Higher Education–Enterprise platform for fostering, modernisation and sustainable growth in natural stone industry in Western Balkans

The main objective of the project is fostering the modernization and development of the stone sector in Western Balkans partner countries and strengthening the relationship between the higher education and the industry. For this purpose different specific objectives have been allocated to the project:• To benchmark existing training initiatives & incorporate elements into project training outputs• To support technological & practice-based innovative training based on courses approach and format.• To encourage participation of industry stakeholders in outputs conception and testing phases• To test new HE possibilities of Tertiary VET levels in partner countries• To contribute to National/regional innovation strategies for specialization in the natural stone sector with project outputs• To create a Stone Sector network platform involving stakeholders in programme & partner countries.The project aims at Higher Education, and this is the reason why most partners are HEIs, but it includes also a VET tertiary level and a stone technologic centre, Marble, Natural Stone and Materials Technology Centre (CTM), Several associated partners will be involved in the project, mainly city halls and SMSE’s. Main products of the project are training content for university courses, a training programmes for VET tertiary level, an Online Resource Centre and multimedia handbooks. The project will last for three years and involve partner from Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo and Montenegro, as partner countries. From programme countries, partners from Spain, Italy, Romania and Greece.