H2CoVE

The main goal of H2CoVE is to build local ecosystems for H2 skills in the regions in order to equip the European workforce with the right and necessary high quality vocational skills for industries in the emerging value chains for a hydrogen economy.

The 5 regions involved are Vestland in Norway, Northern Netherlands, Tyrol in Austria, Estonia and Precartharian region in Ukraine, who will pool their knowledge and expertise to build local ecosystems for skills.

The need for investments in infrastructure for production, storage and end-use applications for hydrogen is enormous, a skilled workforce is a prerequisite. The partner regions have complementary assets and specialisations across the hydrogen value chain and through cooperation will help to build capacity across Europe. H2CoVE will contribute to this by:

  1. Connecting and engaging citizens, education and research institutions and businesses for continuous knowledge sharing and innovation in hydrogen skills at European level through a specially designed platform 
  2. Improving required knowledge and skills among students, workers, and the potential workforce on basic and advanced applications for the hydrogen economy 
  3. Developing, updating and testing courses, modules, education programmes which answer the needs of the industry in the partner regions at different VET levels in an inclusive way 
  4. Ensuring European added value and sustainability for project results by embedding and transferring best practice between regions and ecosystems throughout Europe. 

We aim to involve 150 teachers at different VET levels in Train-the-Trainer programmes and attract around 800 stakeholders from the business sector. 1000 employees will take part in upskilling and reskilling activities and 140 students will take part in a specially designed project competition for challenge-based learning. At least 12 project/bachelor/master theses on real challenges in the sector will be written.

Vestland County Council is coordinating the project. Western Norway University of Applied Sciences is Regional Coordinator for Vestland, and the regional team also include Vestland County Council, Fagskolen Vestland, Katapultsenteret Sustainable Energy og Saga Fjordbase AS.  

Project team HVL: Yulia Arinicheva Skåtun (Regional Coordinator Vestland), Adrian Kjær (WP2 leader), Jonathan Økland Torstensen, Velaug Myrseth Oltedal, Norbert Lümmen, Dhayalan Velauthapillai, Siarhei Piashkun, Frederik Rene J Degrave.

Project period: 4 years, 1st March 2024 – 28th February 2028

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.