The 2nd partner’s meeting took place in Portugal, on July 5th-6th 2023. It was hosted by Instituto Politecnico do Porto at the premises of the Engineering School of the University, located in Porto.

The meeting had a two-day duration and was attended by representatives of all partner organisations.

Following the 1st project meeting in November 2022, partners focused their discussions on pending project activities, mainly the plan for designing and developing the SECOVE web Portal and SECOVE Platform, as well as the establishment of the SECOVE Observatory for the inclusiveness of VET practices.

The Agenda followed for the most part the appropriate structure, giving the opportunity to all Work Package leaders to give an overview of the ongoing status and present their vision for future tasks, leaving room for fruitful discussions.

On the 1st day of the meeting gave emphasis to:

WP2: Set up, Governance and Funding of SECOVE Platform
– Defined the priorities of the SECOVE Platform and Set up a realistic timeline for implementation.

WP3: Making VET Relevant and Addressing Sustainable Development
– Analyzed the research made for trends on technological changes and their impact on qualifications and VET

WP4: Promoting Synergies between VET, labour market and regional needs
– Presentation of the main tasks and initial steps taken for promoting and creating synergies.

WP5: Making SECOVE Inclusive and Encouraging Women in Technical Professions
– Presented the desk research on the inclusivity and attractiveness of VET for women in partner countries.

Before the meeting officially started, the Project Coordinator and WP1 Leader – University of West Attica welcomed all project partners and briefly outlined the agenda.

During the 2nd day, the following WPs were presented:

WP6: Promoting and sustaining quality and innovation in VET
Presented the progress made on the creation and establishment of the innovation hubs

WP7: Quality Assurance and Evaluation
– Presentation about the progress made on the annual external quality report

WP8: Dissemination and Exploitation of Results
– The dissemination Leader presented the status of the dissemination process, involving all main ongoing and future tasks, as well as the optimization of the project website.

WP1: Project Management
– The project coordinator gave an overview of the accomplishments and set new deadlines for project tasks regarding each work package.

FOLLOWING STEPS

SECOVE platform:
– Finalization of the SECOVE Roadmaps
– Discussions about any legal information regarding the establishment of COVEs.

Relevance in VET:
– Understanding the skills gap and analyzing the plan for the teacher’s capacity building.

Inclusion in VET:
– Presentation of the task regarding the awareness campaigns about gender equality and inclusion policies on EU level.

Quality and Innovation:
– Presentation of a plan that strongly encourages the engagement of SMEs in applied research.

At the end of the meeting, the partnership talked about the next Project Meeting in Bilbao, Spain, as well as the date and other plans regarding the next Virtual Meeting.