OVER-SEES: VET excellence leadership for the twin transition in European Islands

OVER-SEES is a multi-stakeholder consortium gathering four diverse EU insular territories (The Azores, Portugal; West Region, Ireland; Aegean Islands, Greece; Sicily, Italy) to establish a model of VET excellence in EU islands to accelerate Smart Specialization (S3) activities associated with the twin transition. Our goal relies on four pillars: (1) People, namely young people under 35, especially those in greater vulnerability (e.g., NEETs) who are more affected by structural school-to-work transition barriers in EU islands; (2) VET providers, by building up their capacity to co-developed new VET curricula for sustainable agriculture, rural tourism, marine renewable energies, and digitalization; (3) Businesses, by significantly expanding the cooperation between SMEs/cooperatives/start-up initiatives with VET providers; and (4) Governance, by introducing a paradigm of integrated governance leading to regional VET skills ecosystems in the selected regions. The OVER-SEES vision and key deliverables are aligned with the call’s clusters through the development of several innovations. Learning and Teaching outcomes will be addressed by co-creating a portfolio of orientation and training programs focusing on the targeted S3 areas. Multiple (trans)national activities addressing Cooperation and Partnership outcomes will culminate in an international collaborative digital platform, the OVER-SEES NEXUS. Funding and Governance outcomes will be met by deploying a model for VET excellence in European islands. All these major achievements will be aggregated under an international community of practice (OVER-SEES.com) that will work beyond the project lifetime to advance VET excellence in European islands and meet EU ambitions for fully achieving decent jobs, skills development, and twin transition agendas in insular territories.