“PLANET4” is a project financed in the framework of ERASMUS+ which is the European Union’s programme to support education, training, youth and sport in Europe. Its budget of €14.774 billion (for the period 2014-2020) provided opportunities for over 4 million Europeans to study, train, gain experience and volunteer abroad. “Erasmus+” does not just present opportunities for students. Merging seven prior programmes it has opportunities for a wide variety of individuals and organizations.
In the rich menu of the opportunities offered by Erasmus+ there are also the so-called “Knowledge Alliances” initiatives (in the new call they have been renamed “Alliances for Innovation”). And this is the scheme that allowed us to have the project “Planet 4” financed! This sub-programme aims at strengthening Europe’s innovation capacity and at fostering innovation in higher education, business and the broader socio-economic environment and in particular:
- developing new, innovative and multidisciplinary approaches to teaching and learning
- stimulating entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial skills of higher education teaching staff and company staff
- facilitating the exchange, flow and co-creation of knowledge.
In the call 2020, the 7th for this program, among the more than 100 project proposals presented, just 32 were financed. Among them, clearly, our project.
On 26th March 2021, the European Commission has adopted the first Erasmus + 2021-2027 annual work program with a budget of 26.2 billion euros. Among the salient aspects of the Program are inclusion, support for environmental policies and the promotion of digital skills.
“PLANET4” is giving its contribution to reaching all the three main objectives of the program. It is also encompassing the main features of a Knowledge Alliance, as it is trying to:
- foster innovation in higher education and innovation through higher education in enterprises and their socio-economic environment;
- provide sustainability of university-business cooperation, thanks to a strong and committed partnership with balanced participation from enterprises and higher education institutions
- create results that can have an impact going beyond the project’s lifetime and beyond the organisations involved in the Alliance. In our case, the main result to exploit is the e-learning course.
The pandemic highlighted the need to accelerate the digital transition of education and training systems and therefore Erasmus + will support the development of digital competences.
“PLANET4” consortium is aware of the great importance of digital skills since its main objective is, indeed, to bridge the gap between scientific research on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) and its industrial application as an enabling technology for paradigm of Industry 4.0.