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Training at the epicentre of sustainable business
Professor Iscte Business School
Researcher Dinâmia'CET-Iscte
The CATALYST project wants to create a Centre of Professional Excellence shared by five countries, with an educational offer of 70 online courses, to support European micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises. The project addresses organisational, social, and economic sustainability, connecting universities and companies
What is the aim of this project, which focuses on education and vocational training?
CATALYST aims to qualify entities in the business system, particularly SMEs, which are the most underqualified for a green and digital economy, and to contribute to improving public policies linked to the green transition. It is intended to link the traditional qualification system, the education system and public policies because this link is often non-existent. Vocational Education and Training (VET) is key to a systemic and long-term change in European economies towards greater sustainability and resilience. New skills are also needed to seize the opportunities arising from the sustainable digital transition. Therefore, we focus on preparing SMEs and their human capital for the challenges and changes in business models linked to sustainability. SMEs account for more than 60% of European employment, and most innovation comes from them, contrary to popular belief. In Portugal and other countries, they constitute approximately 98% of companies. However, SMEs are the most vulnerable companies because they need more financial resources, management capacity, and human capital qualifications.
Many partners are involved in CATALYST. How is it coming to fruition in Portugal?
The project in Portugal involves three partners: Iscte, the national coordinator; ICAA-Association for the Management of Intellectual Capital; and CENTIMFE-Centre for the Technological Industry of Molds and Plastics. The project is highly leveraged in knowledge and intellectual capital management.
The entire application was based on the idea that organisations that better manage their intangible resources will be better prepared to achieve the challenges of sustainability and digital transition.
CENTIMFE, on the other hand, works in a very strategic cluster of our economy, where most of the production is for export. It requires state-of-the-art technology that complies with many sustainability standards. The companies supported by CENTIMFE produce for the automotive sector, which is highly demanding in terms of sustainability, not only in environmental terms but also in social terms. They are very competitive companies.
In summary, three entities work together towards a common goal in an excellent partnership.
How far do these three partner entities intend to go?
CATALYST is a starting point, but the endpoint will create a structure: the CoVE-Centre of Vocational Excellence.
In Portugal, the three partners have already launched this structure, called the Future Skills Factory. After the project ends, the goal is to bring in other partners who can help us identify what skills companies will need in the future. We want to leave something that can act as an 'observatory', which will identify what is needed for vocational training to have real effects. We have gone through several Community Frameworks, and although much money is invested, there are often no results.
We want to improve this by anticipating what companies should do, how they should do it, what the best practices are, and influencing public policies to leverage this process. The Skills Factory of the Future uses the CATALYST project to take the first steps but aims to continue autonomously after the project.
Vocational education and training are key to a systemic and long-term change in European economies to be more sustainable and resilient
A trans-educational project
5+1
countries
16
partners
The partners involved in the CATALYST project are three entities from each of the following countries: North Macedonia, Germany, Austria, Portugal, Greece, and the French SDSN. The project may also accept new partners who will take advantage of these courses and with whom there may later be joint projects. It is challenging to work with all these partners to qualify Europe's companies. But the biggest challenge will be to build a Skills Factory of the Future, capable of responding to the challenges that the future poses to us.
Florinda Matos
In addition to entities linked to Iscte, is there also interest on the part of public entities?
We have entities from Iscte -- the subsidiaries IPPS and Audax and the School of Applied Technologies -- Iscte-Sintra -- and, in February, we also managed to bring together other partners, such as IAPMEI.
Although the project focuses on sustainability, this cannot be talked about without digital transformation. We would like to involve other entities in the project, such as the IEFP (Institute of Employment and Vocational Training), not least because many of the courses offered by vocational training centres do not respond to the needs identified by the business world.
What other outputs are expected in the project?
CATALYST will produce 70 vocational training courses in skills related to sustainability, digital transformation and intellectual capital. If we balance these three elements in companies, they will be more productive, competitive and sustainable. In the case of Iscte, we are preparing eight courses, with subjects such as Knowledge Management and Innovation, Digital Transformation and Sustainability, etc. CENTIMFE will have classes in circular economy and intellectual capital, as in the case of ICAA. The other countries involved -- Germany, Austria, Greece, North Macedonia, and a European sustainability network based in France, the SDSN (Sustainable Development Solutions Network) -- are also preparing for these courses. We have 16 partners from five countries and 40 associated partners from six other European countries.
The training will be free online courses in initial, intermediate, and advanced classes. We are in a very active phase of the project, as the courses must be presented to companies by the end of 2024. We are working on them on the Moodle platform that will be connected to the project's website.
The courses will all be in English. Consideration is also given to the possibility of each country being able to provide classes in its language to meet the needs of businesses, especially SMEs.
We already know that CENTIMFE companies will be the first to be invited to use this training offer in the evaluation phase so that the necessary adjustments can be made. When the project ends, we will have synchronous or asynchronous courses tailored to the recommendations we can make in the future. Another objective of the project is to influence the adequacy of our curricula so that students when they leave university, have the skills the market seeks.
Was it necessary to make a prior selection of the topics on which the courses would focus?
Yes, that's already done. The project started with each country surveying its needs. We have allocated the preparation of the courses according to each country's very different needs. Even the regulations that each course obeys differ between countries. For example, North Macedonia, which is not a member of the EU, is not obliged to comply with some European directives on vocational training. On the other hand, Germans are much more focused and developed on circular economy aspects, which concern their industry.
At the end of this Community Framework, each country is to have a Centre of Vocational Excellence that will be part of a European network, which can be replicated in Europe from these CATALYSTs---Centre for Sustainable Transformation.
We, in Portugal, are thinking about this from a perspective of the future beyond the end of the project.
What are the specificities of this training that is being built?
Courses up to 10 hours are basic, completely asynchronous, and have videos and texts. The intermediate classes are more developed but are asynchronous; they are planned for up to 20 hours. Advanced courses can go up to 30 hours and are mixed (have asynchronous and synchronous components). Some courses have associated resources and services such as mentoring or consulting. One of the courses we have is Intellectual Capital and Change Management for Digital Transformation and Sustainability. There will be days scheduled for the trainer to be online synchronously, giving feedback to the trainees. These blended courses are more complex, so they are also a minority in the project. We have topics in Sustainable Development, Resilient Transition, Sustainable Business Management, Intellectual Capital Management, Circular Economy, Business Transformation, etc.
This is a five-country partnership project (plus one French partner) led by North Macedonia. How did Iscte's involvement come about?
North Macedonian partners, IECE -- Institute for Research in Environment, Civil Engineering and Energy, wanted to integrate intellectual capital management into the project; this being my area of expertise, they contacted me and promoted the involvement of the ICAA. I have noticed that countries outside the European Union actively bid for European projects.
The project ends in May 2026. What is planned in terms of the project's dissemination initiatives?
We have a lot of online meetings, workshops, team meetings, and dissemination and communication meetings. We often create dissemination events where we involve other stakeholders. In the structuring phase of the courses, Iscte is leading all the training on how to structure an asynchronous or mixed course in Moodle, including what modules it should have, how to make an interactive course, etc. We do this monitoring and check if they comply with the defined standards. The initial testing phase runs until September. It's been hard work and very challenging. Every year, we have at least one big face-to-face meeting with all our partners. The project started in North Macedonia in 2022. In June 2023, we marked one year of the project at Iscte. All the partners came to this workshop, which was very important. Later that year, there were two more workshops in Austria: Vienna and Graz. In April 2024, the workshop was in Greece, and in November this year, it will be in Germany. The year 2025 will be on the ground, applying and testing the courses in companies. In 2026, the project's closing meeting will occur in North Macedonia.