Innovation, Transnationality and Mainstreaming
ESF has always put a premium on learning lessons and using its experience to inform and influence other policies and programmes – including contributing to and learning from work in other European Union (EU) countries.
Under the 2007-2013 programme in England, the Innovation, Transnationality and Mainstreaming (ITM) strand of ESF supports 32 strategic, regional projects looking to develop and deliver new ways of extending employment opportunities and raising workforce skills. In doing so, it contributes to the challenges of promoting social inclusion, raising productivity, fostering competitive businesses, and living within environmental and demographic limits.
Innovation can include new approaches, tools, methods and service provision to extend employment and raise skills. It can also mean adapting and applying existing approaches, tools, methods and services to new regions, sectors or target groups.
Learning from other countries is an important dimension of innovation within the ESF programme. Projects include an element of transnational or interregional cooperation with other EU Member States. This may involve joint development of new approaches, and sharing or transferring of good practice.
Transnational Working: lessons from two workshops
During the latter part of 2011, a number of ITM projects held events to both enhance and disseminate their transnational work.
The first was organised by the ’DAIN’ project, and held as part of the Workers Educational Association (WEA) national conference at the East Midlands Conference Centre in Nottingham on 28 October 2011. The second was part of the Graduate Employability Support Programme project’s final conference held at the Manchester Lowry centre on 6 and 7 December.
Both workshops looked at the benefits of transnational working in its own right. The idea was to discuss the extent to which working alongside colleagues in other countries could contribute to learning, effective practice and the generation of new ideas and insights. A report summarising learning from the two workshops is available to download.
