National INVESTech Workshop

The INVESTechproject is entering its third year.

Pursuing its goal of creating a transnational platform (network) of five National Centres of Excellence in VET (Bulgaria, Greece, Slovakia, Cyprus, and Latvia), 18 organisations carried out significant research and preparatory work for the learning process in VET.

The models for the national centres have been developed, the framework and skeleton of the transnational platform have been created, and a large part of the methodological tools to be used in the upcoming training and certification activities of COVEs is ready. And most importantly, the methodological framework has been developed to build a broad network of organisations in Europe interested in this project.

On 26.02.2025, a workshop of the Bulgarian partners in the project - Cluster Sofia Knowledge City, Joint Innovation Centre of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and TUES at the Technical University of Sofia - was held at the Iliev Centre for Education and Culture in Sofia. The meeting was held according to the following program:

1. Brief overview of INVESTech results to date and the results of the participation of the three Bulgarian partners;
2. Consideration of the model for a national COVE, which was proposed in the Strategic Framework of the project. Discussion of a contract for the establishment of a National Consortium for CoVE (INVETech Bulgaria).
3. Review of the challenges in signing agreements with at least 20 organisations interested in participating in the INVESTech network.
4. Plan for attracting 20 organisations interested in participating in the NVESTech Bulgaria network and distribution of tasks among the partners.

The following decisions were taken:

• To validate the developed model agreement and distribute the activity for inclusion in the INVESTech network to at least twenty organisations representing business, science and education.
• To specify the final version of the National CoVE Consortium in terms of form, representation and commitments to be undertaken by each of the three participating organisations.
• To coordinate Bulgaria's participation in the VET Excellence Forum in Graz, Austria, from 7 to 10 September this year, where to organize its own workshop on an appropriate topic.