Ongoing Projects

CERONAV is currently implementing the following projects co-funded by the European Union

DERIN – Digital Education Readiness in Maritime and Inland Navigation – 2020-1-RO01-KA226-VET-095726

https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/projects/search/details/2020-1-RO01-KA226-VET-095726

https://www.derinnet.eu/

https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/derin-network

Programme: Erasmus+

Action: Key Action 2 (KA2)

Call: Strategic Partnerships in response to COVID-19_KA226

Lead Partner: Romanian Maritime Training Centre – CERONAV

Partnership:

  • Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences – UNIZG, Croatia
  • Technical University of Varna – MQC-TUV, Bulgaria
  • STC Group – STC, Netherlands
  • Latvian Maritime Academy – LMA, Latvia
  • Estonian Nautical School – ENS, Estonia

Associated Partners:

  • Volga State University of Water Transport – VSUWT, Russia
  • Kongsberg Digital As, Maritime Simulation – KDI, Norway
  • Wärtsilä Voyage – Ireland

Period: 24 months (01.03.2021 – 28.02.2023)

Total budget approved by the National Agency: 179.995 euro

CERONAV budget:  42.725 euro plus 8.545 euro co-funded by own funds

In times when intelligent learning has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and there is a massive shift towards the online environment in global learning, the position of any sector depends on how much they embrace digitalisation.

Consequently, how education and training will cope with the requirements of the present times and how they will prepare in order to be futureproof are issues that can be addressed only if relevant institutions react and unite in partnerships able to put together their knowledge, experience and resources.

Therefore, aiming at improved capacity and efficiency of E&T institutions to provide digital training, 6 partners in as many EU countries (Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Netherlands, Latvia and Estonia) saw rather the opportunity than the setbacks of this challenging period and decided to work together for improved digital training and assessment of waterborne transport personnel through an increased level of digital competences of VET teachers/trainers, realising that current needs and challenges in terms of capacity of educators to deliver digital education are quite common and the joint solution is developing the right tools and adapting the proper digital solutions with the support of technology providers as Associated Partners and stakeholders.

Through a more efficient uptake of digital technologies for teaching and learning in a consolidated manner and not just in certain corners of the EU, high quality results of the educational process can be maintained even if the traditional “in classroom” environment cannot be used 100% of the time. As the theoretical part of the training is almost completely available in digital format, the focus of DERIN project will be for the practical training, or at least a certain percentage of it, to be shifted in the digital environment using the right tools, considering the vast diversity available and the fast pace the technology advances in the industry.

The partnership consists of a VET school, three maritime and inland waterway training centres on their own or as part of maritime academies/technical universities, a worldwide operating educational and research institution and a higher education institution.

Coordinated by CERONAV, the partners will select the relevant learning modules adaptable to innovative multimedia tools, applications and resources, will test and familiarize themselves with the mentioned tools followed by the development of corresponding multimedia learning materials (curriculum, teaching methods, procedures, role-play scenarios, videos etc.) as a toolkit for practical training including also guidelines for trainers.

For a highly relevant outcome, three learning teaching training activities will take place. A special training activity for students will allow trainers to include feedback from the end-users and trainees to gain knowledge and competence for the new working environment. As use of simulators in maritime and inland navigation education and training is an essential component for developing trainees’ competencies necessary for the job, a special attention will be given to developing innovative and easily accessible course modules via open educational resources on the internet.

Specially designed to boost capacity of VET teachers and trainers, focussing on their digital competencies and capacity to upskill for innovative online resources and tools, their usage and design, the project will develop a toolkit for teachers/trainers including newly developed materials.

To take a step further and have a larger scope, policy recommendation and guidelines will be developed to focus on the impact and legacy of the project targeted towards sector’s stakeholders at the local, regional, national and European level concerned with maritime and inland waterway transport and the successful design and implementation of e-learning programme.

The large sector of waterborne transport has to be taken into consideration, with all its implications in EU economy as training is always fundamental in an industry so well regulated and standardized at international level.

Dissemination activities will be rolled out in order to raise awareness, increase knowledge, influence attitude and finally change behaviour of interested and relevant parties including at least one Multiplier Event in each of the six partner countries. Quality monitoring and control activities will ensure high standard outcomes and sustainable results to be transferred in different education areas and, with the support of Associated Partners to reach larger territories.


RELAR – REmote Learning and examination based on AR – 2020-1-NL01-KA226-VET-083043

https://relar.eu/

https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/projects/eplus-project-details#project/2020-1-NL01-KA226-VET-083043

https://stc-group.nl/projects/relar-remote-learning-system-based-on-ar-in-maritime-vet-education/

 Programme: Erasmus+

Action: Key Action 2 (KA2)

Call: Strategic Partnerships in response to COVID-19_KA226

Lead Partner: STC Group – Netherlands

Partnership:

  • Romanian Maritime Training Centre – CERONAV, Romania
  • Satakunta University of Applied Sciences – SAMK, Finland
  • Malta College of arts, science & technology – MCAST, Malta
  • Solski Center – Slovenia
  • University of La Laguna – ULL, Spain
  • University of the AEGEAN – UAEGEAN, Greece

Associated Partners:

  • Romanian Naval Authority – RNA, Romania
  • Knowledge Concepts – Netherlands
  • KOTUG International  – Netherlands
  • WinNova – Finland
  • ONEX Syros Shipyards S.A – Greece
  • Creative Solutions – Slovenia

Period: 24 months (01.05.2021 – 30.04.2023)

Total budget approved: 299.997 euro

CERONAV budget: 30.990 euro plus 6.198 euro co-funded by own funds

RELAR project aims to create a crisis-proof resilient maritime VET ecosystem by enabling remote learning and examination using Augmented Reality, AR. It addresses to key challenges of the maritime and port education ecosystem caused by structural change due to new digital technologies. It focusses on the adoption of augmented reality tools to improve learning outcomes.

RELAR is driven by a consortium formed by European VET and HEI organizations, and will tackle all the deficiencies unearthed by the COVID-19 crisis focusing on transferring the expertise and knowledge of industrial organizations in improving security, safety and efficiency by empowering frontline connected workers with remote technology. The maritime VET education ecosystem must become more resilient to crisis and improve adaptation capacity to forced shifts imposed by force majeure. Being tightly linked to other ecosystems having a major role in economy and in society as a whole (port ecosystem, national, European and international education ecosystem) maritime education has to be capable to absorb social shocks generated by crisis situations and to ensure the continuity of the learning process.

Over the last decade, sensors enabled telemetry to connect devices, products, customers with Industry 4.0. While Industry 4.0 promises a wide implementation of automation, in most enterprises, operations are a set of tiring linear steps — slow, sometimes inaccurate and inefficient. In all this, frontline workers have been standing on the side lines for the last 20 years; watching and waiting.

The paradigm shift with Industry 5.0 is where the frontline worker is now in the centre of things – machines, methods and workflows, and the technical management level is able to connect with him in a seamless manner. The project will mirror the new paradigm “expert – frontline worker” proposed by Industry 5.0 concept to a next-level “teacher – student” paradigm for vocational education and training. Teachers will wear the augmented reality device for examining remotely the students by evaluating the quality of the instruction’s students gave. Students will enhance their technological skills and hands-on experience by using the same AR device and executing tasks being remotely guided by the teacher. Both teachers and students will have the roles of expert or frontline worker depending on the objective: examination of learning.

The consortium partners under the leading of University of the Aegean will identify and adopt a common architecture and framework for future interoperability, scalability and sustainability of remote learning. The core concepts of the architecture will be inspired by the existing Proof of Concept developed by STC Group for maritime education (EQF 4-5). During the first stage of the project, the partners will encourage experimentation and exchange of ideas and good practices.

These will serve as requirements and criteria for establishing the most performant framework. Based on the selected framework, a REmote Learning and examination system using AR (RELAR) will be developed. A remote assistance communication protocol will be established in order to ensure a clear and efficient interaction between the teacher and student. The IMO’s Standard Marine Communication Phrases (SMCP) will serve as model. This communication protocol must eliminate the risk of misunderstandings or omissions that can lead to failures and jeopardize the correctness of the learning or examination process. Teachers will attend Train the Expert sessions coordinated by CERONAV, where they will be trained on technical aspects like how to use and manage the system. Students will attend special workshops during multiplier events where they will get more insights in the design and functionality of the RELAR system.

The consortium partners with experience in vocational education assisted by HEI and led by The Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology – MCAST, will build scenarios to be used on RELAR system for learning and examination purposes for various use cases (ship engine officer, shipyard technician, transport fleet service & repair technician). These scenarios will benefit also from the input of the associated partners and will be demonstrated, evaluated and validated during a series of multiplier events organised at the consortium partners location. Learning materials like videos and tutorials will be created to enhance the digital skills of students and teachers related to augmented reality and to smooth the adoption process of RELAR in practical education. Teachers will attend Train the Trainer sessions organised by CERONAV, where they will get familiar with using RELAR scenarios for learning and examination using RELAR scenarios. Students will attend special workshops during the multiplier events where they will understand how they can take the most benefits out of the learning and examination with RELAR.

Šolski center Nova Gorica will coordinate the quality assurance, monitoring and evaluation of the project. Quality assurance and monitoring is a transversal activity that will last the entire duration of the project.

As part of the dissemination activities, the partners will organise nine Transnational Meetings in total, of which four will be Training Events. During the Transnational Meetings teachers, students and experts from maritime industry and other sectors will get familiar with RELAR and will receive the necessary information on how to use it to educate and examine students and professionals on-the-job remotely.


ERASMUS accreditation for ERASMUS+ mobility in the field of “Vocational Education and Training – VET” – 2021-1-RO01-KA120-VET-000047562

Erasmus+ Programme

Key Action 1 (KA1)

National call for accreditation in the fields of school education, adult education and VET (KA120)

Beneficiary: CERONAV

Validity: 01.02.2022 – 31.12.2027 (6 years)

Erasmus accreditation is a tool for organizations in the field of vocational education and training, school education and adult education that wish to initiate cross-border exchange and cooperation activities. The accreditation confirms that the applicant has developed a plan to implement high-quality mobility activities as part of a wider effort to develop their organisation.

CERONAV can annually organize mobility projects for trainers and trainees involved in the qualification programmes (Maritime Sailor, River Sailor and Motorist) to participate in training courses, respectively practical training courses organized abroad.

The following benefits are expected:

– developing and strengthening the institutional capacity through the personal and professional development of CERONAV’s trainers and through internationalization;

– the identification and adoption of new and innovative pedagogical methods and technologies that lead to the improvement of the quality of the educational process as a whole, by staff participating to mobilities disseminating knowledge and good practices to their colleagues;

– concluding partnerships with Romanian and European educational organizations in the naval sector;

– developing long-term cooperative relations that can lead to future projects;

– increasing the visibility of CERONAV by implementing for the first time projects within Key Action 1 of the Erasmus+ Programme.


Mobility project 2022-1-RO01-KA121-VET-000064245

https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/projects/search/details/2022-1-RO01-KA121-VET-000064245

National Call for Project Proposals 2022

Key Action 1: Learning mobility of individuals

Beneficiary: CERONAV

Period: 15 months (01.06.2022 – 31.08.2023)

Budget: 65.185 euro

Within this project, mobility activities will be carried out for CERONAV’s trainers and trainees involved in the Qualification Programmes organized by the institution to provide participants with unique learning opportunities and support the internationalization and institutional development of CERONAV.


Mobility project 2023-1-RO01-KA121-VET-000127366

https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/projects/search/details/2023-1-RO01-KA121-VET-000127366

National Call for Project Proposals 2023

Key Action 1: Learning mobility of individuals

Beneficiary: CERONAV

Period: 15 months (01.06.2023 – 31.08.2024)

Budget: 66.237 euro

Within this project, mobility activities will be carried out for CERONAV’s trainers and trainees involved in the Qualification Programmes organized by the institution to provide participants with unique learning opportunities and support the internationalization and institutional capacity building of CERONAV.


1 System 4 IWT learning: upskilling pathways – 2022-1-NL01-KA220-VET-000088164

https://www.1s4iwt.eu/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/iwtcompeting/

https://www.iwt-competencies.eu/

Erasmus+ Programme

Type of Action: Key Action 2 (KA2) Cooperation between organizations and institutions

Call: KA220-VET – Cooperation partnerships in vocational education and training

Project Coordinator: STC Group – Netherlands

Partners:

  • CERONAV – CER, Romania
  • University of Craiova – UoC, Romania
  • University of Applied Sciences – FHOO, Austria
  • Harlingen Maritime Academy – MAH, Netherlands
  • University of Zilina – UoZ, Slovakia
  • Schiffer-Berufskolleg RHEIN – SBKR, Germany

Associated Partner from Romania:

  • Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure – MTI

Project duration: 23 months (01.10.2022 – 31.08.2024)

Project budget: 465,815 EUR (400,000 EUR from the EU)

CERONAV budget: 36,720 EUR (29,207 EUR from the EU and at least 7,513 EUR co-financing from CERONAV’s own funds)

 

As a continuation of the COMPETING project, implemented between January 2019 and June 2022 by the partners in the current consortium, the project supports the cooperation of education and training institutions in the inland navigation sector addressing cooperation between educational institutions and business, creating new, innovative or joint curricula or courses and digital content, technologies and practices.

1System 4IWT aims to build a learning system that will act as a solution for ensuring and enduring continuity of education & training for IWT students and workers and generate a „personalized learning experience”. Furthermore, the project will focus on developing commons resources that meet the needs of nowadays trends and challenges for (incoming) staff in the IWT sector.

This project will design the system architecture for interconnecting education & training institutions e-learning platforms with the Inland Navigation eLearning System (INeS) which has been developed in previously EU funded projects, in order to exchange and share digital learning material and to provide information about individual learning progress to users in organized learning settings or to individual users, in form of badges or micro-credentials using open standards.


The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the National Agency and Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Last modified date: 7 February 2024