The Fit 4.0 kick-off meeting took place in Reggio Emilia on the 8th and the 9th of October. This is an Erasmus+ funded project which gathers 10 partner organisations from Italy (POLIMI Politecnico di Milano and IFOA Istituto Formazione Operatori Aziendali), Portugal (EDUGEP EDUGEP – Concepcão, Desenvolvimento e Gestão de Projectos de Natureza Educacional, Social e Cultural), Sweden (GTC Göteborgs Tekniska College), Denmark ( ZBC Zealand Business College), Austria (BFI-OOE Berufsförderungsinstitut Oberösterreich), Belgium (APH Artesis Plantijn Hogeschool )and the UK. The project will run until August 2022. The project coordinator is the Italian EfVET Member, IFOA.

The Fit 4.0 project intends to address the challenges the technological developments on the industry (both production and maintenance levels) are creating to VET educational systems by describing a set of competences useful to VET teachers and by developing and testing a set of training modules fit for “4.0”, in strict co-operation with Industry.

It is expected that, by the end of the project, FIT 4.0 will have:

• more skilled VET teachers and trainers;
• improved quality of learning, hence better employability of students and attractiveness of VET;
• increased and stable cooperation between training providers, teachers/trainers and enterprises;
• availability of sustainable tools, transferable to other economic sectors and other European countries.

Each one of the partners of the project has a wealth of experience in the specific sector they operate, and the specific consortium established in the framework of this project is very complementary as each partner brings unique expertise in its area of intervention.

Organised in 3 different phases the project has the following specific objectives:

• describing a “minimum” of skills, namely didactical and transversal, needed by teachers/trainers, especially those involved in HVET, concerning the 4.0 transition;
• developing a competence self-assessment tool, allowing VET teachers/trainers to measure their readiness for the 4.0 world and digital transformation;
• developing and testing, in strong cooperation with enterprises, a resource pack for trainers, a training programme delivered as a MOOC (Massive Online Open Course), complete with examples of training material, methods for learning assessment, innovative tools for training and learning;
• exploiting that MOOC to train a sample group of trainers, who will pilot their learning by codesigning training modules/programs in this new 4.0 concept, together with businesses;
• 5– making such products available to everyone, even beyond the partnership, through a knowledge base of OER freely accessible via the same online platform used by the sample group;
• identifying a set of policy recommendations/suggestions to local, national and European
• decision-makers, for future updating of teachers’ and trainers’ competences.
• To ensure concreteness, the project focusses on the mechanic, mechatronic and automotive sectors, where advanced digital competences are necessary, the digital revolution is already started, and meaningful company experience is in place.

The next meeting will be in May 2020, Setubal, Portugal.