Vocational Aqualabs

 

 

Applicant co-ordinator: Hijran Yavuzcan (Ankara University, Turkey)
Management co-ordinator: David Murphy (AquaTT, Ireland)
Start
: 2009
Duration: 2 years
Funding: EU Lifelong Learning Programme (Leonardo da Vinci - Transfer of Innovation)

Background:

The competitiveness of the European aquaculture industry can only be assured through the quality of its future research support-base and an adequate supply of sufficiently skilled personnel. Researchers must remain in touch with technical developments in order to provide solutions to industry. Such up-skilling must be subject-specific but equally important are the generic skills. Essential though they are in today’s world, they are not usually part of course provision. Vocational Aqualabs focuses on generic skill provision to aquaculture researchers at all stages of their career offering flexible learning pathways for skill acquisition.

Objectives:

The overall aim of Vocational Aqualabs is to improve VET systems in the European Aquaculture sector to ensure researchers receive continual professional development training in generic skills which will a) result in increasing the quality, attractiveness and security of research career pathways b) increase the relevancy of researchers and their research to the sector c) improve knowledge transfer to industry for exploitation contributing to a sustainable sector in Europe.

Specific objectives:

- To carry out a needs analysis of the sector in order to identify and prioritise generic skill training needs for researchers
- Define the skill gaps identified using the WAVE project methodology (competences + learning outcomes)
- Improve existing training material or develop new material where required
- Design skill delivery using a modular approach allowing adoptability within existing systems resulting in a multiplier effect
- Pilot skill delivery, assess impact and benchmark pilot training against existing national/international credit procedures  

The Vocational Aqualabs consortium consists of 6 partners from 5 countries:

  • Ankara University, Turkey (Applicant co-ordinator)
  • AquaTT, Ireland (Management co-ordinator)
  • The University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom (Core partner)
  • AQUARK, Greece (Core partner)
  • Stirling University, United Kingdom (Core partner)
  • INNOVAMAR, Spain (Core partner)

For more information on this project:

Visit www.aqualabs.eu

Or contact:

Hijran Yavuzcan at Hijran.Yavuzcan@ankara.edu.tr or Olivia Daly, AquaTT, P.O Box 8989, Dublin2, Ireland Email: olivia@aquatt.ie Tel: +353 1 644 9008, Fax: +353 1 644 9009

Download the Vocational Aqualabs project factsheet (PDF)

Download the Vocational Aqualabs project factsheet (PDF) Turkish version