Creating a scalable video information ecosystem – a tool to improve the quality of life and a platform to develop educational technologies. Overall objective of the project was to increase the level of education among young and elderly people and to guarantee skilled workforce.

Specific objectives of the project were developing sustainable information infrastructure of urban environment of a programme region basing on creating and putting into experimental operation a video information ecosystem (VIE). Using the pilot zone as a training basis for the mastering of innovative ICT by general public and organizations of target groups in the programme region without any age or special qualification limits and expanding cooperation between research institutions, SMEs and enterprises of a particular sector of the programme region.

In order to achieve these goals during a project the project envisaged forming a new type of information services and mastering them by users-recipients and information providers based on the creation and implementation of a scalable VIE. The system will provide conditions for individually tailored, address information to general public by management and service entities in cross-border contacts, for successful mastering of modern ICT technologies and their use by citizens without any special training or age limits (including major age categories before 24 and after 45), including in widespread cross-border travels of residents of both regions.

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The aim of the ImProfEdu project was to improve vocational training with the help of digital technologies, focusing on the needs of the Russian ja Finnish labour market. Key measures include the tourism and service sector, hair and beauty and interior design, and customer service units, which include a study platform for developing skills and competencies when working in a multicultural company in Finland or abroad. The open platform with learning materials, virtual workshops and webinars will be implemented in Finnish, English and Russian.

Enhanced cooperation between businesses and vocational training in both countries is also an important performance target. Developing a new digital learning environment that brings together part of the degree to facilitate working in a multicultural work environment. Work-based learning has become more efficient and work-based learning has increased. The international skills of the staff are improving. Companies get employees who are trained, skilled and motivated to meet their future needs.

Despite the big challenges, we were able to complete a study unit that can also be used as part of students’ learning in the future. The materials from ImProfEdu-platform were moved, edited and organised into Itslearning-mode, that is in wide use in Ekami and in Eduko for teaching and studying purposes. This work was extensive and time-consuming, but we gained a lot of material that we can continue to use in our teaching and students can also use it independently. Each member of the project worked on material for a common learning platform, held virtual learning sessions and participated expert lectures. Study trips and workshops deepened what was learned. The ImProfEdu -project made all this possible.

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Kouvola region had profiled itself as a Finnish motorsport center of expertise. Taitaja education centre trained mechanics for rally and formula teams and collaborated with major motorsport organizations. A new motor sports circuit meeting international standards had been opened in the municipality of Iitti, near Kouvola. On the other hand, there was a significant car industry in the St. Petersburg region. Many well-known western companies had car assembly plants in the region. In addition, there were companies serving this industry in the region, such as Nokian Renkaat Oy, whose production was more than 80 percent from a factory in Russia.

The automotive industry is currently changing faster than ever in its history. This is particularly emphasized in the development and introduction of new car engine and fuel systems. The most significant driver here is climate change and the stricter emission requirements for traffic. A rapidly changing industry requires new skills, this also involves vehicle maintenance and repair. Education plays an important role in this. Educational institutions must be able to meet the needs of the automotive industry, even to be able to anticipate these needs.

Three of the project partners were from Kouvola and three from St. Petersburg. The project included six Work Packages (WP), under which there were different Tasks. One or alternatively several organizations were responsible for the implementation of the WPs. The WPs included tailor-made workshops for students, Industry Day events for the project staff, days for the teaching staff, and several studies based on these. Regardless of the external factors mentioned above, all the work packages of the project could be implemented, although in different ways than what was mentioned in the project plan. The change to be mentioned was also a significant undershoot of the project’s budget implementation. Travel and outsourcing services were not implemented much in the project.

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The goal of the BIM-ICE project was to increase the use of building information modeling (BIM) in construction industry and develop education in the field in Finland and Russia. The purpose was also to guarantee the availability of skilled labor and improve the quality and productivity of the construction industry by developing new learning methods and increasing knowledge of BIM.

The project was divided into four work packages. In work package 1 a situational picture of the level of BIM in the construction industry, as well as the provision of BIM education in Finland and Russia, was studied as the starting point for the project. As a result, an up-to-date situational picture of BIM was achieved and described by means of surveys. With the first study, the state of BIM in construction engineering education was investigated on a wide scale in both countries. The second study was aimed at operators in the construction industry. Further education needs and opportunities emerged, which, according to research related to education, were not offered by that moment.

In work package 2, the focus was on developing BIM education at universities for university students. The project developed new ways of education as well as education processes and technologies. In the project, both the BIM summer school and the BIM project work course were developed as cross-border cooperation, BIM championship events were organized, new augmented reality technologies were introduced, and new learning materials were produced. In this part of the project, new potential was also created to tandardization and learning related to European and international BIM standards, for example, by compiling and defining the basic concepts.

The focus of work package 3 was the supply of educational products for working life. In particular, the planning of the courses focused to the training needs raised in the work package 1. Courses were produced and piloted during the project based on the internationally recognized modular education concept: skills are built step by step as a learning path that also supports continuous learning. In the first step, a BIM basic knowledge course, which was deepened in the following steps with an OpenBIM course (Russia), an inventory modeling course, and a parametric modeling course.

As measures to implement the learned and produced knowledge in work package 4, the international BIM situation was clarified. The project investigated the BIM maturity level of selected European countries, for example in terms of used standards, guidelines, technologies and use cases. Numerous partner companies also participated in the project. They for example gave thesis assignments, participated in the development of learning materials and pilot courses and offered pilot sites for use cases and new technologies. The project also offered training for university teachers and experts.

Through the project’s BIM-ICE MOOC platform, a wide collection of the project’s concrete results in the form of self-study materials, course materials, demo videos, reports, presentations and articles are distributed at: BIM-ICE MOOC

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The role of culture and tourism is hard to overemphasize. These industries bring vitality to the region, empower people, and create the drive for territory development. However, culture and tourism are extremely vulnerable sectors. They face multiple complex challenges: increasing digitalization, changing customer needs, social changes, COVID-19 restrictions, and increased digitalization. Therefore, understanding current and future trends, customer needs, innovation, sustainable value creation, and internationalization processes are the keys to business development and the creation of internationally competitive cultural products in these sectors. Besides, cross-sectoral and cross-border cooperation is an essential element for enabling innovations and new revenue models.

To address these issues, the EDUCRO project idea emerged as a joint initiative of the educational partners LAB and Humak University of Applied Sciences in Finland and the Institute for Cultural Programs in Russia. The partners’ vision was ambitious: to create a cross-border alliance between educational institutions, culture, tourism, and creative companies and organizations. This alliance would support learning, exchange of know-how and experiences, promote collaboration and interaction between the participants, and enable the creation of new products and services.

The EDUCRO project involved companies and organizations in the culture and tourism sector from South Karelia and Uusimaa in Finland, St. Petersburg, and the Leningrad region in Russia. Over 20 companies and organizations joined the project: theatres, museums, cultural spaces, art galleries, libraries, and event producers from Finland and Russia. The project also actively collaborated with the outsourced experts to bring cutting-edge knowledge.

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The idea of the project was to merge two points of excellence in neighbouring countries: advanced education methodologies in mathematics, programming and robotics from Russia. While the efficiency of the Finnish educational system is well known in the world, many experts conclude that STEM component, especially informatics and robotics, are needed to be supported in schools. The project was supposed to assist the deployment of advanced robotics teaching hardware Robbo in Finland.

The activities in the project addressed the goal from two perspectives: methodological and technical. There were 88 educational materials in the form of lesson scenarios, problem analysis and teaching advice developed and spread. The materials are supposed to be used by the secondary school teachers in motivation and challenging the children to consider informatics and robotics as a hobby or further specialty. An open online course for teachers has been developed and released. The course is to help teacher’s self-improvement, it consists of a number of short videos telling the basic ideas behind the modern concepts in the field: robotics, coding, Industry 4.0, 3D modelling. The camps’ agenda consisted of workshops for teachers and children, robotic and programming competitions, hand-ons with robot design, 3D modelling and printing.

Hardware preparation meant minor redevelopment and localization of Robbo Educational Kits for the schools in St.Petersburg, Leningrad region and Finland. The task required the manufacturing of the devices, EU certification of them for the safety, preparation of manuals and instructions for teachers with basic lesson scenarios, transportation of the Robbo Kits from St.Petersburg to Lappeenranta through the custom services, distribution and support. In total 42 Robbo Kits were successfully manufactured and distributed in South Karelia. We don’t know how many (if any) pieces of equipment were distributed in St. Petersburg and Leningrad region after discontinuation of activities in Russia.

Thus, new educational materials for teaching robotics, coding and 3D modelling and printing, new MOOC for teachers to understand the concepts of modern Industry 4.0, new robotic educational hardware kits in several schools and a number of regional events for children and teacher to boost the awareness and interest in learning skills of XXI century, – these are the main pragmatic deliverables and outcomes of the project. The project outreached 3080 children and 790 teachers and education experts in total.

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The idea of ​​the project was to develop knowledge and teaching of robotics and coding in the schools of Imatra and St. Petersburg. The project aimed to improve the capabilities of the participating schools to create technological cooperation with other educational institutions. Through the activities organized in the project, effort was made to develop problem-solving skills of the students and teachers related to programming, coding and technology.

The main target groups were students from 6th to 9th classes of primary education and their teachers. Besides the main target groups, younger students were also involved in project actions. The project included St. Petersburg school number 622 as a project partner. Due to the war in Ukraine, the cooperation ended in March 2022. After that project’s measures were continued only in Finland.

During the project, workshops and seminars were organized, where students built robots and programmed their functions. Robotic clubs for students were also organized throughout the project. Nesttec project strengthened the robotics skills of the participating schools. In the future, strengthened expertise in robotics and coding will enable more fruitful cooperation with other educational institutions. The Nesttec project has also improved students’ readiness for further studies.

Coding, programming and technological know-how are the skills of the future. Through the activities of the project, the competence of the participating teachers and students in these fields has been strengthened. In the project, robotic kits and additional parts have been acquired for schools, which has made it possible to teach more varied robotics in schools. During the project, new networks have also been created for future projects in the field of robotics and technology.

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The objective of METAFor has been to develop and apply an innovative multi-level cross-border educational platform on sustainable forest management in the region. Specific objectives of the project have been to:

1. Reveal potentials and obstacles for sustainable forest use in the region and find the ways to solve the problems through providing cross-border information exchange and cooperation by using the expertise of the project group, steering committee and other experts.

2. Improve practical and theoretical skills of forestry practitioners and students and thus improve forestry practices already during the project implementation and in the long run.

3. Disseminate the project results on various levels: local, national and international, aiming at increased cross-border information exchange and cooperation.

The activities included 1) Survey (analysis of the current situation in education related to forestry and environment) and development (suggesting means to improve it), 2) Training (developing study curruculae and organizing a set of courses) and 3) Communication (communicating the results to media; developing study curriculae and guidelines for end-users).

The project outputs included 1) The seminar organized by the project together with the Steering Committee with the involvement of decision makers, stake holders, end users, researchers and practitioners helped in defining the problems that hamper sustainability in forest use and stimulate the cross-border cooperation in solving these problems, 2) 15  courses and trainings on different levels targeted for the university students, forestry practitioners and school students, 3) eight communication outputs incl. publications on current cross-border problems in forest sector of the region and recommendations for sustainable forest management as well as revised conceptual and methodological issues. All project outputs have both short- and long-term nature, i.e. their impact is much longer than the project period of financing.

The activities of METAFor have been directed to fill the gaps in cooperation, knowledge, and education. The successful implementation of these activities has been ensured by participation of the best regional organizations and experts in the regional forestry sector. The activities enabled the information exchange between decision makers, stake holders, increase cross-border cooperation in forestry and environmental education, improved the knowledge of sustainable forest management and forest ecosystem services in the region.

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The purpose of the project was to learn from the teachers about crossing borders and to understand each other’s teaching culture and teaching situations. As a result of the cooperation, our goal was to create three to five sustainable development curricula for upper secondary education.

The main activities were meetings between teachers and students in the teaching situations of courses completed in the project. This was realized in the field only during the joint project week. As a result of the sustainable development studies in high school’s project (SuShi), four sustainable development curricula and courses have been published on the open web.

It should be mentioned as a special achievement that some of those who worked on the project from both St. Petersburg and Savonlinna have continued their professional discussion and exchange of information even after the end of the project.

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The aim of the InnoMent -project was to developed new innovative approaches and service modules supporting persons rehabilitating from mental health disorder. The project partners together acquired information -especially information on recovery-oriented practices. The new approaches and service modules were based on best practices in mental health work in Finland, Russia, as well as elsewhere in Europe, to be piloted in their own organisations. The project partners expect by their experience and earlier development work, that in long term this process/project supports the start of new practices and approaches in mental health work. This will, in long term also, have a positive impact on the socioeconomic situation on regional and national levels. Persons who have suffered from mental health disorder can be included as active members of the society and possibly also to the working life.

The project produced different curricula, family work training both to mental health professionals and family members and organisation of cultural activities (Art Studio and Art Exhibition). After the cooperation with the Russian partners had finished, the Lead partner Kakspy ry formed contacts to mental health service providers in Estonia, Greece and Georgia. The objective is to form a long term EU project partnership network with these organisations. First EU project propsals within this partnership have already been submitted, and further are in planning.

The InnoMent -project was a learning process on several levels. On individual level the innovative approaches and new practices developed in the project support encouraging and inclusive processes in mental health rehabilitation, enabling feelings of success and increased self-confidence. On organisational level the project enabled innovative development of services and improved professional skills of the workers. The project offered models for improved practices in the mental health services on regional and in long term also on national level in Finland.

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