English

PBT is an independent non-profit organisation (foundation) created by the Dutch ministries of Economic Affairs, Education and Social Affairs to support the implementation of national STEM strategies. PBT has been tasked by the government to coordinate the implementation of the Technology Pact in the Netherlands. The Technology Pact is a joint initiative of central government, the organised business community, the trade unions, the education community and the regions. The objectives of the Technology Pact cover the entire education chain, from primary education up to the labour market.

Besides it’s coordinating role, PBT also develops and implements a wide variety of implementation programmes throughout the education chain. This includes the development, piloting and ongoing support of the Centres of Expertise in higher education, Centres of Vocational Excellence in VET and the SME action agenda aimed at digitalization, sustainability and inclusion related activities for SMEs through public private partnerships. PBT is currently supporting over 450+ public-private partnerships between education institutions and 12000 companies, involving 124.000 students and 9000 teachers) through the Katapult-network.

The Katapult network is an open source learning community of these 450+ public partnerships, which recently started spreading across Europe including the Erasmus Centers of Vocational Excellence. The focus of Katapult is on mutual learning, so no-one has to reinvent the wheel. We support this network with a wide range of activities and a toolbox including a network map, impact studies, stakeholder analyses and peer reviews. The mapping of initiatives, policies, and best practices is essential for this learning community. Therefore, we have ample experience with these kind of activities and supporting tools. The Katapult network covers all sectors and all VET schools and Universities of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands are involved.

On the European level, Katapult is closely involved in the development of the Erasmus Centers of Vocational Excellence and facilitating the Community of Practice of CoVEs. In four of the 25 Centers of Vocational Excellence awarded so far, Katapult is sharing it’s experience and tools from the Dutch sector, while collecting the lessons learned and best practices from these projects, continuously developing the knowledge on public private collaboration to enhance VET. Apart from being directly involved in these projects, we are working with the European Commission to support the Community of Practice of all Erasmus Centers of Vocational Excellence. Recently, we developed a match making map for potential CoVE applicants at the request of the European Commission and created the ‘Connect handbook for SMEs’ together with all CoVEs.

Furthermore, PBT is also a founding member of the EU STEM Coalition, a network of similar organisations throughout Europe, and currently holds its secretariat. This network has contributed to the development and upscaling of new STEM strategies (e.g. Danish Technology Pact), organisations (e.g. Hungarian STEM platform) and programmes (e.g. Jet-Net pilots in Spain), including programmes based on the Centres of Vocational Innovation-model. In its recent Communication on a Renewed EU Agenda for Higher Education, the European Commission stated that: “the Commission will launch an upscaled EU STE(A)M Coalition” based on the EU STEM Coalition network (see: p. 5-6). The activities of the EU STEAM Coalition include the mapping of policies and initiatives across Europe. Through this connection with the EU STEM Coalition, PBT can help channelling back the lessons learned from this project to VET and HE policy makers on regional, national and European level.

As outlined in the organizational description, PBT has ample experience with mapping initiatives, doing skills ecosystem scans and developing evidence based tools and handbooks through the Katapult network. Within this project, PBT will continue to offer tools and expertise for the development of public private partnerships, both on the level of the regional CoVEs and the European PoVE level.

PBT will do so by applying the roadmap and toolbox from the PoVE Water and EPLUG project in supporting the partners and contribute to the sustainability of the Climate Smart Farming CoVEs. More specifically, PBT will develop tools together with the project partners that focus on the governance and financial sustainability of CoVEs on both the regional and the platform level, and on tools focus on stakeholder involvement, such as SMEs. These lessons learned will be disseminated in the entire Katapult network, the CoVE Community of Practice and EU STEM Coalition network.

Furthermore, PBT will facilitate peer reviews among the CoVEs in the project, based on the peer-review model that is widely used in the Katapult network in the Netherlands. This model focusses on mutual learning, continuous development and identifying opportunities for further growth and sustainability of the CoVEs. Another model that will be made available and applied to the partners is the Beta Tech Mentality model and the related Worlds of Green: an instrument by Groenpact to enhance the reputation and image of the Green sector and increase the intake of students in the sector. We would like to develop a set of 4-6 climate smart future farming professions in order to create a solution driven and positive framework to look at the future of climate smart farming.

Legal representative (LR) PBT

Ms. B. (Beatrice) Boots, director, B.Boots@ptvt.nl, +31850510600

Main contact
Mr. B. (Boudewijn) Grievink, Sr. project manager internationalization, department Katapult, b.grievink@ptvt.nl, +31850510600