Presenting project results, comparing approaches, giving structure to new ideas
From 14 to 18 October 2024, the partners of the ‘TourX Innovation Hub’ met in Potsdam.
The host was DEHOGA Brandenburg, which, in its complementary project HOGAVET, had invited specialists and partners from the University of Aveiro and Skills Together from Rome to exchange knowledge in the further internationalisation of vocational training.
The idea of the ‘TourX Innovation Hub’ was born in the winter of 2023 at the TourX consortium’s project meeting in Dolo, Italy.
In work package 2 of the TourX project, the development of cross-thematic collaboration
between the individual knowledge triangles of the participating partner countries was formulated as an objective.
In the following months, an informal exchange platform was created between colleagues from Portugal, Italy, Spain and Germany to promote and support the development of individual activities between the regional knowledge triangles alongside the formal project management structures of the project.
The participants keep a close eye on the dynamics of the project in order to be able to better answer questions that arise between project planning and the realisation of individual tasks in the course of the project and also to formulate recommendations for further project work.
From the outset, all participants were aware, that it will be difficult, to incorporate newly developed perspectives into the project work alongside the formally deliverables.
In this week in October 2024 was the work focussed on the discussion to Task 5 of the TourX project, in which an “assessment and monitoring mechanism for the validation of excellence in VET” will being developing and there are involve the partners.
Daniele Fano from ‘Skills together’ presented his new Excellence Matrix, which is a simple, manageable way to combine indicators of the European definition of excellence in clusters with the perspective of learners and students and so signalize further necessary steps on the way to training excellence.
This matrix model can be also a companion for European excellence standards in VET.
Manuel Oliviera from the University of Aveiro linked the results of his scientific research in the field of the Training Needs Analysis with the question of the future Excellence Tool’s ease of use.
Christof Heinzel from Insecia GmbH, IT service provider for DEHOGA Brandenburg, showed new possibilities for process modelling using AI technologies to obtain validatable data for excellence development.
The discussions were also a good opportunity to compare the challenges of implementing the transnational project approach with Brandenburg’s regional framework conditions.
Nicole Schlenger from the district of Oberspree-Lausitz drew attention to the every day conditions and difficulties of working with local educational institutions and tourism organisations to implement vocational training programmes and to while communicating the TourX claim to excellence.
School principals and tourism managers themselves have a very clear idea of their own standards of excellence. Aligning this with the recommendations of the Tour-X project and offer real benefits for their daily work remains a major challenge as the project progresses.
The ‘TourX Innovation Hub’ will continue to be a “horizontal” discussion partner and contribute its ideas to the further project work.
