South-East European Research Centre (SEERC)

ARRANGE-ICT (pArtneRship foR AddressiNG mEgatrends in ICT) is focused on identifying and recording megatrends developments as raised from market innovators in order to help HEIs follow the rapid pace of emerging industries. The major priority of ARRANGE-ICT is to enhance the quality and relevance of students' knowledge and skills, as the project aims to support Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) to a) identify urgent technological challenges and needs of high-qualified personnel   b) train high-qualified students in ICT specific topics based on the skills required in labour market c) to promote open links between Universities and industry, enhancing the relevance of higher education by supporting  new ICT-based internship programs, common PhD student supervision between HEIs and industry and common Bachelor and Master theses supervision in SMEs, market and industry premises.

ARRANGE-ICT supports innovation and creativity, through partnerships and inter- and transdisciplinary approaches, and strengthening the role of higher education regionally by a) highlighting emerging, cutting-edge technologies as pinpointed by market innovators b) supporting open education and learning resources.

The aforementioned priorities will be achieved through the following actions: 

• The creation of an open smart job hub to foresight the  skills needed,  to pinpoint new job opportunities and new (employability) trends in the ICT domain under the umbrella of Zones of Innovation in Greece and Cyprus
• The adaption of new educational tools and the collection of learning resources to be processed and disseminated towards the modernisation of curricula and the recommendation of new curricula for short course Digital Ed Certificates to HEIs
• The promotion of business opportunities, through the online system "Smart Job Hub", between Universities and industry by employing a minimum number of graduated students in the context of Bachelor and Master thesis. Students will be able to work in the industry partners premises towards the completion of their thesis.
• The organization of ICT topic specific bootcamps to train on skills identified addressing skill gaps recorded by the Smart Job Hub

To suggest policy recommendations on rewarding mechanisms that can motivate more 

ARRANGE-ICT has the following outputs:

- O1 Smart Job Hub, a fully functional and operational system capable of identifying skill gaps for supply and demand alignment.

- O2 skills Foresight Study, dedicated to revealing skill gaps and addressing megatrends through fully operating the Smart job hub.

- O3 Guide for Instructors, provide valuable instructions for the design and delivery of courses inspired by the identified megatrends, in an effort to alleviate the skills gap.

- O4 Modernised Curricula & Short Programmes, capable to efficiently address cutting-edge market demands.

- E1 Transnational Workshop on the Smart Job Hub, aiming at the mutual contribution of all stakeholders (instructors, HEIs representatives, students and industrial members) to the enhancement of the responsiveness and relevance of the educational systems.

- E2 Transnational Workshop on addressing mega-trends and best practices for bridging the skill gap between industry and HEIs.

- E3 Transnational Workshop on the conclusion of the ARRANGE-ICT project and the Smart Job Hub Engine.

- C1 First short-term Joint Staff Training Event on the benefits provided by the Smart Job Hub and by the whole process of co-creating material.

- C2 Second short-term Joint Staff Training Event on guiding industrial partners to effectively formulate ICT skill needs and competencies of their companies.

- C3 Blended mobility of higher education students, involving the organization of a bootcamp offered to senior undergraduate and post-graduate students, where intensive training on contemporary skills found to be necessitated by the market will be provided.