The kick-off meeting of the Skill-pics project was successfully finalized on the 9th of October 2020.

The kick-off meeting of the Money Matters project was successfully finalised on December 3^rd 2020. Due to the pandemic, the meeting was completed online with, partners from Cyprus, UK, Ireland, Portugal, Italy, and Greece gathering to discuss the initial steps of the project implementation.

The European Commission has emphasised the need to develop key transversal skills in all education sectors to sustain the high-value knowledge economy.

One of the main factors hindering possible resolutions of family debt is the lack of key financial literacy skills that currently pertain in most low-skilled communities where debt burdens remain high.

Studies estimate that by 2060 at least one in three Europeans will be over 65. The European Commission argues that digital technology can help older people to stay healthy, independent and active atwork or in their community for longer and it helps to improve our quality of life. Since the Digital Single Market strategy has been adopted, several studies have identified the lack of digital skillsamong the elderly.

Therefore, there is a strong need to educate EU citizens and the elderly on how to access and engage in online activities by experiencing high level of consumer and personaldata protection. Specifically, the elderly generally lacks awareness of current security threats, and remain under-educated in terms of applying appropriate controlsand safeguards to their computers and networking devices.

The primary target group of e-Protect project which is elderly people (people aged 65+) will be empowered and develop their self-confidence when using the internet and thus supportthe improved integration in the labour market and society.

International migration has influenced the public policy agenda across Europe over recent decades. According to the 2016 Eurostat statistics, 20.7 million

people with non-EU citizenship are residing in the European Union, and 16 million EU citizens living outside their country of origin in a different Member State. These numbers account for a very multicultural and diverse Europe bringing into its wakes various issues around the cultural identity of European nations.

Cultural differences – inflated by populist movements –appear as a threat to the viability of the European integration project as discrimination and racism are still a growing reality in Europe. Cultural intelligence is an essential aspect of our professional and community lives today in Europe. Developing cultural intelligence helps societies to be more inclusive and gain cultural diversity, especially in our current context, where we see an increase in the migration of people throughout Europe, across cultural divides.

The CIDizen project will harness the pervasiveness of digital technologies to deliver key training on the topic of cultural intelligence.

In the future, 9 out of 10 jobs will require digital skills, as digital technologies are already used for work and employability in many sectors from education, training and healthcare to transport, farming and the information and communications technology industry. According to the Digital Skills and Jobs Policy, 16 Member States including Ireland, already recognised the importance of the development of digital skills of their citizens and are in the process or already adopted relevant strategies aimed at enhancing digital literacy and skills, while ome others not yet. The above hurdles are calling for collective transnational efforts to educate adults and prepare them for the digital world we live in.

Welcome to the fifth issue of the SciFUN newsletter! ...