foremost a European project. The desired impact of the Coalition is therefore reflected on a European level. Thus, after three years a significant increase in the amount of STEM graduates is estimated across the participating member state. In addition, the project strives to increase the quality of STEM education through the exchange of best practices between national STEM platforms. The desired impact of this is a significant reduction of skills mismatch, and consequently, a critical reduction of youth unemployment.(*) On the request of the National Agency Erasmus+ we would like to clarify that the ‘amount of participants’-column in the part I.2 of this proposal refers to the amount mobility’s. Thus, each transnational project meeting will only be attended by one representative of each project partner.The current platform partners, CSR Europe and Natuurvidenskabernes Hus (Jet-Net.dk) will participate relatively more in tas
- Context and background of the project Many EU member states are experiencing an increasing ‘skills mismatch’ in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). This mismatch has both a quantitative dimension (shortages of STEM skilled people) and qualitative dimension (mismatch between the skills of recent graduates and the needs of employers). Several EU member states have addressed this problem through developing national STEM strategies and / or dedicated organisations for their implementation and coordination (‘STEM platforms’) and implementation programmes. The strategies and implementation vary widely from country to country but typically rely on the close cooperation between the ‘triple helix’ of government, industry and education providers, increased coordination between education sectors (from primary education to the labour market) and a strongly regionalised, ‘bottom-up’ approach. In recent years, an increasing number of countries and regions are actively developing strategies and approaches aimed at reducing skills mismatch in STEM. Consequently, there is a rapidly increasing demand for insights in how similar problems are tackled in other countries, as well as for direct support in the development of these approaches. The project aimed to upscale an informal partnership between the STEM platforms of the Netherlands, Denmark and Estonia (the EU STEM Coalition) in a functional support mechanism for the development, improvement and upscaling of national and regional STEM strategies, platforms and approaches. The main objectives of the project were: (1) Facilitate best-practice sharing between existing national STEM platforms (2) Support the development of new national and regional STEM strategies, platforms and approaches. The project partners consisted of three STEM platforms (Netherlands, Denmark (2), Estonia), three national partners that aimed to develop a national STEM platform (France, Greece and Hungary) and three European partners representing relevant groups of stakeholders (ThinkYoung, FEANI, CSR Europe). The main activities of the project included: (1) periodic General Assembly (GA) meetings, bringing together the entire network. These meetings were mainly focused on best practice sharing around a specific theme (e.g. impact assessment, link between research and education practices, etc.), and (2) Taskforce Meetings (TM): targeted (series) of support actions aimed at the development of new STEM strategies, platforms and programmes. The meeting format varied greatly, ranging from one-day work visits to longer series of 'taskforces' bringing experts from multiple countries together to support the development of new strategies. (3) Web-portal: This portal aimed to aggregate and structure relevant information on national and regional approaches, primarily to be used during Taskforce Meetings The project achieved its main objectives and contributed to the development of new national STEM strategies (e.g. Danish Technology Pact based on the Dutch Technology Pact), STEM platforms (e.g. Hungarian STEM platform) and programmes (e.g. Jet-Net programme in the Basque country). Several additional initiatives supported by the project are still under development (e.g. Norwegian Technology Pact, Bulgarian STEM platform). More generally, the project delivered an active, well-structured network for best practice sharing and direct support, as evidenced by the growing number of support requests which are still ongoing. This is also evidenced by the growing number of members of the EU STEM Coalition (since its launch, STEM platforms and partners from Norway, Switzerland, Finland, Romania, Spain, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Bulgaria, Turkey and Ukraine have joined the network, including national ministries, regional governments, innovation agencies, industry-driven initiatives and relevant EU-level networks. Finally this is highlighted by the participation of high level policy makers in General Assembly meetings (including the ministers of education of France and Hungary), several nationally-focused side-events that were organised by host countries aimed at improving coordination on a national level, and the broad and growing use of the dataportal and communication channels. On the EU-level the succeeded in highlighting and promoting its approach and was included in the European Commission’s ‘Communication on a Renewed EU Agenda for her Education’ and was consequently in several high-level forums like the Directors-General meetings of several EU presidencies and fact-finding seminars of BusinessEurope, etc.