FLAME stands for “Feuerwehr-Laufbahnausbildung modern und effizient“: Fire brigade career training – modern and powerful. In the FLAME project, the ITB is supporting the “Feuerwehrakademie Hamburg” (Hamburg Fire Service Academy) in modernising and expanding its civil service career training.

In DEVISE4KE three secondary schools in Kenya which provide VET-education to students in a rural region will be equipped with photovoltaics as well as low energy devises in order to provide digitally supported work-based learning VET to students.

Problem statement: In many countries, there is a shortage or increasing demand for skilled workers, particularly in the IT sector, nursing, or skilled trades. Concurrently, there are both regular and irregular migration movements. Irregular migration leads to significant disadvantages for individuals in terms of access to the labor market, which is not legally possible, but regular labor migration also proves challenging for all stakeholders. Lack of quantitative alignment between qualifications and job opportunities is just one of the challenges. In addition, qualification systems inadequately respond to changing requirements. Currently, there is little clarity on how origin and destination countries can contribute to ensuring that migration occurs fairly, effectively, and sustainably in the context of labor migration. Systemic solutions are particularly missing. The SKILLS4JUSTICE project aims to establish evidence-based foundations for the design of fair, effective, and sustainable regular migration within the framework of skill partnerships. Additionally, a toolkit will be developed to support policymakers and stakeholders in the labor and vocational training contexts in steering measures toward fair, effective, and sustainable development.

In the MULE project, current trends in applied informatics are to be efficiently integrated into curricula through cooperation between vocational schools and industry. This will be achieved by defining "spheres of activity" which will serve as the basis for learning and work tasks in a multimedia learning environment. The focus is on the promotion of transversal and vocational competences of students. The planned transnational Sectoral Qualification Framework aims to improve the comparability of the competences of professionals from Germany, Serbia, Italy and Spain in the field of Applied Informatics.

WASABI will create intelligent digital assistance solutions to enable SMEs to hire new employees faster and train and upskill them more efficiently, centred on the employees. The solutions will enable them to interact with complex software via natural language and thus meet skill requirements.

Problem statement: The transformative power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) extends across different sectors, including education, but it is still unclear exactly what impact AI will have on learning, teaching and (European) policy. For teachers and trainers in adult and vocational education, there are many uses of AI, such as new ways of adapting learning content to learners' needs, new processes for assessment and improving guidance for learners. AI systems can help interpret activities in vocational and adult education and link theoretical and practical learning. There is a continuing need to improve knowledge and understanding of emerging technologies and also to differentiate their use in education.

AI4Ed aims to challenge current teaching-learning processes and will incorporate and experiment with novel technologies (AI) and pedagogy to develop tools, methods and assessment systems that respond to the new reality.

The project "WB German Course" provides scientific support for the ongoing pilot project "German Course for Cognitively Impaired People in the State of Bremen", which is directed to employees in workshops for people with disabilities. In the context of the accompanying research, the German courses are evaluated and a modified teaching structure is tested in order to be able to optimize content and methods with regard to a participatory teaching structure. The recommendations for action resulting from the accompanying research are designed to support the institutions offering the courses in achieving the objective of greater participation of the students in the whole of society.

The project aims to provide trainers with sustainable support in their vocational action competence as training experts. The result is "learning paths" oriented to the needs of the target group, which enable trainers - also individually tailored - to orient their training planning and processes to the current requirements of their respective sector. The conceptual basis of the CVET offer is the long-established vocational science concept of the Kompetenzwerkstatt (http://www.kompetenzwerkstatt.net/).

Against the backdrop of the challenges of the transformation of companies in the vehicle industry in the state of Bremen and its surrounding area, the continuing education network aims to promote and coordinate a regional continuing education programme that meets the qualification needs of companies to shape the transformation and contributes to the strategic development of a demand-oriented skilled labour base.

Parents and guardians are the most important reference persons for many young people in phases of professional orientation. Nevertheless, decisive inequalities and uncertainties are emerging in the cooperation between schools and parents. Socio-economically disadvantaged families in particular are prematurely overlooked. After the previous project "BOGyO - Berufliche Orientierung für die gymnasialen Oberstufen" (Professional Orientation for Upper Secondary Schools) made a further contribution to the systematic improvement of Bremen's PO structures, the project is now being deepened in order to be able to better organize the active cooperation with socio-economically disadvantaged parents on the part of the schools.

The second phase of learning, after completing lower secondary education, is essential both for continuing education and/or vocational education and training (VET) in order to enter the labour market (OECD, 2020). According to OECD, vocational education and training is a successful path for entering the labour market and countries with better developed and consolidated vocational training programs are more effective in containing youth unemployment.

In the project "Digitalization and Inequality in the Context of Vocational Education and Training", vocational education and training is used as a lens with which inequalities arising from digitalization processes can be identified simultaneously at various levels of society, in order to clarify questions about the origins and formation of precisely these inequalities and to develop recommendations for action.

In the joint project "KIM – Artificial Intelligence as a Mentor for Lifelong Learning", an AI solution will be developed that offers users of professional training platforms targeted assistance in the selection of training opportunities. The users and their professional and career wishes are the focus of the project. They initially carry out a self-assessment of their competencies and express their current professional and career wishes, as well as their own preferences (e.g. free and paid offers, time restrictions with regard to course offers, etc.).

In the KIWI project, an application for smartphones is being developed for employees in production that enables a cross-platform search for precisely matching training and further education offers with the help of artificial intelligence. Due to digitalization and the associated increase in automation, production is subject to rapid change, which is also going hand in hand with changes in requirement profiles and job profiles.

Problem: Especially in the logistics area we are observing a similarity of a continuing digitalisation with corresponding substitution risk plus a minor participation in further education. So indisputable the necessity of learning is, it is as difficult to develop further education types to let them address equally company and occupational biographic perspectives.

More women in IT - but how? Since the end of last year, the project "F.IT Frauen in IT" has been working on an answer to this question. Through targeted training and further education offers, the project wants to create the possibility of a lateral entry into the industry for women. In order to successfully implement this goal, it is crucial to know the needs and requirements of the target group.

In the course of the project, a compendium of dual approaches to training in the information technology (IT) sector in Italy, Germany, Spain and Northern Ireland will be compiled. To this end, all dual education programs in the participating countries that can be considered fully qualifying, i.e. on level 3 or above of the German/European Qualifications Framework (DQR/EQR) will be analyzed and their strengths and weaknesses described. In Germany, in addition to the classic dual vocational training courses in the sector (level 4), the dual courses of study at bachelor level (6) and the dual master's course of study at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Bremen at level 7 are also included. The aim of the project is to submit a full proposal in the funding line "Centers of Vocational Excellence".

Progressive digitalisation and networking in industry and craft sector are increasingly changing requirements and activities in the occupation of agricultural and construction machinery mechatronics technician. This includes increased use of diagnostic, analysis and design software in agricultural and construction machinery technology, advancing use of high-voltage technology, increasing system networking as well as augmented/virtual and mixed reality technologies. However, inter-company training programmes for trainees in agricultural and construction machinery mechatronics do not take this digital change into account to a sufficient extent yet. The project "tekom_LandBauMT" addresses these challenges by modernising inter-company training measures for agricultural and construction machinery mechatronics technicians.

Learning at work and at vocational schools can be supported by the use of technology, respectively by the development of up-to-date and attractive learning materials. In order to develop these technological advantages, teachers and trainers in vocational training have to develop new skills and competences.