3rd my-VITA award for innovative practice and initiatives on validating competences in informal and non-formal learning in Europe

We are a group of partners working together in EU projects dealing with competence oriented learning and validation. We have collaborated for more than 10 years and developed the LEVEL5 system for the validation of competences acquired outside or parallel to formal education under specific consideration of social, personal and organisational competences.

We are happy to announce our third European award "La VITA è bella!".
We are looking for projects and activities in all educational fields (from school to higher education, vocational training, adult learning, youth, volunteering and mobility projects etc.) that promote the development of competences in a holistic way and include practical cases on how learning outcomes and competence developments within this specific competence area can be assessed and evidenced also beyond the walls of formal education.

Hence the VITA-prize is an award given to the most innovative and promising European initiatives and projects that

  • work in an innovative and novel fashion;
  • focus on integrating competence oriented learning in their learning contexts;
  • target also social, personal and organisational competences;
  • reflect on/consider ways of measuring and documenting learner’s development in relation to these competences;
  • promote understanding and awareness for the evaluation / validation of informal and non-formal learning and highlight its value either for the individual (whose competences were validated) or for the organisation (who validates competences)

For our 3rd edition of the award we would be specifically keen on practice projects that (either/or)

  • work at the interface of academic and business (the PROMOTE focus)
  • integrate innovative learning technologies in both validation and learning processes (the IMPACT focus);
  • relate to the continuing professional development of  Adult Educators (the OWL focus).

Who can participate?

The competition is targeted towards individuals, companies, training funds, professional groups, NGOs, VET schools, schools, universities, youth organisations, public authorities, institutions of LLL, civic society organisations, social partners, professionals and researchers.

Participants must live in one of the following countries:
28 Member States of the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey.

How to participate?

Ongoing or completed, existing or planned case studies, initatives or projects can enter the competition.
For this purpose, proceed as follows:

The six steps to Thessaloniki:

  1. read the info on this page
  2. click on submit to land on the submission page
  3. fill in sheet
  4. if applicable, upload file
  5. submit
  6. maybe win?

Please read carefully our FAQ section

When is the closing date?

The competition entries are to be presented by August 15th, 2016.

And the award goes to…

The contributions will be evaluated by an independent jury according to the following criteria:

  • Innovation: Original solutions to non-formal and informal learning problems and needs
  • Validation: The way learning outcomes are assessed and evidenced
  • Impact: Potential and actual effect on participants, learning context and the society in general
  • Sustainability: Continuation of this innovation
  • Transferability: Potential use of the innovation in other contexts
  • Sub-project criteria as mentioned above

The jury will select two projects per category: adult education, schools, VET, higher education, Youth in Action.

Award ceremony in Thessaloniki, Greece

The winners will be invited to present their project at the conference which will be held on September 22nd and 23rd with an international audience.

The prize includes travel, accommodation and subsistence for a 2-day trip to Thessaloniki. All winners will get the opportunity to present their cases during the final conference and will benefit from a European wide dissemination in a specific newsletter and on our PROMOTE / IMPACT website.

We are looking forward to your contributions and wish you the best of luck!

Your Award team

Who are the organisers?

Our 9th European conference will be organised by the ERASMUS+ projects

  • PROMOTE (Knowledge Alliance)
  • IMPACT (KA2)
  • and the recently started project EULE (OWL), funded by the German Ministry of Research and Education

in Thessaloniki, home of the Aristotele University and the CEDEFOP.

PROMOTE stands for PROmoting and validating key competences in MObility and Traineeships in Europe.  The project aims at promoting and validating social, personal and organisational key competences such as entrepreneurship, civic competences and learning to learn with the help of an innovative, self-directed learning approach at the interface of higher education and business.

IMPACT stands for T based Methodology for Promoting, Assessing and validating Competence oriented learning and Training. The project puts a strong focus on IT development and integration since it will develop specifications for open source virtual learning environments (Moodle LMS and Mahara e-portfolio) for interfaces of validation systems for learning outcomes in formal and not formal learning.