Hellenic Regional Development Center

KnowFORwood, Transfer of innovative practices in the Vocational Education & Training to Slovenian Wood Sector, is a Leonardo da Vinci – Transfer of Innovation project, co-financed by the European Union. The project has started in October 2008 and will be officially completed in September 2010.

The globalisation process demands from the Slovenian and EU Wood Sector to implement the new paradigm for competitiveness rising from the Lisbon Strategy - Knowledge based economy. Innovative vocational education & training (VET) systems and models for enhancing innovations are essential part of this process. The problem in Slovenian Wood Sector is that neither provider of VET nor enterprisers know enough about new VET approaches used in the EU. To overcome this problem a specific sector VET program will be developed to cover all rising skill and knowledge gaps in the Slovenian Wood Sector.

The main aim is to transfer innovative VET solutions from Europe to Slovenian Wood Sector to set up advanced VET System and new validated and state recognized VET Program.

The main objectives of the project are:

• Analysing best practice in VET and innovation company models in the EU and identifying real knowledge and training needs in Slovenian Wood Sector.     
• Transferring the innovative good practices to Slovenian Wood Sector by preparing the Pilot VET Program and pilot perform it. 
• Improvement of the national catalogue for vocational qualification
• Preparing the advanced VET System in Slovenian Wood Sector.
• Preparing the draft of annual VET program for Slovenian Wood Sector in the first year after the end of the project.

• The advanced VET System and state recognized VET program in Slovenian Wood Sector. 
• Support to about 20.000 potential participants from Slovenian Wood Sector companies.

The competences of project partners meet all the necessary requirements for successful implementation of the project. Most partners of the project, including the coordinator, are from Slovenia and the other two countries involved are Ireland and Greece.