Published 6 March 2013
London event celebrates ITM excellence
A celebration event for the ESF Innovation, Transnationality and Mainstreaming (ITM) programme showcased the achievements of its 32 projects took place in London on 27 February 2013.
In true celebratory style, awards were presented to four ITM projects demonstrating excellence in four separate award categories:
- Innovation award winner: Making IT Personal, Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council (ICT and the Digital Divide theme)
- Transnationality award winner: The Aim Partnership, West Mercia Probation Trust (Active Inclusion theme)
- Mainstreaming award winner: Clear About Carbon, Cornwall Development Company (Skills for Climate Change theme)
- General award for the good all-rounder across all three elements: Host Borough’s Employer Offer, Groundwork London (Engaging with Employers theme)
The event was a chance to take stock of the 32 projects’ achievements which spanned six themes:
- social enterprise;
- active inclusion;
- ICT and the digital divide;
- engaging with employers;
- skills for climate change; and
- demographic change.
A series of short films and powerful testimonials by project participants and speakers from external organisations who have benefitted from ITM activity captivated an audience of approximately 100 people. A broad cross section of organisations was represented at the event in addition to the organisations leading the projects. External organisations included: the Mayor’s Office, London; The Department of Health; the European Commission; the National Offender Management Service; Ministry of Justice; Department for Work and Pensions; Jobcentre Plus; Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, Czech Republic; Deputy Mayor of Liverpool; Network for Europe; G4S and Age UK 5050 vision.
Not to miss any opportunity to promote their projects and get ideas into the mainstream, project representatives were proud to present the fruits of their labour during the networking session built into the event. A huge variety of project products were put on show by project managers including: research reports; evaluation reports; on-line courses, off-line courses, training manuals and other products and findings. One particularly quirky gizmo was the ‘Green Gauge – carbon calculator raising awareness of the amount of carbon we use on a daily basis, promoted by the Clear About Carbon project.
The event concluded with a glowing endorsement of the ITM programme from Adrian Neale, the UK Desk Officer at the European Commission who said the programme was ‘looked upon most positively within the EU’. ITM programme evaluator, GHK’s Peter Dickinson also painted a positive picture of the programme which he said had been ‘effective in generating and testing new ideas – many with the potential to be mainstreamed.’ ESF- Works were also represented at the event, urging projects to send their products to them to help ensure the legacy of the programme.