Nineteen partners from eight European countries, led by South Denmark, form a consortium for four years to establish seven Regional Vocational Excellence Hubs which will develop, test and offer future-oriented skills for the healthcare sector.

The seven regional hubs (Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, and Spain) will connect on a European Platform for Vocational Excellence in Health Care. The objective is to ensure coordination, adaption, innovation and upward convergence within regional health education ecosystems, as well as promote European blended mobility and inter-regional learning and collaboration among healthcare professionals and students from the participating regions and beyond.

The initiative contributes to the European Skills Agenda focussing on digital and green skills complementing the so-called “21st Century skills” such as problem-solving, teamworking, analytical and critical thinking.

A meeting on 2-3 June in Sønderborg, Denmark, marked the official start of their collaboration. During the two-day meeting, the partners went through all the tasks, activities and phases of work and planned immediate actions. To start with, partners will carry out a scoping review, will analyse training needs from students’ and health workers’ points of view, and will conduct interviews with stakeholders.

This long-lasting partnership, based on trust and complementarity, will regularly meet online and physically to update each other on progress and plan ahead. All outputs, tested activities, training content, etc. will be transferable and open to other interested regional health education ecosystems beyond the consortium partners.