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 aimed 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 gaps of these dimensions in schools in some European countries. The Project created: (i) an online platform of pedagogical resources fed and used by teachers, based on the idea of ​​an extended community of practice; (ii) a Manual that highlighted 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 was coordinated by APLOAD Lda and included, 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 partners were: CETEM – Asociacion Empresarial de Investigacion Centro Tecnológico del Mueble y de la Madera de Murcia, from Spain, Çukurova University, from Türkiye, Çukurova Regional Governorship, from Türkiye, Know & Can Association, from Bulgaria, the NGO BrainLog, from 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 was 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!”