VET is a sector distinguished from other educational sectors by its strong links to employers and the labour market. As a result, it can not simply ‘copy-paste’ practices from other educational sectors: whilst it can learn from experiences elsewhere, VET has to carve out its own innovation and digitalization pathways that are appropriate to its stakeholders and especially to learners, employers and VET providers. The Commission also highlights that 90% of jobs currently require some kind of digital skills, while almost half (44%) of the EU workforce has low basic digital skills, of which 22% has no digital skills at all (A report of the ET 2020 Working Group on Vocational Education and Training (VET)). As a result, the EU suffers from a digital skills gap, with the latter group at greater risk of unemployment, poverty and social exclusion; and a mismatch between labour demand and supply. Demand for digitalisation in VET comes as much from teachers, trainers and learners as it does from external stakeholders like employers. In the updated DigComp framework that will be published in 2022, new and emerging topics and themes focusing on the digital world will be introduced, such as misinformation and disinformation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), data-related skills and datafication of every aspect of our lives and emerging technologies such as virtual reality.

The purpose of the AR4Food project is to apply the principles of interdisciplinarity in STEΑM, on Food Products using Virtual reality techniques by developing collaborative learning methods, while promoting hands-on trainees activities and active participation through exploration, problem solving and creativity to acquire technical digital and transversal skills.

The AR4Food project aims to establish an educational community of teachers and adult trainees, who collaborate with food companies/producers, in order to create digital content for a new way of promoting and improving food products. The project infuses Arts into STEM (STE[A]M), links STEAM to real life and engages trainees in Virtual and Augmented Reality for collaborative product design and development. This design and development approach is chosen as a practice that integrates STEM disciplines, is a creative process providing liaison to Arts and is also a mainstream industrial practice that gives trainees the opportunity for real-world immersion in their industry, entrepreneurial thinking and in the business culture.

According to this, the proposal aims to design, develop and pilot-test a toolkit to empower VET trainers with relevant professional skills and competences, as well as new digital content, tools and resources to upgrade the digital curriculum of VET with STEΑM, based on VR, AR. The project aims to create quality digital services and strengthen transnational cooperation. SMEs will benefit from the acquisition of the digital content produced by the project and thus enhance their extroversion and brand in the food market.

Participating students benefit from STEM themes from a creative, innovative, and constructive perspective that can lead to a career. As they work on their interdisciplinary projects, they will have the opportunity to develop digital and coding skills, explore scientific concepts, reflect on the digitization of food and beverage products and apply Virtual and Augmented Reality technology. The project also provides trainers with professional development in a new STEM field.