ICT in Textile And Clothing Higher Education and Business

Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency
Erasmus+: Higher Education - Knowledge Alliances,
Bologna Support, Jean Monnet

Programme: Erasmus +

Key action: EPPKA2 - Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Action: KA - Knowledge Alliances for higher education

Proposal: Call for Proposals 2019 - EAC-A03-2018

Application: No 612248-EPP-1-2019-1-BG-EPPKA2-KA

Funding: 999185,00 €

Coordinator of project: Prof. Dr. Eng. Diana Germanova-Krasteva, Technical University of Sofia, Textile Engineering, Bulgaria

Applicant and Partners: 12 partners from 6 EU countries

Legal representative/ contact person of partner: Assoc. prof. Sanja Ercegović Ražić, PhD,  University of Zagreb Faculty of Textile Technology

Dates and duration of the project: 01.01.2020. - 31.12.2022. (36 months)

Summary

Industry has been changing very fast in the last 7-10 years, defined as the 4^th Industrial revolution. The greatest change covers not just the development of the technology and technics, but revolutionary inclusion of digital technologies in any business and human activity. Thus, the business needs new type of workers that are “born” with electronic devices and that have entrepreneurial spirit. These new features of the industry are set in different EU documents, but the main one is the EU Strategy for Industrial Renaissance from 2014.

Textile and clothing Industry is one of the EU important industries with a large inclusion of the labor force. That’s why the new competencies are very important for the workers in this business. According to this, the main aim of the project is to develop a curriculum and syllabuses that meet the requirements (resp. digital and entrepreneurial competencies) of the business to the specialists working in the field of textile and clothing design and production.

The project responds to the tremendous need for industry executives, especially those who work with CAD, CAM, CAE and PLM systems requiring a higher level of ICT proficiency. Additional need is for usage of different forms of Artificial intelligence appliances and big data based technologies.

The curriculum of "Information Technology in Design of Textile and Clothing", which is to be developed, is needed for precisely at providing knowledge and skills for engineering design and production of textiles and clothing on programmable machines. These skills are appropriate for specialists with a Bachelor's degree in the field of technical sciences or ICT. The target groups are both young people who are still looking for their professional realization, and those who already work but need to improve their qualifications.

In order for the curriculum to be responsive to the requirements of the business, the project provides Gap Analysis of common state of the technology and needed specialized technical, digital and entrepreneurial skills. The long-term experience of the consortia partners in the training and education of specialists will allow them to develop a curriculum, the content of which will be in line with the requirements of the business. Prior to its final approval, it will be discussed with industry chambers and associations in partner countries, especially leading ones in Central and Western Europe.

The curricula will be divided in 5 specialized modules that cover the main technologies differentiated in main sub-sectors: Production of Knitted Products, Design and production of wearing, Design and production of clothing, Design and production of technical textile, Industrial engineering and quality control. A syllabus will be developed for each of those 5 sub-sectors. Each of the syllabus will be structured in 3 basic modules: Technical requirements; e, Introduction to Informatics and Information Technology, Entrepreneurship. The ICT and Entrepreneurial modules will be prepared according to mapping analysis and clustering of practices.

The verification of the applicable terms of the Syllabuses and Curricula will be tested in real training in the Universities and in the Business. Thus, the curricula and syllabuses will be practice driven one inspired by the expertise and experience in the leading textile and clothing business and universities in Europe.

Analyses and course materials will be available through both the partners’ sites and the project website. The participants will be able to use and include those materials in their master’s programs either entirely or partially.

Project team at Faculty:

Assoc. Prof. Sanja Ercegović Ražić, PhD
Prof. Martinia Ira Glogar, PhD
Assoc. Prof. Vesna Marija Potočič Matković, PhD
Assoc. Prof. Anica Hursa Šajatović, PhD
Milica Rihtarec
Project web: ICT-TEX project (ict-tex.eu)