Increasing the attractiveness, quality and equivalence of vocational education and training and initiating new cooperation between learning centres: These are the goals of the innovation competition "Shaping the future - innovations for excellent vocational education and training (InnoVET)". 17 funded projects have been selected and are trialling attractive and high-quality qualification programmes for vocational education and training. InnoVET is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) with 74 million euros.
In order to strengthen communication between science and project practice, researchers from Paderborn University, the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) and the University of Magdeburg launched the online dialogue forum "BGF³ - Begleitforschung im Dialog". In May and June, four key topics were discussed with up to 30 interested parties from the InnoVET projects.
The focus was on new training programmes to promote the equivalence and permeability of academic and vocational education and training, such as the newly developed training programme "Certified Vocational Specialist". The exchange of experiences centred on the marketing and transfer strategies and processes for these new programmes. Another field was dedicated to the challenge of organising understanding and communication processes within the innovation projects. In addition, the "CommuniAction" communication tool designed by the Paderborn accompanying research team was presented and tested as an example. The participants were given insights into research findings on transfer understandings and strategies, which serve as a basis for the design of transfer and implementation processes. In the final block, the participants developed hashtags on the topic of "innovation programmes, projects and processes" in order to make important aspects of innovation visible. This resulted in the InnoVET hashtags: "#OvercomingBarriers", "#OpeningPerspectives", "#SpacesForInnovation" and "#CourageToNew".
The series of dialogues provided a platform for the exchange of practical experiences and research findings between representatives of the accompanying research and the InnoVET projects. "If you can talk about problems and positive things, it promotes innovation," says Prof Dr H.-Hugo Kremer, Professor of Business and Vocational Education at Paderborn University.
