EGInA Srl

EGInA Srl is a private training agency and consultancy body, operating in the field of EU projects and grants. The company has been founded by a team of project managers with long-term experience in the preparation, submission and implementation of project proposals, as well as in the coordination of international partnerships and the administrative and financial management of actions at local, national and EU level.

EGInA Srl is located in Foligno, in the Umbria Region (1h30 far from Rome by train), and it operates within a wide and consolidated network of public and private bodies, providing high-quality services and consultancy in different fields:

Lifelong Learning and Higher Education

We are accredited at the Umbria Region as a training agency for the implementation of training activities funded by the European Social Fund. Our training centre is composed of two fully interactive classrooms, one IT laboratory, a conference room, a bar and a restaurant. We cooperate with trainers and teachers from all over Italy, as well as outside Italy, for the planning and implementation of non-formal and formal educational activities.

Research & Innovation  

Our research team is composed of lecturers and researchers from the National Research Council (CNR), industrial engineers, experts in social sciences and from the educational sector. We constantly try to design and realize innovative solutions and services for different target groups, taking advantage also of a proved network of international relations and partnerships.

EU/International projects

The key staff of EGInA Srl is experienced in the management of EU funded projects within the framework of different EU financing programmes. During the years we have been involved in the implementation, both as coordinators or partners, of a consistent number of multilateral projects.

Transnational mobility

EGInA Srl acts also as a sending, hosting and intermediating organisation in the field of transnational mobility. On the basis of our logistic and organisational competences and facilities, we always analyse and interpret the educational and professional needs and resources of the territory, in order to offer the best international experience both at outgoing and incoming learners.

Regional projects:

Being a training agency accredited to the Umbria Region for the release of professional qualifications and the certificates of permanent and continuous training, we cooperate since many years with the four major Trade Unions in our Region:

- (National Confederation of Craft and SME);

- (Confederation of Commercial Enterprises);

- (Confederation of Industries);

- (Confederation of Handicraft).

This allows us to easily reach all kind of SMEs in our territory.

• At the moment, we are responsible for the implementation of the Youth Guarantee initiative in the Umbria Region: we have already oriented more than 700 NEETs between 18 and 29 years old and inserted them in qualification courses and/or traineeships ().

• Moreover, still on a regional base, we have been responsible for the coordination of a three-years long project entitled “At School of Business” (“A Scuola di Impresa”), realised with the support of the European Social Fund. "A Scuola d'Impresa" is a regional project (at its third edition this year) that aims at promoting the entrepreneurial digital culture among students at the last two years of vocational schools (). The main objective of the project is to spread the entrepreneurial culture among young people and to develop entrepreneurship behaviors through the activation of practical experience of learning.

EU/International projects:

At EU level, we have coordinated or collaborated in the implementation of the following projects:

ERASMUS+ KA1

• I-MEET - International Mobility Experience for E-Tourism is a project that addresses the need of involved students to acquire knowledge and capabilities aimed to activate commercial and promotional strategies by means of ICT (e-tourism). Specifically, the project fosters the acquisition and strengthening of technical and professional competencies through training experiences run in real contexts, as well as communication skills (in foreign language) and digital literacy, notably digital writing skills and Web programming. Coherently with the strategies Europe 2020 and ET2020 (Education and Training 2020) I-MEET is proposed to offer to the participants a unique opportunity of personal and professional growth with the aim to enhance their full and immediate employability in the local labour market, encouraging therefore, in an indirect way, an overall improvement of Umbrian touristic system in terms of quality, sustainability, innovation and ;

• TREES - Three-dimensional Resources for Enhancing E-Skills responds to the necessity to develop capacities and to deepen knowledges required to make young students the future “digital makers”, namely the new generation of workers, entrepreneurs and craftspeople able to interpret the so-called “Third Industrial Revolution”. Thanks to this mobility project, not only technical skills related to digital manufacturing (design, prototyping, 3D printing, etc.), are boosted , but also communication abilities in a foreign language, letting the participants be more prepared and aware of the opportunities the digital fabrication sector might offer them in perspective.

ERASMUS+ KA2

• BDBO - Break Down or Break Out is is a project aimed at boosting community learning for long-term unemployed adults (). BDBO demonstrates and documents how new learning strategies for long-term unemployed adults (aged 40+) in difficult situations, can empower them to take action. In fact, these low qualified Europeans are hit the hardest from economic pressures and the process put in place by the project provides simple and practice based guidance: by learning through acting in the community, the adults become subjects of change instead of objects of change.

• CULTOUR+ is a project that set up a Strategic Partnership of universities, local governments, SMEs and NGOs, that following the mainlines of the Higher Education Modernisation Agenda, offered high quality and innovative tools and courses based on innovation, international mobility and cross-border cooperation to enhance capacity building in higher education curricula in the fields of cultural tourism and hospitality, cultural management and shared cultural heritage. CULTOUR+ aims to promote entrepreneurship in Higher Education, making Entrepreneurship Education a basic feature in related curricula, disseminating best practices and fostering projects for creating employment opportunities for graduates in knowledge-intensive jobs in the cultural management, tourism and hospitality sectors. As well as SME generation, networking, co-working and clustering, CULTOUR+ promoted intercultural dialogue and other transversal skills, specially, creativity, entrepreneurship, cooperation and global awareness.

• Transnational Business Groups is a KA2 strategic partnership (VET) that aims at transferring the model of the initiative “A Scuola d'Impresa” (“At School of Business”) in other EU Countries (). TBG is a project whose aim is to help students create their own business by taking full informed responsibility for the decisions, and respecting ecology, regional identity as well as global market. They did so after having attended, along with their teachers, an online training course about virtual companies management. The project promotes European business cooperation and competition by creating four international mixed groups of students, each one in charge of managing a virtual company and taking decisions under several sets of guidelines defined by partners. The mixed teams had to cooperate internally in order to win the competition, held at an OER online platform.

• iYouth forms part of Empowering European’s Young Innovators Agenda through its contributions to the exploration of how to, in practice, foster innovation interest, engagement and capacity in secondary school. The project creates and openly shares guidelines, documentation and knowledge produced through the project’s intensive experimentation, and with a special focus on the substantial co-driving and co-creation from the involved student teams from five different European countries .

• SEPLO - Simplifying the Evidencing Process for Learning Outcomes is a two year European project, delivered in partnership with 6 European organisations, whose aim is to demystify ECVET and create resources which allow for easy implementation into distinct national contexts, thus increasing the opportunity for European learners to go abroad and enrich their learning through mobility experiences. In particular SEPLO looks at how ECVET can be used to support the achievement of credit bearing learning outcomes (LOs) that contribute directly to lower level vocational qualifications, in the context of transnational mobility activity.

• SCAW NET - Skilled Cooks and Waiters Network is a project whose objective is to develop adequate quality assurance mechanisms in VET, in line with EQAVET recommendation, thus improving the employability of person/students with less possibility for access on the labor market. SCAW NET strengthens key competences in VET curricula and provides more effective opportunities to acquire or develop those skills through I-VET and C-VET with relevant competencies and valuable knowledge, skills and attitudes for the labor market of tourism. In particular it enhances the access to training and qualifications for all through C-VET, in a life-long learning perspective, especially by raising awareness on the cook and waiter careers in Europe. Finally, it improves transparency and recognition of skills and qualifications, by comparing different European training curricula and developing two new courses, both with traditional and online structure.

• IntoQuality is a project whose overall aim is to create a more favourable environment for youth exchanges and mobility programmes in the field of IVET. The project intends to set up a Europe-wide association of quality intermediary organisations active in mobility projects. Although a few EU-wide networks with the aim to encourage cooperation between EU organisations for mobility already exist, none of them focuses on the quality of the services provided by members. At first glance, the more members in a network, the more opportunities to find a suitable partner. The lack of transparency in practices and prices and the lack of common rules and indicators for quality assurance of the provided service are barriers to starting up cooperation with new partners. IntoQuality develops a QAS that serves as a tool for evaluating and improving the quality of services provided by intermediary organisations.

• Youth Work HD is a project that set up a strategic partnership aimed at setting a common ground for youth workers in 21st century, defining a standard in terms of cooperation between organisations in the field of youth work and opening it up to cross-sectoral cooperation. Recognising the potential of digital technology - based on knowledge and expertise that the project partners have - the consortium decided to develop an online platform that serves for professional development of youth workers and assure them with basic knowledge and skills they need. As a first step toward the definition of the most effective and relevant elements to set up the educational online platform for youth workers, a research was carried out, which aimed to meet the needs of youth workers in terms of skills and competences development. Later on, educational modules and online platform were developed based on the research results.

• - Entrepreneurial Games for Growing Europeans is a project that contributes to rethink education by fostering the entrepreneurial transversal skills and entrepreneurial culture with the help of digital games. In particular focuses on the implementation of the following project activities:

- Study/research on game-based entrepreneurial learning methodologies across Europe;

• Workshops for teachers (not only addressed to the teachers of the schools directly involved in the project, but also to beneficiaries (primary/secondary teachers) of ERASMUS+ KA1 grant for school staff mobility;
• Organisation of an International Conference-contest for the award of the most adaptable entrepreneurial game-based practice in primary/secondary education;
• Design, realisation and test of two digital games for entrepreneurial education (primary/secondary schools).

• Level Up - Digital Skills for Adults with Blue-collar Occupations is a project aimed at developing digital skills of white collar workers. Commonly, many people with white-collar occupations have the opportunity to gain necessary skills during their training at universities. Conversely, adults with blue-collar occupations are very unlucky to gain digital skills. 56% of the adult population have no ICT skills or have only the skills necessary to fulfil the simplest set of tasks in a technology-rich environment (OECD Skills for a Digital World – 2016). During their training, digital tools were not developed therefore they do not possess any digital skills that are required in this age, which results in not being able to sustain their jobs in digital age. It is against this background that the project intends to define digital skills for blue collar workers, by creating a training content to teach them and having an online tool so that they can keep up with the digitization and a sustainable work life in the digital age.

• - Safeguarding Intangible and Cultural Values and Heritage is a project aimed at developing a blended training course  - online and offline, within a transnational mobility - on Cultural Heritage based on digital technologies as main training and educational tools. The employment of ICT in Cultural Heritage contributes strategically to the development of a sector that has a huge potential in the sustainment of European economies and society and might impact substantially in the lives of millions of Europeans, thus accompanying a process of a common European identity building.

• Biz4Fun - Let’s Have Fun With the Business Start-up is a project whose main objective to increase the competitiveness of young, mostly unexperienced people, on the job market. Young people usually have many various ideas, but it is very difficult to realize those projects due to lack of courage, funds or capacities. Biz4Fun project answers to these challenges by broadening the young people economic knowledge, shaping the basics of entrepreneurship, transferring the ability to consciously plan their own career path, reducing disproportions in the knowledge of financial tools, presenting examples of successful start-ups etc. Biz4Fun project will have a strong impact on youth, young students and in general young individuals that have interest to improve their situation on job market. Also, teachers/trainers/tutors and youth educational centers and schools will benefit by employing the developed tools in their teaching.

• MINERVA – Youth-European Cultural Heritage is a project aimed at improving the quality of services related to the support and advice to young people about professions connected to cultural heritage. The project is situated in the context of the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018 and the social and educational value of European cultural heritage, its contribution to job creation, economic growth and social cohesion. It is based on the creation of a European platform with online tools for youth workers, employment agents and volunteers who work daily with young people. The need behind this project is determined by the lack of knowledge and specialized advice to young people about the possibilities of work in the field of cultural heritage.

• Design Your Job 3 is a project that focuses on young NEET adults, aimed at transferring them concrete and expendable competences in graphic design and web development, which are urgently needed on the job market. Design Your Job 3 – which is a 3rd edition of “Design Your Job” initiative - was designed in order to tackle the issue of young people unemployment, due to the lack - or inadequacy - of digital competences and skills, which are generally not so well developed by the formal educational systems. The project proposal is based on capitalizing on previous project. Main upgrades of this current project version are the development and implementation of intermediate level of web/graphic design education program together with used tools and methods. In addition, each participant will have an obligation to conduct a two-months practice cycle in real sector.

ERASMUS+ KA3

• Digital Tourism is a project that supports the acquisition of professional knowledge and skills targeting promotional and marketing strategies based on IT (e-tourism), as digital services which allow a company to become a place where technological innovation generates cultural, social and economic development. Specifically, Digital Tourism develops a new qualification (DT – Digital Tourism intermediate professional) which benefits the target group (students aged 15-19 with a completed EQF II, VET providers and hospitality organisations) involved in a 3-year course VET EQF IV.

• SEED - Smart Entrepreneurial Education and Training in Digital Farming. Through the use of the European Quality Assurance in Vocational Education and Training (EQAVET), the aim of the project is to review, in cooperation with all the partners, a joint VET curriculum focused on the development of entrepreneurial and digital competences (mapped according to the EntreCOMP and DigCOMP frameworks) in digital farming (DF). The training path will promote work-based learning of high-school students, and will support their educational path by giving them the opportunity to learn by doing. In particular, participants will be involved in the development of an entrepreneurial start-up plan during their educational path, by having direct experience and exploiting agricultural areas provided by the partners of the project. A short-mobility placement abroad will also be arranged for participants in order to support the learning process. All WBL activities (national and abroad) will entail the use of the ECVET framework.

LLP

Within the framework of the former LLP, we have developed the following projects:

• Entrepreneurial Learning in Adult Education (Grundtvig Learning Partnership - finished in 2011) is a project whose overall objective is to strengthen entrepreneurial learning and approach in partnership organisations on three levels: organisational, staff and student. The rationale behind the intervention is that adult education must become more flexible and focused on the needs of the learners as well as on the labour market rather than just providing traditional education. In order to provide students with the competence needed for the European market the project developed the entrepreneurial approach within partner organisations and worked with new inspiring educational methods.

• Employment for Everyone - Enhancing Employment Opportunities of Disabled People in Europe is a Leonardo da Vinci projects that aims at exploring good employment samples with capacity building of this specific vulnerable group ().

• QAECVET project aims to enlighten VET stakeholders how to apply quality assurance when using ECVET. The project objectives are the following:

- To give further information to VET promoters about clear and measurable goals and objectives at each of the four stages in the VET quality assurance process (plan, implement, evaluate and review);

- To contribute the better understanding of quality assurance and ECVET’s technical specifications which include elements of quality assurance, the Memorandum of Understanding and the Learning Agreement among VET stakeholders;

- To encourage VET promoters the use of ECVET to support the geographical mobility of learners in a partnership framework;

- To enhance collaboration between employers and other VET stakeholders;

- To employ the different experiences on quality assurance and ECVET in partner Countries;

- To negotiate in the workshops using assessment criteria in the implementation phase.