Innovation has been placed at the heart of the Europe 2020 strategy. In the communication from the Commission regarding the Europe 2020 Flagship Initiative, Innovation Union it is stated: ”At a time of public budget constraints, major demographic changes and increasing global competition, Europe's competitiveness, capacity to create millions of new jobs to replace those lost in the crisis and, overall, our future standard of living depends on our ability to drive innovation in products, services, business and social processes and models.” With regard to this insight, InnoWork project seeks to address the following needs identified at EU level: ~ The challenge of the EU and its Member States to adopt a much more strategic approach to innovation. Compared to its global competitors the EU is under-investing in knowledge base, spending every year 0.8% of GDP less than the US and 1.5% less than Japan in R&D – with major gaps in business R&D, venture capital investments. ~ The EU market remains fragmented and insufficiently innovation-friendly. ~ The demand for innovation exposes a critical gap: a lack of innovation skills, knowledge and training across most organizations. ~ Underestimated relevance between innovation and VET. Traditionally innovation is seen as a result of R&D activities carried out by highly qualified staff and thus a domain of higher education rather than VET. Innovation cannot be limited to high tech industries – it also takes place in low-tech industries which account for a large share of employment in Europe. Firms in low-tech industries innovate through building on the practical knowledge within the firm which arises from “learning by doing” or “learning by using and interacting”, which is not a prerogative of a specific category of employees. (Source: EC “Rethinking Education” Communication) In order to address the aforementioned needs the main aim set in the InnoWork project is to create a more innovation-friendly environment for EU micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and increase their business adaptability by providing the necessary training support for performing organizational innovation. The specific objectives through which this aim will be achieved are: ~to provide EU micro, small and medium-sized enterprises with open educational resources in the field of organizational innovation and workplace innovation; ~to support EU micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in developing their skills for implementing systematic innovation; ~to enhance the competitiveness and the innovation capacity of EU micro, small and medium-sized enterprises through practical training tailored to their needs; ~to increase the awareness of EU business and VET community about the importance of organizational and workplace innovation and create the necessary supporting culture for that. The project is aimed at two major target groups – SMEs (micro, small and medium sized enterprises) and continuing VET providers. SMEs constitute the dominant form of business organizations in all countries of the EU and contribute greatly to its wealth and employment, whereas VET providers are one of the main and logical providers of labour force training required to enhance the competitiveness of nation’s businesses and industries. The products which will be developed within the project lifetime are as follows: ~ InnoWork Curriculum. The InnoWork curriculum will comprise elements such as specialisation (targeted learners), necessary prerequisites for taking the course, objectives of the course, key competencies which will be developed through the course, and the content of the course and it will serve as basis for the elaboration of the structure of the learning material. In the development of the curriculum both SMEs and VET providers will be involved. ~ Training content. The training content will be developed in unison with workplace innovation EU Commission priority, by integrating a module dedicated to the topic as part of the training for organizational innovation. The training materials will seek to address and boost innovation and creativity skills, by providing information on essential topics such as “Innovation leadership”, „Technology as an enabler of innovative ideas”, “Creative workplace management”. ~ Guidelines for VET providers. The Guidelines will be a short methodological document leading VET providers through the developed training content of InnoWork. The document will be summarized and focused and will also have a teasing function to make VET providers go to the project website and explore the available materials. ~ InnoWork project website. The project website will have two main purposes to present the training content in a user-friendly way for the SMEs and to be useful exercise tool for the VET institutions. All materials elaborated within the project lifetime will be available on the webpage for free download.