Higher education has to keep pace with the global market needs for the necessary ICT skills and the overall understanding of the complexity of industries in 21st century. Manufacturing companies have to effectively deal with the constant evolution of products, processes and production systems (and all in parallel) that can be more easily monitored, developed and up-graded by using digital tools. Firstly, this project focuses on the development and integration of a Virtual Learning Factory Toolkit (VLFT), i.e., a set of existing digital tools to support advanced engineering education in manufacturing. The aim of the VLFT is to bring back to the engineering students the results of research activities in the field of digital manufacturing. Modeling, analysis, virtual and augmented reality, as well as the role of the human workers in the factories have been among the main research topics in manufacturing. A second aspect of the VLFT project addresses the trans-nationality of the activities. Mobility, multi-locality, and transnational migration are important trends for European citizens and companies. These social developments in society and companies lead to new forms of living and new requirements for working in the EU. The teaching and learning in higher education has to adapt to these developments. Engineers are not only required to have state-of-the-art technical knowledge, but also to work in international teams spread in different sites and nations. They have to work with colleagues, suppliers, and clients from different cultural backgrounds, operate as part of a team, and master the challenges of virtual cooperation in specific engineering tasks and within international value chains. Higher education must provide transnational team work in the curriculum of tomorrow’s engineers to provide a competitive advantage in their future careers. This project thus contributes to the EU 2020 strategy for Employment and Labor Market Relevance by providing the graduates that Europe needs. Therefore, motivated by the needs of today’s globalized European environment, the objective of this project is to improve and enhance the learning process in higher university education of sustainable engineering through mobility and cross-border cooperation. Multidisciplinary, inter-cultural teams of students and supervisors, from 3 European universities and 2 research institutes, will work together and will contribute, in the sense of the EU Modernization Agenda, to strengthening the quality through mobility and cross-border cooperation. In conclusion, the overall objective of this VLFT project is to support the transfer of latest research outputs back into education. By developing the easily usable Virtual Learning Factory toolkit, the ICT skills of teachers, professors and students are improved and the content (study outputs) of the curricula is in accordance with the labour market and societal needs.
Firstly, this VLFT project focused on the development and integration of a Virtual Learning Factory Toolkit (VLFT), i.e., a set of existing digital tools to support advanced engineering education in manufacturing (digital manufacturing, modeling, analysis, virtual and augmented reality). Virtual tools were included in one environment with easy guides how to teach with these tools (for teachers) and how to use these tools (students). Due to COVID pandemic this project multiplied its aims, as virtual tools where at some periods of the project in 2020-2021 only possible teaching ways where physically you cannot go to manufacturing companies and universities. So the VLFT tools where successfully used during COVID period and still today where most of the countries are still struggling with COVID. A second aspect of the VLFT project was to address the trans-nationality of the activities through trans-European collaboration of joint virtual and physical learning labs among students and teachers from 4 countries (Estonia, Italy, Hungary, Sweden). Mobility, multi-locality, and transnational migration are important trends for European citizens and companies where current students as future engineers will need to be able to collaborate and work in transnational development teams at their industrial companies. Engineers are not only required to have state-of-the-art technical knowledge, but also to work in international teams spread in different sites and nations. They have to work with colleagues, suppliers, and clients from different cultural backgrounds, operate as part of a team, and master the challenges of virtual cooperation in specific engineering tasks and within international value chains. Altogether 50 students participate in joint learning labs. Thirdly, VLFT project impacts the content of the existing engineering curricula at Bachelor's and Master's level at 3 universities. Higher education must provide transnational team work in the curriculum of tomorrow’s engineers to provide a competitive advantage in their future careers (problem solving tasks, collaboration, use of digital tools in exercises and tasks, etc). This VLFT project thus contributed to the EU 2020 strategy for Employment and Labor Market Relevance by providing the graduates that Europe needs. Therefore, motivated by the needs of today’s globalized and digitalised European environment, the objective of this project was to improve and enhance the learning process in higher university education of sustainable engineering through mobility and cross-border cooperation. Multidisciplinary, inter-cultural teams of students and supervisors, from 3 European universities and 2 research institutes, worked together and contributed together, in the sense of the EU Modernization Agenda, to strengthening the quality through mobility and cross-border cooperation. Main outputs of the VLFT project: 1) OUTPUT 1: Virtual Learning Factory Toolkit (public on web-site https://www.vlft.eu/tools.html and https://virtualfactory.gitbook.io/vlft/tools) 2) OUTPUT 2: JOINT VIRTUAL LAB methodology and piloting during Joint VLFT labs both physically and virtually as curricula development of partner universities (integration of developed materials into all curricula of VLFT partner universities). 3) OUTPUT 3: VIRTUAL LEARNING FACTORY guideline published and disseminated inside 3 universities to more than 50 teachers and trainers. Outputs are explained in SECTION "Implementation" of the final report. Joint VLFT Learning Labs where not carried out as planned due to COVID - 1 teaching and learning lab was carried out physically - in Budapest, Hungary (May 26, 2019 - Jun 1, 2019). Second teaching lab was carried out virtually in spring 2020 due to COVID (June 9, 2020 - Jun 12, 2020). Third teaching lab was carried out virtually in spring 2021 due to COVID (May 17, 2021 - May 21, 2021). Major change of the project was that unfortunately for various administrative and financial reasons Chalmers University of Technology took part only as an advisory expert (prof Johan Stahre) but did not carry out and leading activities and tasks as originally planned. Prof Stahre did consult project but carrying out the tasks of Chalmers where divided (in several different phases from 2019, 2020 and eventually in the beginning of 2021) between other partners, main work-load was over-taken by the Hungarian Research Centre SZTAKI (who among others carried out 1 teaching and learning lab as the JOINT VLFT LEARNING LAB) and invested time in developing new virtual solutions and tools to carry out the third teaching lab as virtual lab in spring 2020 due to COVID. Also, TalTech as leading partner took much more tasks from Chalmers. Budget changes relevant to this change are explained in section 4 "Project management".