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Countdown to Event-Matrix!
Approximately 12 months remain before the completion date for the Leonardo da Vinci project Matrix! and its further work. The focus of this research project, which is promoted by the European Union, is laying the foundations for the development of uniform education standards and career paths for the European Event and Meeting Industry.
The Siemens Media Academy has coordinated project Matrix! since October 2003 under the banner of the Leonardo-da-Vinci-Program of the European Union.
Matrix! provides a vehicle that for the first time intensively and internationally promotes the standardisation of an educational and further training system in and for the event and meeting industry. At the core of the project is the development of an educational plan that will allow for an European-wide recognized set of quality standards for future educational qualifications for all industry segments, including both form and content, as well as comparable and uniform certification. This pilot project should contribute a set of concrete execution suggestions for the political-educational goals of the European Union.
Numerous industry segments in Germany and other European countries are involved to the project, including theatres, event agencies, congress and exhibition centres, etc. Responsible project partners include companies, agencies, suppliers, manufacturers/producers and Freelancers from all over Europe.
In its first phase the project committee focused on further procedures and the current status of vocational education in the events industry in Europe. This phase also served to define commonalities and differences and the definition of an common goal for the future developments.
This phase examined the need for specialists within the events industry and a structure for their qualifications. From this investigation the committee defined a series of job profiles with the goal of aligning educational and training opportunities to specific demand.
Agencies, clients, freelancers and event suppliers were asked to take part in a data survey. Respondents clearly expressed a need for interdisciplinary European-wide recognized basic training.
Many respondents preferred a "training on the job" scenario with supporting training seminars. The responses also clearly showed a trend towards more interdisciplinary co-operation and international exchange which looks set to increase in the future.
The largest challenge is seen to be the integration of theoretical training and indispensable social authority or softskills within temporal and financial limitations. Nevertheless it has become clear that present operational planning and career paths are quite comparable across the Event and Meeting sector in the European Union.
Apart from technical and further qualifications which will require the input of “European“ specialists, the first phase of the project also searched for an optimal switching structure for an avenue for lateral entry of specialists from beyond the EU.
The second project phase of the project plans to implement the development of three prototype curriculae for Europe. While the first phase was compiled with by all partners, the second phase is structured into workgroups or Taskforces.
At a Project meeting in the European Headquarters Office of PGI Live Communication in Stuttgart, the participants discussed and defined the sample curricula and agreed on the elaboration of three specific job profiles - "Creative Director", "Event Manager" and "Stage Manger”.
The choice of these three profiles makes it possible to integrate a view on many levels: "basic training" is completed through the “Stage Manager”; the “Event Manager”, beyond the basic training also forms a level of further training and the “Creative Director” provides a curriculum for the further adult training in a seminar form. Oliver Klein, the Project Manger sayes: "With these three profiles it is very easy to point out the multidisciplinary nature and links within the range of creative management technology."
These three Taskforces are supplemented by two further groups; the Taskforce "Softskills" and "CPS" (Credit POINT system; standardized preliminary stage of a uniform certifying of education programs in Europe). The first Taskforce is already examining the integration of Softskills in a curriculum and the place of these Softskills within the admission of training. The CPS group is working on the adaptation of existing CPS for the sample curriculas, in order to create not only a link to other training and courses, but also in particular to create a standard for the Event and Meeting industry as a standard.
Extensive documentation of results and information about all project partners can be found at: http://www.leonardo-matrix.com.
The project will be represented at EVENT.KOMM ‘05 on the 7th and 8th April 2005 in Bremen (http://www.event-komm05.de). The next conference for matrix partners takes place in May 2005 in Vienna
9th March 2005
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