Held in Kolding (DK) between September 8th and 10th, this year’s Forum of Vocational Excellence had more than 350 participants coming from nearly 40 countries around the world – an amazing achievement!
Filled with activities aimed at fostering the exchange of practices and experiences among participants, acquired through Centres of Vocational Excellence (CoVEs) initiatives, and at providing opportunities for networking and cooperating, the Forum held the unofficial kick-off of the event with the Inter-CoVE Football Cup that celebrated the spirit of this event, held in parallel with a CoP CoVE meeting that gathered all CoVEs’ Coordinators so they could meet in person in an informal and relaxed setting.
A great way of starting the Forum, which culminated with a welcome reception in the beautiful Koldinghus Royal Castle.
Plenary session and panel discussions
The morning of the second day of the CoP CoVEs Forum was fully dedicated to discussing some of the most important issues connected to Excellence in VET and the connection between VET and EU competitiveness, a pressing issue considering the EU socio-economic challenges faced by Member States and the role of VET in addressing them.
To enrich the discussions held, representatives of DG EMPL, ETF, Cedefop and EVBB, and of VET Students’ Associations, Danish labour market and trade union, as well as the coordinators of some of the most groundbreaking CoVEs, joined by EfVET Executive Director, Paolo Nardi, provided their perspectives about the topics at hand, with contributions from the audience.
We look forward to the EU VET Strategy to be released in 2026. It will be focus on key areas such as addressing skills shortages, attracting young people to vocational technical and vocational careers, enhancing the quality and promoting micro-credentials.
Here are some of the most important conclusions to be drawn from these discussions:
- CoVEs are indeed crucial for VET ecosystems across the EU and beyond, contributing to the digital and green transitions and to the policies that foster VET excellence, from the grassroot level;
- Need for rebranding VET, highlighting its excellence through campaigns that express the pride of VET professionals and students, and reflect the results achieved in VET with its approach to teaching and learning (incl. mobility experiences) as an enabler of transitions and provider of inclusive lifelong learning opportunities;
- Innovation in VET requires that all key stakeholders gather to find groundbreaking approaches for dialogue, and the CoP CoVEs Forum definitely is an inspiration for the VET ecosystem approach to cooperation;
- VET boosts EU competitiveness by being a hub/catalyst for innovation, cooperating with R&D Centres and companies, while ensuring that young people and adults are aware of the opportunities that VET provide for developing the labour market’s required skills, under holistic, inclusive and lifelong learning approaches.
The EC will launch a VET barometer in the upcoming months, and Cedefop will soon launch a study on VET attractiveness. Stay tuned!
Workshop sessions: An opportunity to showcase what CoVEs do best, and what their future hold
In addition to the participation in the panel discussions, EfVET was also very active in this Forum, representing two successful CoVEs (MOSAIC (https://mosaiceuproject.eu/) and PoVE Water Scale Up (https://www.povewater.eu/ ) in their respective workshops and poster session, held in the afternoon of the Forum’s second day, showcasing to more than 100 people the most relevant outcomes of these initiatives and their benefits to end-users, fostering Vocational excellence in Arts and Crafts and in the Water sectors.
EfVET, EVTA and EVBB gathered to hold a special workshop dedicated to the future of CoVEs. Titled “CoVEs and CoVE Community – Horizon 2035: Shaping (our) future”, this session focused on the current needs, threats and challenges of CoVEs, 5 years into their implementation, and on finding potential solutions to those challenges, to be advocated by EfVET, EVTA and EVBB for the coming year (and for the MFF 2028-2035 discussions).
Thus, the 15 participants of this workshop were introduced to the CoVEs Framework, and to their relevance to the EU policy ecosystem, and were invited to split into 3 different groups, each with a given scenario representing a different approach to CoVEs and their future implementation (pace-setters for the international VET ecosystem, fence-sitters, and foot-draggers), for which they had to provide a description in the form of story-telling, and a set of policy recommendations which could improve or consolidate their scenario, as if they were speaking to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
At the end of the session, each group was invited to present the results of its discussions, and, among the proposed policy recommendations, we would like to highlight the following ones:
- Need for further support to CoVEs through different sources of funding combined;
- Need for a sustainability plan for CoVES, under a strategic perspective;
- Creation of CoVEs Ambassadors initiative to support discussions over the results achieved and their roll out;
- Funding new CoVES and building a network of CoVEs that were already developed and that addressed common sectors, connecting them with other sectors /fields for sharing resourceful experiences and best practices;
- Give companies the opportunity to embed regional opportunities for cooperation within CoVEs.
On the second day, EfVET explored VET excellence in practice, with a study visit to BG Byggros- innovative green solution. BG Byggros has been around for 35 years, and over time it has built a position as the market leader in Scandinavia within a wide range of specialised products and solutions for the construction and civil engineering industry. During this visit, participants had the opportunity to learn how to combine innovation, functionality, and environmental knowledge to meet the challenges of modern urban development.
This was a very successful CoP CoVEs Forum, not only due to the number of participants and stakeholders’ representativity, but also due to the quality of all of its activities and of the results achieved.
EfVET will continue its active engagement with this initiative, also in the different CoVEs it is contributing for, looking forward to participating in the CoP CoVEs Forum 2026, in Graz, Austria!
A big thanks to the students who supported the CoP CoVEs in Kolding.