ExpectedOutcome:
The European Commission is placing skills at the heart of the policy agenda, steering investment in people and education and training for a sustainable recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. The European Skills Agenda for sustainable competitiveness, social fairness, and resilience[1] was presented on 1st July 2020, acknowledging education and training as essential elements in the development of the European clean energy transition towards the objectives of the Green Deal.
Hydrogen and fuel cell technologies are expected to play an essential role in the future global energy system. The SET-Plan Education[2] estimated that the increasing activity of the European FCH industry will require a work force of 180,000 trained workers, technicians and engineers by the year 2030. Vocational, college and university educational institutions working separately with no coordination will not be capable of shaping this body of expertise in the time remaining.
A number of EU projects have already developed material, processes and concepts for formal education in schools and universities, also covering some areas of professional development, in the shape of an FCH MSc programme (TeacHy[3]), level 6 technician training (KnowHy[4]), the JESS summer school (TrainHy[5]), first responder training (HyResponse[6]/HyResponder[7]), short courses (HyProfessionals[8]), information for stakeholders (HyFacts[9]), e-learning tools (NET-Tools[10]), and school level teaching material (FCHGo[11]).
However, these activities have remained largely fragmented and often were not continued beyond the end of the project, nor has the developed material been widely publicly available. The COVID-19 period has shown the importance of online teaching and learning and the value that blended learning can bring to educational training. Currently, the ERASMUS+ GreenSkills4H2 project[12] is developing publicly accessible vocational educational training (VET) materials and train-the-trainers material.
Project results are expected to contribute to all the following expected outcomes:
- Providing continued (digital) access to high-quality educational material, educational and training programmes, and high-level skills forming in the area of FCH technologies;
- Supporting the build of an adequate and capable highly skilled workforce as a key element of a competitive clean hydrogen value chain and scaling up the emerging European FCH industry;
- Creating more and better jobs, strengthening the FCH industry, research and innovation across all fields of FCH technologies, different energy carriers, and whole system integration;
- Increasing general acceptance of hydrogen technologies as this comes together with the diffusion of general knowledge and with the extensive qualification of hydrogen experts.
Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following objectives and targets of the Clean Hydrogen JU SRIA:
- Development of educational and training material and build training programmes for professionals and students on hydrogen and fuel cells;
- Raise public awareness and trust towards hydrogen technologies and their system benefits;
- Contribute to the SRIA target by training pupils in primary and secondary education. Project results are expected to contribute with up to 5.000 pupils from primary and secondary education at mid-term;
- Contribute to the SRIA target by training professionals. Project results are expected to contribute with up to 5000 qualified engineers at mid-term;
- Contribute to the SRIA target, universities/ educative centres offering courses on hydrogen. Project results are expected to contribute with up to 105 universities and/or educative centres at mid-term.
In addition to the targets above, in order to meaningfully contribute to the above SRIA targets, the project should fulfil the following targets by mid-term:
- A network of a minimum of 500 schools regularly offering hydrogen-related education;
- Minimum of 5000 engineers, scientists, teachers and academic staff registered as users of the project website (to be measured as ‘experts with the corresponding qualification’;
- A network of a minimum of 100 universities and educational institutions offering hydrogen-related courses (university alliance on hydrogen education);
- A minimum of 100.000 accesses to documents in a multi-lingual library with reference educational material and textbooks specialised in hydrogen topics;
- A network of a minimum of 5 jointly used training laboratories to be accessed by teachers, pupils, academic staff, and students for educational purposes.
Scope:
The content of material produced by past projects requires major updates to fulfil today’s expectations to teaching and learning (e.g., digital access, advanced e-learning formats) as well as translation into different languages to reach a wider audience and form the necessary technical vocabulary. To improve this situation, the education focus needs to shift to establishing a large alliance of universities and institutions that can provide certified educational training and continuously update the teaching materials, thus reflecting the rapidly developing area of FCH technologies and actively supplying the education and training necessary. Hydrogen education at schools should be targeted in order to provide FCH technology basics and foster societal awareness and acceptance.
Future work should then concentrate on further developing, translating, and organising the supply and (digital) access to content and training activities at universities, educational institutions and schools and addressing the issue of a joint qualification framework across the EU university ecosystem. For this purpose, solving the issue of portability of e-learning content and its copyright and supporting ease of implementation on any institutional learning management systems is essential. Proposals should show concrete contributions to the Digital Education Action Plan[13], specially to “Priority 1: Making better use of digital technology for teaching and learning” with the aim of greater cooperation at the EU level on digital education and to address the challenges and opportunities of the COVID-19 pandemic.
To this end, proposals should specifically develop at least the following elements:
- Monitoring, analysis, and adaptation to future expert profile requirements in the qualification of engineers and scientists;
- Monitoring and giving access through an online portal to educational material (school and university level) that was already developed with EU public funding support;
- Gathering and revising training materials provided by closed or ongoing EU-supported projects (see above) and understanding, in liaison with industry, the education and training needs of the teachers, students, and pupil audience;
- Establishment of a network of universities and training institutions across the EU that will share into offering FCH technology education and training;
- Establishment of a network of schools across EU that will share the offers of FCH technology education at all teaching levels;
- Coordination (including at MS level) of quality assurance across FCH education and training offerings including assessment of the coverage in hydrogen education/ training in the EU and MS, the building bricks of education/training which are missing, coordination of contents development, development of standards, peer review of teaching materials, delivery formats, etc. Applicants are encouraged to identify the obstacles or barriers at the EU level and those which might need cooperation or actions at national level for a wider adoption/ endorsement of FCH education and training at the EU and the MS level;
- Creation of a minimum of ten free access high-quality textbooks (150 to 250 pages each) for supplying fundamental knowledge and industry-relevant practical skills in FCH technologies for use by teachers and lecturers in preparing classes, and by students, in a variety of EU languages; this will serve as an extensive reference library, but mainly support educators and trainers in developing their teaching;
- Establishment of a freely accessible online reference library of open-access documents useful for teaching and learning both at universities and schools;
- Provision of a set of free access school-level workbooks in a variety of EU languages, considering different educational levels and school systems, as a reference library for teachers across the EU;
- Development of novel approaches to creating learning materials and online activities based on innovative learning strategies, e.g., from storytelling formats to detailed tutorials on real cases involving industrial contributors, and including new formats such as interviews, collaborative learning activities stimulating student creativity, serious games, contests, etc. depending on the respective level of qualification, and supplying this knowledge in train-the-trainer courses for educators;
- Creation of a network of training laboratories (online and physical) to turn gained knowledge into practical experience; this will serve as a joint resource of teaching labs for the project network of institutions; this activity should also include the development of online digital tools for preparing for practical training sessions, such as serious games and simulations;
- Supply of a range of business, managerial and soft skills development materials with a focus on FCH technologies to nurture the creation of the future leadership for the hydrogen transition, supporting the creation of start-ups and spin outs;
- Creation of a business model and organisational structure that ensures the network and its tools, collected and developed content remain in operation and continue to grow after the project terminates;
- Demonstrate synergies with the ongoing ERASMUS+ project GreenSkills4H2- particularly in the context of the future European Hydrogen Skills Alliance. Synergies are envisioned on key deliverables (H2 skills needs and training mapping, H2 skills strategy), governance, dissemination, and communications.
Proposals may also include the following:
- ‘Learning through action’ models of training to prepare and test participants of courses in real-life challenges within the industrial sectors, with industrial partners to the platform offering placements within their company on specific projects;
- Engage with teachers and lecturers to provide support in developing their FCH teaching skills and methodologies, e.g., through online webinars and tutorials;
- Synergies with other existing platforms and/or projects on education and training on hydrogen and hydrogen-related technologies as well as means of collaboration with similar activities ongoing internationally.
Proposals should show links to and synergies with existing platforms and/or projects on education and training on hydrogen and hydrogen-related technologies as well as means of collaboration with similar activities ongoing internationally.
Proposals should show that the consortium is able to interact both with the network of educational and training institutions across all relevant levels of qualification, and on the other hand with national and EU educational institutions and stakeholders, with the goal of establishing the above programme as a sustainable, long-term activity.
A go/no go milestone should be implemented at the mid-term of project operation to allow a review of achievements and a termination of further investments if the goals are not sufficiently met.
The JU estimates that an EU contribution of maximum EUR 3.00 million would allow these outcomes to be addressed appropriately.
The conditions related to this topic are provided in the chapter 2.2.3.2 of the Clean Hydrogen JU 2023 Annual Work Plan and in the General Annexes to the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2023–2024 which apply mutatis mutandis.
[1]https://ec.europa.eu/migrant-integration/library-document/european-skills-agenda-sustainable-competitiveness-social-fairness-and-resilience_en
[2]Assessment Report SET-Plan on Education and Training - Working Group: Fuel Cells and Hydrogen. Brussels, 14. Nov. 2012.
[3]https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/779730
[4]https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/621222
[5]https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/256703
[6]https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/325348
[7]https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/875089
[8]https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/256758
[9]https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/256823
[10]https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/736648
[11]https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/826246
[12]https://hydrogeneuroperesearch.eu/greenskills4h2-kick-off-meeting-6-7-july/
[13]https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52018DC0022&from=EN
