At the time of EU economic crisis, the interest of young people in agriculture, their skills, and their entrepreneurship competencies and spirit have become of strategic importance for the economy and the society of all EU countries. The agriculture sector according to ILO accounts for 32% of total employment globally and has great potential in creating new jobs, fighting youth unemployment, strengthening countries economies and produce social capital. However, in EU only the 14% of farmers are younger than 40 years and only 6% are younger than 35. With an aging population of farmers, it’s clear that young people skills and entrepreneurship competencies in agriculture are of great importance. So, it is necessary more than ever before to attract youth interest in agriculture, help them gain quality skills and strong entrepreneurship capabilities and also assist them in succeeding in the sector. The project aims to develop an innovative and systematic approach to train and support young people to succeed in formulating, starting and running their own agribusinesses. AGRIENT will utilize innovative educational ICT, like virtual reality, to enhance the efficiency and attractiveness of agriculture entrepreneurship, attract youth interest and enhance their entrepreneurship skills and career horizons. Several courses for agriculture entrepreneurship will be designed and developed focusing on the special and innovative characteristics of entrepreneurship in agriculture and promote opportunities for youth entrepreneurship and initiatives in the sector. For the Courses, the first step will be to make studies on the status of Agro-Entrepreneurship Training in Europe. Based on that, partners will design the Courses and then the learning material that will be hosted on a Repository and used for piloting activities in order to collect feedback and plan the necessary adjustments.In addition, a 3D virtual reality environment will be developed with innovative educational infrastructure, offering immersive and efficient learning opportunities and training scenarios and providing an attractive and efficient way to learn the challenging agriculture entrepreneurship domain. In addition, in the virtual environment, constructions will be developed to visualize and simulate real world environments and situations, providing various possibilities for formal, non-formal and informal learning and knowledge acquisition. The partnership consists of 6 partners from 5 EU countries with complementary experience and skills that secure the success and the high quality of the results of the project. Project coordinator is the Polytechnic of Šibenik (SIBENIK) in Croatia, having expertise in offering entrepreneurship training to young people and will be the main content provider for the entrepreneurship courses that will be developed. Slovak University of Agriculture (SUA) possess experience in offering agriculture training and education and will lead the overall design of the Agri-Entrepreneurship courses while providing content for agriculture related training courses. The Agricultural Research Institute of Cyprus (ARI) has specialization in entrepreneurship training in agriculture will be a the main content provider, that will participate in the design of the educational resources of the Agro-Entrepreneurship Courses, focusing on the Research and Innovation topics. The University of Patras (UPAT) has great skills and expertise in Virtual Reality and intelligent educational systems and will be leading the development of the 3D virtual world environment. The Computer Technology Institute (CTI), will support the design of 3D educational content and the integration of educational opportunities like game-based learning and gamification, suitable for youth training in 3D virtual environments. European Training Center Association (CTE) will assist in the formulation of the curricula and the courses as well as their integration into the platform. The project is expected to have substantial impact on national and European level, modernize and enhance the efficiency, the quality and attractiveness of youth agriculture entrepreneurship by offering innovative training in 3D virtual reality environment. The project is in line with the principles of Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) 2014-2020 and the EU 2020 strategy for innovation, growth and jobs and can bring added value to bring added value to the overall European youth agriculture entrepreneurship education. The sustainability plan secures that project's results will continue to have impact after the EU fund is over.
The importance of the agricultural sector is crucial for the economy and society of the EU. Its contribution in terms of employment globally accounts for 32% and can provide great potential in creating new jobs, fighting unemployment and strengthening cuntries` economies. The significance of involving young people in agriculture, improving their skills and entrepreneurial competencies in reversing the trend of ever aging population of farmers in the EU is plain to see. This importance is also clearly presented at EU level: Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) 2014-2020 and the EU 2020 strategy for innovation, growth and jobs but also the new EU Research and innovation strategy 2020-2024 that will play a key role in responding to the challenges brought about by the global COVID-19 pandemic. It will help deliver Europe's recovery plan, paving the way out of the current crisis based on economic growth that respects the planet. These strategies call to adopt recommendations in order to support different national high-quality education programmes that will focus on youth agriculture entrepreneurship by offering innovative educational training. Programmes such as Horizon 2020 and Erasmus+ nurture research and training in the field of agriculture and entrepreneurship and stress their growing importance. AGRIENT Project: “Enhancing Youth Entrepreneurship Skills, Career Guidance and Competences in Agriculture Through a Game Based Virtual Reality Platform“, aimed at designing a training curriculum in agriculture and entrepreneurship with innovative courses and creation of Open Educational Resources, complemented by up-to-date and technology-enhanced 3D virtual world training platform to meet the needs of training in these fields and indirectly to promote and support young people in formulating, starting, running and improving their own agribusinesses. The project implementation period had initially been scheduled for 24 months but due to the pandemic situation this period was extended by 5 months, with the end in June 2021. AGRIENT project adapted the curriculum and materials to specific regional and national needs, developed 5 distinctive courses or modules with exercises on complex issues, gathered examples of good practice from participating countries and provided interactive and innovative open educational resource. The learning materials of the courses, 3D learning scenarios following gamification ideas were all hosted in the 3D virtual world educational platform freely available online with the total of 21 interactive learning scenarios. The main target groups young people interested in agriculture and entrepreneurship, graduates of agriculture educational institutes, young NEETS, teachers/trainers/tutors from HE institutions, VET institutions, elementary and secondary schools, youth training centers, young people from isolated rural areas, adult education and training institutions and other related groups: career counselors and agencies, policy makers, youth educational networks, development agencies, youth agriculture and entrepreneurship networks. The main aims of the AGRIENT project were to : • Create an innovative curriculum based on agriculture and entrepreneurship, create an innovative 3D educational virtual world platform; • Promote entrepreneurship education for developing active citizenship, employability and creating new businesses, support future learning and career pathways for individuals, in accordance with their personal and professional development; • Update and improve instructors’ knowledge and support related professional groups, educational and youth institutions and training centres • Create a network of stakeholders at local and regional level to raise awareness of relevant institutions in the field; • Provide young people in isolated and remote rural areas with freely available and innovative learning environments to overcome geographic and economic obstacles The results of the project were materialized in the following Intellectual outputs: • O1: Design of Agro-Entrepreneurship Curriculum, Formulation of Innovative Courses and Creation of Open Educational Resources • O2: Game-based 3D Virtual Reality Educational Platform for Agro-Entrepreneurship Education In the final stage of outputs development, these were validated by selected participants during pilot testing, and the final results were improved according to their feedback and recommendations. The project has developed user-driven and interactive training tools, which are unique in Europe; it had a major impact not only in terms of target beneficiaries, but also through relevance, usefulness and transferability of the project results. AGRIENT is a sustainable project and it developed innovative practices which are fully transferable to other areas. Both project outputs can be used as a model for educational processes, as a guideline how to proceed with the educational and methodological aspects of trainings not only in the subjects of agriculture and entrepreneurship, but they can also be adapted into other fields and sectors in education.