The research project "Karrieren@Stahl - Career models and professional development paths for securing and developing skilled labour in the steel industry " aims to address the changing qualification and skills requirements in the steel and foundry industry. Funded by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, with financial support from the states of Bremen and Lower Saxony, it facilitates industry dialogues to exchange information on qualification solutions in the face of structural change and to increase employer attractiveness through clear career paths within the industry.

As all sectors, the sector of industrial footwear production faces the mega-trends of globalisation, digitalisation and sustainability. To react on the changes within work processes, both Initial Vocational Education and Training (VET) and Continuous VET must be further developed.

The project, “Artificial Intelligence as VET Teacher Assistant”, is part of the Erasmus+ KA220-VET initiative. We aim to further develop vocational education and training (VET) by integrating the transformative potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the daily work of VET educators.

Challenges of the Energy Transition - - - The energy sector stands at a critical juncture, with power systems being a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. As we navigate the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources, it's crucial to consider not just the technological and environmental aspects, but also the material resources required.

On 1 June 2024, the joint project NaLoGO started in the funding program "Sustainable at work - future-oriented training" with a duration of 24 months. The project is funded by the BMBF and co-financed by the European Social Fund Plus. NaLoGO aims to develop the sustainability-related skills of training personnel.

Namibia aims to play a leading role in the field of green hydrogen and PtX technologies in order to promote sustainable energy production and economic development. The "BLP Green Energy Namibia" project supports the necessary adaptation and development processes of the Namibian vocational training system.

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 recent years, universities in Central America have undergone profound changes as a result of globalisation, the development of the knowledge society and advances in information and communication technologies. These changes particularly affect their tasks, their management and their social role. The FUESE project aims to modernise university continuing education by reforming institutional policies and practices in order to strengthen their impact on the socio-economic environment in the region. The project will be implemented in three phases, with all partners involved in the diagnosis, planning, implementation, evaluation and institutionalisation of a new model designed to improve the effectiveness of university continuing education.

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.