BEST - Institut für berufsbezogene Weiterbildung und Personaltraining GmbH

BEST Institut für berufsbezogene Weiterbildung und Personaltraining GmbH (www.best.at) was founded in 1990 as an independent Austrian organisation for providing continuous training, vocational qualification and career services. Its main activities comprise the development of innovative training programmes for young (+16) individuals and adults, many of them disadvantaged and with migration background, on continuous and vocational training, counselling & coaching and activation for job seekers and employees. The training schemes are client-oriented and based on both the specific needs of the labour market and the participants' individual situations, skills and competences, previous experience and life circumstances.

The institute offers training facilities for up to 13,000 students per year. The innovative training programmes for different target groups include own pedagogic and didactic approaches and materials, especially for social integration, empowerment, self-reflection and motivation, as well as ICT based methods which are constantly being updated.

As one of the first training institutes in Austria, BEST has become a certified provider of the ECDL European Computer Driving Licence, EBCL European Business Competence Licence and ECo-C European Communication Certificate, and offers respective trainings and exams. Since 2008 BEST is an official CERTNÖ Training Centre certified by Danube University Krems and approved by the Lower Austria Government. Since 2012 BEST has also the “wien-cert“, the quality certification for adult education.

Within its International Projects Department, BEST shows long experience of cooperation in more than 180 European projects, both as coordinator and partner. The institute disposes of a network of more than 250 international organisations, both public and private, from different sectors, and is focused on networking, exchange of experience and practices, peer learning, research and development of innovation, knowledge management, personal and professional development.

CARDET - Centre for Advancement of Research and Development in Educational Technology

CARDET is one of the leading research and development center in the Mediterranean region with global expertise in project design and implementation, capacity building, and e-learning. CARDET is independently affiliated with universities and institutions from around the world, such as the Yale University and the International Council of Educational Media. CARDET has completed numerous projects related to inclusive education, social justice and integration, social entrepreneurship, educational technology, skills and gaps assessments in educational institutions, civic engagement, and development of organizational and technological solutions. CARDET team have successfully participated in more than 150 projects in more than 45 countries, several of which were supported by the European Commission, the United Nations Development Program, Microsoft, The Commonwealth of Learning, international agencies and governments.
CARDET is one of the premier social justice oriented organizations in Cyprus with extensive experience developing and implementing programs focusing on migrants and integration. We are the founders of the Mediterranean Migration Network, which is funded by EU Solidarity funds, with more than 150 organizations as members from EU and the world. CARDET is also the Cyprus Focal Point of the European Website on Integration and the Cyprus partner for Migrant Integration Policy Index Project (MIPEX). Moreover CARDET completed more than 12 projects on issues related to migration and integration, under the Solidarity Funds and the Lifelong Learning Programs. 

DANTE - ADULT EDUCATION INSTITUTION DANTE

The Adult Education Institution Dante deals with performing foreign language learning programs. The Institution started working in 1991 as the company and in 2009 it changed its internal structure by becoming a public institution which implements verified foreign language learning programs approved by the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports. A total of 26 years of continuous work made the school recognizable and acknowledged not just in the city of Rijeka, but also in the wider local and regional community. At the moment we are teaching 4 languages in the Institution: English, German, Italian and Croatian for foreigners, and there are about 300 adult attendees. A section of our learners also encounter cultural differences. Some of them are foreigners residing in Croatia and learning Croatian while undergoing the process of linguistic adaptation. We also have 2 groups of migrants learning Croatian as the homeland language with 20 participants per group. We also have considerable experience with seniors learning foreign languages.

The Institution currently employs 12 employees, some of whom are on full-time basis and some on part-time basis. Our team members have extensive experience in managing and organising numerous internal as well as international professional trainings, conducting workshops for educators, organising international educational conferences, conducting regional teachers’ committees, and workshops for pedagogy and foreign language students.

We have extensive experience in LLP programmes (and the Grundtvig sub programme) as well as in Erasmus+ KA1 and KA2 projects, with more than 40 contracts signed with AMPEU, 4 Grundtvig education partnerships and over 250 mobilities realised for the purposes of education, professional training and cooperation with other European institutions. Also, our Institution has been the host for five Grundtvig assistants. The Institution was also the organizer of professional training "Learning and Teaching: Interaction Through Senses" which was published in the Grundtvig training database. In 2011, the Institution received the award by AMPEU and the European Commission for raising the level of competence of learning foreign languages. Today we have 9 active projects in Erasmus+ programmes, two in KA1 and seven in KA2 (for one, we are general project coordinator).

It is important to note that for two years in a row, we have been organising international conferences that are partially financed from the CEI (Central European Initiative) action plan. The main conference topics are connection between adult education and the labour market and also professional ID of educators in adult education. In 2016 we also became an ordinary member of the European Association for the Education of Adults (EAEA).

FIP - Future In Perspective

Future In Perspective (FIP) is a private limited company working in the field of vocational training, adult education, business development, e-learning, digital media and social inclusion. The company focuses its work in 6 main areas:

1. Conducting research and analysis in the fields of education and training, social inclusion, business development and support, and rural development with a special focus on participatory action research;
2. Developing innovative continuous professional development training resources for front-line youth workers, VET professionals and adult and community education providers in a wide range of formal and informal settings;
3. Developing bespoke training for marginalised groups to support their integration into society and economy;
4. Designing and implementing evaluation frameworks and conducting quality assurance audits and assessments;
5. Multi-media design and training, the development of media rich learning tools, resources and environments, and audio-visual production;
6. Developing overarching branding concepts and promotional campaigns for the community and voluntary sector and education providers to attract reluctant learners to lifelong learning;

The company works with a wide variety of different target groups including early school-leavers, unemployed young people, members of the growing migrant communities, rural SMEs and micro-enterprises and with organisations addressing the needs of those for whom traditional education and second chance education has failed. FIP places a particular emphasis on developing self-directed learning pathways to encourage the educational development of “Free Agent Learners”. FIP harnesses the latest technologies in its service offering affording target group members the opportunity to develop their key competences in accessible blended learning environments.

FIP are experts in the design and development of mini-learning-format resources supporting just-in-time learning for business owners in the modern economy where skill needs change so fast.

Speha Fresia acts since 1983 in the fields of lifelong learning, labour active policies, local sustainable development and social research. It has been committed in European projects since ‘96, exploiting European cooperation as “Research & Development” to improve the quality of local provision.

Sud Concept is consultancy specialized in the field of local development and social innovation. Thanks to its 4 departments (Studies, Consulting and Support; Training; Animation for Territorial Development; EU funded projects and international cooperation), Sud Concept supports territories throughout their path to smart growth, being a reference point in France and in its less developed regions like Corsica and DOM.
Within the project ENGAGE, Sud Concept will act as lead partner.