ESSENCE- Enhance Soft Skills to Nurture Competitiveness and Employability.
University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszow joined the second Project Meeting of ESSENCE.
On June 24, 2021, UITM joined the second transnational meeting of ESSENCE, a Project co-funded by the Erasmus Plus Programme of the European Commission, which brings together seven Partners from seven different countries (Bulgaria, Belgium, Croatia, Italy, Latvia, Poland, and Spain). The meeting was held in online mode due to COVID-19 restrictions.
The main aim of the meeting was the presentation of the literature review, country reports, tools and good practices, and surveys, including a detailed analysis from each Partner. Indeed, during the first phase of ESSENCE implementation, Partners were focused on the review of policy papers, studies, research, articles and other relevant sources and resources. The main objective of the research phase was to understand and analyse soft skills and their connection with employability roles, definitions, regulatory frameworks, quantitative and qualitative indicators and all the relevant trends useful to describe this phenomenon.
The project management and methodology involve the development of personalized project management, quality assurance and dissemination plans, monitoring/evaluation tools. Thanks to the presence of Partners with a high level of experience and multiplication potential, the project will benefit from increased visibility and impact at national and European level.
ESSENCE’s objective is to improve employability opportunities for HE students leveraging on soft skills development. The objective is to maximize their engagement in the labour market offering professional development paths through training and education on soft and “intangible” skills. ESSENCE develops and deploys a flexible and permeable learning pathway: users can access and exploit the training “on-demand” and “on a need basis” to enhance their soft skills literacy and professional self-empowerment.
The ESSENCE Website is now online at http://projectessence.eu/, providing specific info on project aims, activities and results.
UITM is the project coordinator and leader of the intellectual effects of IO2 (Mapping the most desirable soft skills) and I03 (Development of the ESSENCE toolkit). The role of UITM is to strengthen the teaching potential and educational opportunities thanks to an additional layer of training materials adapted to the current needs of the national and EU labor market, and at the same time different in form and structure than the teaching materials traditionally offered in the education process.
For further information on ESSENCE and other UITM initiatives:Website ,Facebook, YouTube.
Read also about first meeting of ESSENCE team HERE.
