Geo Future Excellence Programme (GFEP) is a new, innovative honours program between three carefully selected secondary education schools: Vossiusgymnasium (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), INS Infanta Isabel d’Aragó (Barcelona, Spain) and Model Experimental General Lyceum (Heraklion, Greece). Talented groups of students from each school are encouraged to think about European issues concerning the future. Students and teachers from all three schools will work and learn together, aiming at the following goals: CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND OF THE PROJECT: -energy/natural resources/climate change issues -sustainability and health geography ('smart cities' concept) -water abundance and scarcity -European citizenship and globalization (geopolitics and international trade and services) • Sustainable cooperation between schools, companies and (knowledge) institutes (universities and technology institutes); • Establish a sustainable cooperation between subjects (geography, economics, history, computer science, biology) in secondary education; • Participate young people in real life academic and business cases, • Develop students into critical citizens, with a broad scope of understanding European issues, both on a national and international scale; • Introducing innovative state-of-the-art geospatial technology in secondary education, combining informatics with geography, economics, history and biology; OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT: -the final product is an excellence programme curriculum, which can be used as detailed format for any other interested school in the European Union. -companies, universities and knowledge institutes will be asked whether this project has been a valuable replacement, or addition to their strategic policy and or corporate responsibilty policy, in order to attract skilled workers. -students (participants) will be interviewed to find out whether they were actively encouraged to problem based thinking and dealing with complex, real-life cases, during this project. NUMBER AND PROFILE OF PARTICIPANTS OF THE PROJECT: -3 secondary education schools (Amsterdam, Barcelona, Heraklion) -app. 230 students and 10 teachers will directly benefit by participating in this project -short-term joint staff training events, carried out by University of Utrecht, aim at reaching 30 other European schools to introduce GFEP -the Royal Dutch Geographical Society (KNAG) aims at reaching all of its 21 European partner organisations, promoting and supporting GFEP both at national and European level. METHODOLOGY OF THE PROJECT: 1. The curriculum has a clear interdisciplinary theme. At least two teachers of the school are involved in the module. 2. The curriculum includes a Geo -ICT component. 4 . The curriculum includes research fieldwork activities. 5 . The curriculum involves the organisation of TED sessions, in order to disseminate project results locally. 6 . The curriculum culminates in a tangible final product, such as a set of interactive maps, policy papers for businesses or governments. These final products are to be presented to other students and schools. 7 . The curriculum includes European interaction – exchanging knowledge, good and bad practices and other learning activities between participating schools. 8 . The student receives a special Certificate of Honor. 9 . The curriculum should clearly identify lesson objectives, evidence of the learning process, and suggestions for non-participating schools to introduce the Geo Future Excellence Programme at their organisation. RESULTS AND IMPACTS OF THE PROJECT: A key objective of the Geo Future Excellence Programme is to bridge the gap between the 'supply side' of the next generation of skilled workers (schools in secundary education) and the 'demand side', where highly-qualified staff is scarce (e.g. the (geo) ICT-sector). The Geo Future Excellence Programme intends to build this bridge, with the use of participatory approaches and ICT-based methodologies, stimulating students to use and develop much asked for competences such as thinking in planning issues, solution strategies and scenarios. Students actively participate in real-world academic and business cases, trying to solve problems during their learning process. Based upon the principle ‘together we know more’, both participants (students) and project team members will work within regional multidisciplinary project networks. These networks combine specific know-how in the fields geography, history, economics and biology with ICT technology and geospatial data. POTENTIAL LONG TERM BENEFITS OF THE PROJECT: Development of teaching material (modules) related to GFEP, designed by teacher traininers from University of Utrecht, together with pedagogical experts from different countries. These modules will be based on the principles of inquiry learning, including examples of geo-ICT assignments and collaboration possibilites with companies and knowledge institutes.