4th European Conference INES Submission Period Has Ended

The period for submissions to the 4th European Conference “Innovations in the Environmental Sector” (INES) came to a close on Monday, July 4th 2011. Papers have been received from nine different countries on four different continents. “The variety of submissions will be conducive to an international and diverse atmosphere at INES this September”, says Christian M. Stracke, coordinator of the WACOM project and competence expert, “for this reason the WACOM consortium is very much looking forward to the conference and the innovative dialogue that it will bring.” The WACOM consortium has now begun the review process to determine the most appropriate submitted papers. The selection will be made public on the 11th of July 2011.

The European Conference INES is focusing new ways and approaches for the lifelong learning by competence models, E-Learning and social communities. INES 2011 continues the discussion developed at the first three related European conferences in Vilnius (Lithuania), Budapest (Hungary) and most recently in Bucharest (Romania) last September in 2010. The WACOM consortium has organized and utilised these previous opportunities, along with national workshops in each of the WACOM partner countries, to raise the awareness of the stakeholders in the water sector, human resource development, and vocational education and training concerning the benefits and implementations of competence modelling in the water sector.

The conference is organized in conjunction with the European Conference "Competence Modelling for the Water Sector" that will present the major outcome of the European WACOM consortium and initiative for competence modelling in the water sector: The Water Competence Model (WCM) with its tools for harmonized descriptions of job profiles and working places in the water sector. The overall objectives of WACOM are the transfer and adaptation of a competence model to the water sector and its integration and harmonisation with the European Qualification Framework (EQF), thus contributing to European competence standardisation and improving vocational education and training.

Attendance at the European conference "Innovations in the Environmental Sector" (INES) is free of charge and requires online registration as places are limited. The submission period for papers related to the conference (max. eight pages) has come to a close. The submitters will be informed about the acceptance of the papers by the 11th of July 2011. All accepted papers will be published in the official proceedings of the European Conference (with ISBN) and distributed to all conference participants and across Europe. Specific guidelines and requirements can be found on at www.learning-innovations.eu.

Overview of the important dates:
- Notification of acceptance: July 11, 2011 (* prolonged! *)
- Camera-Ready copy due: July 25, 2011 (* prolonged! *)
- Conference program: September 21, 2011

Direct enquiries and registration can be sent to the WACOM project manager Xenia Kuhn, University of Duisburg-Essen, via e-Mail to: xenia.kuhn@icb.uni-due.de.

WACOM is the European Leonardo-da-Vinci Project for the transfer of a competence model to the water sector and its integration and harmonization with the European Qualification Framework (EQF) for competence modelling throughout whole Europe.

The Competence Model can be adapted and used within any water sectors and also within all other branches in the future:
It will improve the transparency, competitiveness, and mobility both for the citizens as well as for the enterprises towards a better European VET and society.

Finally it is submitted to the European Standardization Committees (CEN/TC 353) as the input to launch a standardization project for a harmonized European Norm (EN).

More information about WACOM online:
http://www.wacom-project.eu

Coordinator: Sebastian Vermette
Organization: University of Duisburg-Essen
Address: Universitaetsstr. 9 (ICB)
45141 Essen, GERMANY
E-Mail: sebastian.vermette@icb.uni-due.de

This release was published on openPR.