Quick facts

• Programme: Erasmus
• Project number: 101184218
• Start date: 1 December 2024
• End date: 30 November 2027
• Duration: 36 months
• Total budget: 1,499,712 EUR

About the project

The WELDIFY project addresses the emerging need of developing skilled workforce in the field of welding circular/reused metals. Particularly, as the construction and automotive sectors increasingly rely on recycled metallic infrastructures, high-tech welding technologies are required to reduce the risk of failure caused by poor quality welding, which can lead to loss of human life (e.g. in the case of infrastructure failure (component breakage)). Currently, the EU market faces a labour shortage of close to one million skilled people in circular material welding (CMW) and breaking this barrier is the cornerstone of bringing manufacturing back to Europe while facilitating the deployment of circular economy in automotive and construction sectors. In this context, WELDIFY aims to:

1. Develop an innovative cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral CMW toolkit (ECTS and ECVET compliant) taken up by 5,000 learners (in Vocational Educational Training (VET)/university/industry employees). The courses will be also uploaded on the EIT Deep Tech Talent Initiative Platform and will also be delivered to 500 learners with disabilities.

2. Develop a cutting-edge human-machine interaction toolkit for trainers in welding processes by integrating robotics to enhance safety and security (higher education, vocational education, corporate) that would be taken up by 250+ VET/SME/higher education trainers.

3. Establish a robust quality assurance and certification framework for CMW, aligning with ISO standards.

4. Develop a Europass-enabled micro-credential certification framework for the envisioned CMW toolkit, enabling at least 2,000 learners (students, VET learners, workforce) to receive certification.

5. Establish a comprehensive cross-disciplinary platform for advanced learner analytics, market skills prediction and real-time learning content update (to reflect real time market needs).

6. Conduct work based learning apprenticeships with 100 learners.

Project partners

The WELDIFY consortium brings together 13 partners from 10 countries:

• Centre for Research & Technology Hellas (Coordinator) – Greece
• C.S Centre for Sustainability Limited – Cyprus
• EIT Manufacturing East GmbH – Austria
• European Federation for Welding, Joining, and Cutting – Belgium
• Fundacion Corporacion Technologica de Andalucia – Spain
• Helix Connect Balkans – Serbia
• Hogskolan I Halmstad – Sweden
• ImpactSCI Unipessoal LDA – Portugal
• Institutul National de Cercetare Dezvoltare in Sudura si Incercari de Materiale – Romania
• International Institute of Welding – Italy
• Regionalna agencija za ekonomski razvoj Sumadije i Pomoravlja – Serbia
• SUDOTIM AS SRL – Romania
• YET Amke – Greece