The ESSENCE project is coming to an end, yet this is really the starting point for its future success as we have reached this stage with the full release of all the deliverables prepared:

a) One multilanguage OER platform, fully open with no login required to train students and trainers on the most needed soft skills on the labour market. The platform and its contents are available in 7 languages, with the possibility of using training material both online and offline. Moreover, training can be listened to in audio format to boost accessibility to people with a visual impairment. At the end of each training module, the user has the opportunity to test their knowledge and a customizable certificate is released if the skill acquisition has been ratified.

b) One comprehensive research report identifying soft skills linked to employability, highlighting those that are most desirable among employers.

c) A toolkit  with 7 training modules, each providing access to an introductory video, a theoretical overview, slides in pptx, a test with 10 questions, 3 best practices, 3 case studies and an interactive decision game, all available in 7  languages

d) Detailed guidelines for future usage and sustainability of project results.

All these materials have been developed and peer-reviewed by experts in the academia and business and will be available to the public for at least 3 years after the end of the project.

To recap, Essence project results are:


Free OER platform, available online in 7 languages
Open 24/7
Tailor made
Free: all courses are free
Open and respecting users’ privacy: registration is not required
Anonymous use: statistics are based on sessions linked to unique codes related to the contents viewed.
Fast: short videos along with training modules and tools quick to read
Easy: training modules are organized by concepts to facilitate users’ understanding and better knowledge acquisition. 
Complete availability: available online 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, and offline in PDF in 7 languages:
Accessible: training contents have audio format in every language
Diverse: it offers different multimedia solutions: training courses, video tutorials, summaries, most important key facts for each course, student guidelines.
Professional: contents have been developed by experts in each training area.


For further information on ESSENCE:
Website: http://projectessence.eu/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/projectessence.eu/ 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBkiHG_WcmI0x7lBCknLwPA

In October 2022, the ESSENCE partners met in Rzeszow, Poland, for their 4th transnational project meeting (TPM), organized and hosted by the ESSENCE Project Coordinator, the University of Information Technology and Management (UITM) in Rzeszow.

All partners contributed to the event by sharing their lessons learnt in building the ESSENCE e-learning platform. Partners discussed the challenges they had faced and the positive outcomes they had managed to achieve. Each partner delivered a presentation on their content development method.  

The meeting further focused on the latest changes in the ESSENCE e-learning platform functionality. There was an exchange of ideas on providing further training opportunities so that all partners may best use the platform functionality, especially its ‘back office’. There was a discussion on new ways of developing student-driven methodology to provide trainees with the best learning experience. More ideas were shared on how to secure the project’s sustainability. 

The project’s latest phase involves further dissemination of the project deliverables, including the organization of the multiplier events (MPEs), which each partner hosts to reach out to stakeholders and target groups. 

The Department of Entrepreneurship at UITM together with the Department of Economics and Business Economics, University of Dubrovnik, Croatia, also organized the International Science Seminar on Entrepreneurship and Public Policy, with all partners taking part, sharing their research on good practices of entrepreneurship initiatives for promoting innovation. For example, the ESSENCE team at UITM in Rzeszow delivered a presentation on The Phenomenon of Student Employability and the Spanish Internet Web team discussed Public and Private Policies in Employability: Trends and Dynamics. The Spanish Case. IDP European Consultants, Italy, shared their ideas on a non-conventional approach to employability and graduate entrepreneurship support in Italy, while the team from IHF Institut de Haute Formation aux Politiques Communautaires, Belgium, discussed new paths for young people’s professional development and entrepreneurship. The team from University of Dubrovnik, Croatia, shared their research on innovation failure and investment in training in emerging innovation systems. The team from the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, Latvia, talked about their hands-on approach to soft skills development for future entrepreneurs and practitioners and the University of Economics – Varna team gave a talk on Bulgaria’s Higher Education: Soft Skills Development, Graduate Employability, Student Entrepreneurship, and Collaboration with the Corporate and Public Sectors. Further discussion ensued as each presentation gave rise to even more questions.

As the project is drawing to an end, all partners expressed their satisfaction with the project deliverables and their collaboration, emphasizing their commitment to pursue more joint research and project opportunities.
 

ESSENCE project from the very beginning has been a unique attempt to develop a tailored platform and toolkit for development of the soft skills to boost the employability. Now the project is entering the finish sprint when all the activities have to finalized to ensure the expected impact from the project. All the material that was planned is developed and publicly available in all 7 project languages. In addition to the availability the project team made an effort to make the teaching material attractive and user friendly. The course material and tools have been complemented with appealing animations that are now placed on the project webpage as well as available on Youtube. 

In addition to the attractive and appealing components of the project also serious content has been developed. This includes the validation report (guidelines for uptake and implementation) as well as soft skills development manifesto. Both documents are developed to represent lessons learned in terms of content as well as experiences during the development of the different components of the project. Work on this material has been conducted on a cross country level thus maximizing the appropriateness for each and every country participating in the project. Explicit and implicit learning lessons from the project team has been taken into account to provide maximized feasibility for various contexts that can be present in EU member countries. 

Considering the importance and actuality of the project it is crucial to ensure both short term and log term impact. The short-term impact to large extent is already operational through the toolkit and other material. In order to ensure a broader spread of the achieved results all partners are preparing special multiplier events to take place during the October 2022. Those events are aimed to promote the outcomes from the project to various groups of stakeholders: companies, educational institutions, students and other target groups etc. In addition, it will be important to collect the feedback about different components of the project. The feedback part can be considered as an important precondition for ensuring the long-term impact. It is expected that ESSENCE project will have a number of spinoffs that will take soft skills development to the new levels. The collected feedback will be used to further tailor the various tools increase their usability and increase the efficiency of learning. Even if any type of spin-off is welcome and beneficial the leading role here should be taken by the existing partnership for ESSENCE project.  The good news here is that there are already some ideas and plans how the idea can be developed. So stay tuned and connected with ESSENCE for follow up.