By implementing the project, we aimed to enhance creativity, inclusiveness, and equity within European schools by focusing on teachers’ competencies. Our objectives included developing flexible and personalized training modules based on a self-assessment tool to help teachers identify their needs. We also sought to create a multilingual online hub with resources to support creativity, social inclusion, and innovative teaching practices. Additionally, we aimed to establish a transnational alliance of teacher education institutions to facilitate resource sharing, collaboration, and recognition of teacher qualifications at the European level. Ultimately, we intended to improve learning environments and address systemic challenges in education in order to support teacher professional development and make it a cross-country issue to accelerate the innovation policies regarding the school systems of Europe, as defined at the EU and National/Regional levels.
We applied for this project to address critical needs in the education sector. European data highlighted a significant demand for training to equip teachers with innovative, inclusive, and creative pedagogical skills, particularly for managing cultural and linguistic diversity, teaching in technology-rich environments, and adopting collaborative approaches. The COVID-19 lockdown intensified these challenges, emphasizing the urgency to strengthen core competencies of in-service and future teachers. Research data at European level show that a high percentage of teachers express moderate to high levels of training needs in areas that would enable them to develop more appropriate, diverse, and innovative teaching practices (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2015; European Commission, Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture, 2019). We aimed to innovate teacher training to foster inspiring, inclusive, and equitable learning environments that enhance creativity and lifelong learning, bridging gaps between policy and practice at a systemic European level.