Projects
Project FETRA
Development of the Project FETRA - Fellow Travellers. Soft Skills for Human Resources Management in SMEs (2020-2022), a Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership in the field of Adult Education, funded by the Erasmus+ National Agency of Denmark. The Project FETRA aims to support entrepreneurs and SMEs in the implementation and development of human resources on their own companies, to show a high increase of positive work environment, teamwork, talent development, creativity and innovation, and to set new tools and methodologies to support start-ups and SMEs in enhancing their productivity, competitiveness and efficiency. The project will develop 3 intellectual outputs: a tool to self-evaluate skills in Human Resources, Open Educational Resources in Human Resources soft skills and a compendium of Inspiring Success Stories in soft skills.
APLOAD is responsible for the coordination of the “compendium of Inspiring Success Stories in soft skills" and for the co-promotion of all products and practices within the project.
Coordinated by Coworking Plus (Denmark), the partnership includes also institutions from other countries: GrowthCoop (Spain), Eurospeak (United Kingdom), Indepcie (Spain) and Eesti People to People (Estonia).
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Project MINDtheGaps
Development of the Project MINDtheGaps - Media Literacy Towards Youth Social Inclusion (2019-2022), a Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership in the Youth field. This project received the “Inspiring Project 2020” award, granted by the Portuguese National Agency of the Erasmus+ Youth in Action Programme. MINDtheGaps aims to contribute to the promotion of equal opportunities for young and vulnerable people through the development of media literacy skills.
APLOAD is responsible for monitoring and evaluating the project and is also in charge of coordinating the production of one of its 3 intellectual products, an evaluation and testing tool for pedagogical products targeting young people.
Coordinated by the Centre for Research and Intervention in Education (CIIE) of the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences (FPCEUP), the partnership includes also: Know and Can Association (Bulgaria), Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences (Norway) and Middle Black Sea Development Agency (Turquia).
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Project UP2B
Coordination of the Project UP2B - Boosting Up School Education Towards European Citizenship and Labour Market Inclusion (2019-2022) a strategic partnership in the field of School Education. The project aims to promote mechanisms that facilitate school motivation in the classroom through the use of pedagogical devices responsive to European Citizenship and sensitive to the requirements of the Labour Market. The proposal was based on a needs assessment carried out in previous projects allowing to identify lacks of these dimensions in schools in some European countries. The Project proposes to create: (i) an online platform of pedagogical resources to be fed and used by teachers, based on the idea of an extended community of practice; (ii) a Manual that will highlight the relationship between multiple school subjects and a set of professions, (iii) a physical package and (iv) a digital package of a fast consumption and a fast effect motivational educational activities related to the Citizenship and the Labour Market.
The partnership is coordinated by APLOAD Lda and includes, as Portuguese partners, the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Porto and Terras Dentro - Association for the Integrated Development, thus covering the north and south of the country. In other European countries are partners: CETEM - Asociacion Empresarial de Investigacion Centro Tecnológico del Mueble y de la Madera de Murcia, from Spain, Çukurova University, from Turkey, Çukurova Regional Governorship, from Turkey, Know & Can Association, from Bulgaria, the NGO BrainLog, Denmark and the School Rigas Pardaugavas Pamatskola, from Latvia, covering Eastern and Northern Europe and the Mediterranean region from East to West.
A strong idea embodying UP2B project is taken from the Europa2020 Strategy: “Schools cannot effectively work alone. They need to move from isolated and short-term actions to engaging in a more holistic and systemic initiatives!”
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Project Under Construction
Coordination of the Project Under Construction - Key Skills Making Top Professionals in Construction and Habitat 4.0, a Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership (2018-2021) in the domain of Vocational Education and Training. The project addresses the upskilling of competencies of professionals and of VET learners in seven domains: carpentry, bricklaying, wall & floor tilling, cabinetmaking/joinery, domotics, design & technologies and 3D printing. The project rationale lays on previous needs’ assessment by the partnership, verifying how current labour markets’ trends are shaped by increased competitiveness, thus requiring fast updates and upgrades of professional skills. It becomes then necessary to facilitate the conditions for such upskilling, particularly in ‘traditional’ professions, but also in emerging and fast evolution professions.
The project proposes to create (i) a guideline of key skills required to high professional performers (top professionals) in construction and habitat 4.0, (ii) a training course curriculum for each of the embraced professional domains, (iii) a multilingual elearning platform to deliver the courses and (iv) a roadmap for exploitation and inclusion of the courses in official VET systems, once they have been piloted and validated.
The partnership is led by APLOAD and includes the Asociacion Empresarial de Investigacion Centro Tecnologico del Mueble y la Madera de La Region de Murcia, from Spain (www.cetem.es), the Institut für Lern-Innovation - Friedrich-Alexander-Universitaet Erlangen Nuernberg, from Germany (www.uni-erlangen.de), the Consorzio Materahub Industrie Culturali e Creative, from Italy (www.materahub.com), the company Merk, from The Netherlands and the VET Training Centre of the Civil Construction sector, CICCOPN – Centro de Formação Profissional da Indústria da Construção Civil e Obras Públicas do Norte, from Portugal.
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Project New Life
Development of the Project New Life: Reshaping Life in a Generous Country (2017-2019), a Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership in Adult Education. This project aims to promote education solutions tailored to the needs of refugee women concerning foreign languages (particularly, host countries' languages). It is centered in the digital possibilities for language learning, namely the use of e-learning and m-learning. The Project New Life is coordinated by the Turkish Regional Directorate of Education of Çukurova, based in Adana, Turkey, a region where the presence of refugees is very relevant. The partnership is made by Institutions from 4 European Countries, as follows (beyond the coordinators): University of Çukurova, Turkey; Megider (a NGO), Turkey; DIAN (a SME), Greece; Across Limits Ltd (a SME), Malta and APLOAD Lda (a SME), Portugal. In order to have further details about this project please feel free to visit the project’s website at: www.newlife.eu .
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Project T-Box
Development of the Project T-Box (2017-2019), a Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership of School Education. In Portugal, APLOAD has a strategic partner, Agrupamento de Escolas Gonçalo Mendes da Maia, an important group of Schools in the Municipality of Maia. The complete European Partnership is made by Schools and other Institutions of 5 European Countries, Bulgaria, Denmark, Poland, Spain and Portugal. The Project Coordinator is the Secondary School 119 “Academician Mihail Arnaudov” in cooperation with “Know and Can Association”, both located in Sofia, Bulgaria. This project is developing a tools’ box aimed to support School teachers in motivating their students when in a classroom context. The T-Box will be edited both in physical and digital versions, this last one also through a mobile application. Beyond all the regular tasks within this project, APLOAD - Evaluation and Social Planning is also responsible for the coordination of the Portuguese share of tasks and for the monitoring and evaluation of the whole project (national and international dimensions). In order to have further details about this project, please feel free to contact us by email: [email protected] .
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Project Free to Choose
Development of the project Free to Choose (2017-2019), co-funded by the European Programme Rights, Equality and Citizenship - DG Justice and Consumers of the European Commission. This project intends to fight gender stereotypes near youngsters in transition phases of their lives, within School and/or the Labour Market. Free to Choose has three main phases: in a first moment the partnership develops a social research on gender stereotypes, in a second moment it conceives a game aimed to be used and played by youngsters in educational contexts while embracing the project’s main theme (fight gender stereotypes); in a third moment the game is experimented and tested it’s effectiveness. This last moment is under the responsibility of APLOAD - Evaluation and Social Planning. The partnership of Free to Choose is made by Social Cooperative ITACA Onlus, the coordinator (NGO, Italy), Regione Friuli Venezia Giulia (Regional Government, Italy), Instituto di Ricerche Economiche e Sociali Friuli Venezia Giulia - IRES FVG (NGO, Italy), UNIMORE - Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia (University, Italy), Universitat de València (University, Spain), Opcionate (NGO, Spain), MIGS - Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies (NGO, Cyprus) MCBIT (NGO, Slovenia), Zavod Nefiks (NGO, Slovenia) and APLOAD Lda (company, Portugal).
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Project SupportAbility
Development of the Project SupportAbility - Supporting European SMEs in the Employment of People Living with Disability or with a History of Mental Illness: a Pilot Development in the Furniture Manufacturing Industries (2016-2019), a Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership (Key-Action 2). It is coordinated by BFM - British Furniture Manufacturers Limited, an association of stakeholders of the wood and furniture sector active for more than 65 years in the United Kingdom. The partnership is composed as well by Searchlighter (United Kingdom), Sinopspastik Çocuklar Dernegi (Turkey), CETEM - Asociación Empresarial de Investigación Centro Tecnologico del Mueble y la Madera de la Regiuon de Murcia (Spain), PROFEMADERA - Asociación de Profesores de Formación Profesional en Madera y Mueble (Spain) and APLOAD - Evaluation and Social Planning (Portugal). The project is based in the research and support about the employment for people living with disability, with a particular look over the wood and furniture related companies. It is developing 5 main outputs: a report about the situation in focus within the participating countries, a repository of documents of relevance under this issue, a database for the public access to those documents, a training course curriculum aiming to target employers and peers of workers living with disability and, finally, a e-learning course applying that curriculum. APLOAD’s responsibility and participation in this project is cross-cutting all those dimensions as well as the direct coordination of the e-learning course provision. In order to have further details about this project, please visit its website: www.supportability.eu
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Project Better e-Learning for All
APLOAD developed the project 'Better e-Learning for All' ('Better-E') (2015-2017). Better-E was a project funded by Erasmus+ Programme in the scope of Key-Action 2, Strategic Partnerships of Cooperation for Innovation and the Exchange of Good Practices. The project was coordinated by Çukurova University, from Adana, Turkey. Additional partners from Turkey were involved in the project, namely Firat University, from Elazig, and the Non Governmental Organization MEGIDER, from Mersin. The partnership included as well the University of Ferrara, in Italy and the companies DIAN, from Greece and Searchlighter, from the UK. The Portuguese partners were the University of Minho and APLOAD. The main objective of the project was the promotion of e-Learning near training provider NGOs acting under Education of Adults and targeting 'hard-to-reach' groups. Further information about this project may be found here: www.better-e.eu
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Evaluation of the Local Development Strategy of Terras Dentro (NGO for Rural Development)
Evaluation of the Local Development Strategy of Terras Dentro (NGO for Rural Development) (2014) in the scope of the National Programme for Rural Development PRODER 2007/2013, Subprogramme 3. Additional informations about this Programme may be obtained in the websites PRODER and Terras Dentro.
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Project e-Portefolio
APLOAD was a partner organization of "e-Portfolio System as a Source for Employment of Prospective VET Graduates" (2013-2015). This was a project of transfer of a previously released innovation under Education, Online Education and web-based didactics. The Co-ordination of the "e-Portfolio" Project was under the responsibility of Çukurova University, in Adana, Turkey. Additional partners from Turkey were involved in the Project, the Universities of Firat and Nigde and a media producer company. The Partnership also involved organisations from Spain, Hungary, Poland and our company APLOAD, from Portugal. The Project was co-funded by the European Union under the former Lifelong Learning Programme, Leonardo da Vinci - Transfer of Innovation. For additional details please visit: www.e-portfolioproject.eu
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Project Hands 4 Future
Monitoring and Evaluation of the Project "H4F - Hands 4 Future - Future Stands in Youth Hands" (2013-2014), Youth in Action Programme. This was a Development project under Youth issues, coordinated by Terras Dentro - Associação para o Desenvolvimento Integrado (Alcáçovas, Portugal) and participated by organizations from Sofia (Bulgaria), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Mindelo (Sao Vicente Island, Cape Verde) and Água Grande (Sao Tome and Principe). APLOAD was responsible for the Monitoring and Evaluation of the Project in those territories and for locally tracking the best practices for further reporting to participants and funders. The H4F Project had a training character and achieved significant impacts near the targeted youngsters of the 5 countries and 3 continents involved.
