STrategies And systems to reduce YOung people’s Non-completion (STAY ON) of upper secondary vocational education.The project uses quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate and develop in innovatively transeuropean context means of meeting the “Completion Challenge” in post-compulsory vocational education for 16-19 year olds. We define this challenge as the urgent social and economic necessity to reduce drop-out rates and ensure young people’s completion of courses leading to transferable qualifications in “New Skills for New Jobs”. We explore, develop and evaluate practical means of meeting this challenge “on the ground”, asking “what works where and why?” within a variety of socio-economic, cultural and educational contexts and regions in 5 European countries. We give a particular emphasis to (a) working in partnership with local employers in orienting VET course to local employment opportunities and to labour market needs in the context of their wider European dimensions and (b) reducing early leaving for students with migrant backgrounds, Roma pupils and gendered disadvantage.Major outputs include a range of innovative products including:• resource packs which update cumulatively the partners’ initial reports on the “state of the art” in their own locales; • demonstration of best practice including DVD presentations and documentary analysis and reports for academic and professional publications feeding into regional and national policy communities ; • an international conference on Meeting the Completion Challenge in new skills areas; • an EU-fundable training course for our immediate target groups of teachers, school and college leaders, educational advisors, business-education link workers, and the members of local and national VET policy communities; • a sustainable web-site as the basis for dissemination and exploitation of the project’s outputs across the whole European area.