Firstly, the consortium is developing an innovative teaching strategy for secondary school classes which encourages commitment as a European citizen, and promotes subject and learning competences. School students are to be motivated and enabled to participate actively in European civic society during their time at school and beyond. Secondly, further training for teachers is being designed in parallel to provide the necessary background and practical knowledge to implement competence-based political education and at the same time to form a Europe-wide forum for common reflection. The core products of VOICE are four thematic teaching modules focusing on democracy, Europe, human rights and migration. The development of supplementary ‘key modules’ serves to deliver social, learning and methodological competence. The combination of a thematic module with the key modules produces a user-friendly design for an integrated competence-based teaching project. The modularisation of the system is demanding for teachers but allows a high degree of content variability, which has a motivating effect by being directed towards actual situations in the world of school students. Within the planned teaching strategy, work methods with a high level of stimulation and self-directed learning potential can thus be linked in with current public debate, both nationally and Europe-wide. In terms of education theory, this means effectively combining key educational principles of practical, problem-based and discussion-based learning. In addition, the project plans to incorporate informal learning processes in the strategic organisation of the formal educational process on a consistent basis. Each module is being tested and evaluated in various schools and, based on the evaluation, modified if necessary. Also, all modules developed for key further teacher training are being trialled and evaluated in national further training courses.