Final evaluation report of COMETT II programme
The European Commission has published the final evaluation report of the Community action programme for education and training for technology (1990-1994) (COMETT II). The programme, which had a total budget of ECU 230 million for the five year period of its operation, centred on transnational university-industry cooperation in advanced technology education and training. The activities supported by the programme were in four closely-related component strands: - A: University-enterprise training partnerships (UETPs) on both a regional and a sectoral basis; - B: Transnational mobility programmes for student placement, long placements of graduates and exchanges of personnel between universities and enterprises; - C: Training projects: short training courses, joint training projects, and large pilot projects; - D: Complementary measures. Five calls for applications were launched during the programme's life, with a total of some 3,000 projects accepted. These projects involved over 30,000 organizations from 19 European countries, including the entire higher education sector, over 20,000 companies (of which more than 75% were SMEs) and some 5,000 other types of organizations. The projects involved: - The creation of over 200 UETPs, covering nearly all European regions and many technology and sectoral areas; - The organization of some 40,000 transnational exchanges of students, graduates and personnel; - The organization of almost 10,000 advanced training courses, attended by 250,000 Europeans; - The development of more than 4,500 training materials, of which over a third were software or video based. The projects supported by the programme have responded to training needs in almost all technologies and related areas, and the cooperation encouraged by the programme has often carried on beyond the specific project supported. In this context, it is recognized that the network structure created by COMETT is unique in its ability to organize thousands of exchanges and training courses annually. Given the range of activities developed under the COMETT programme, the Commission's report can only provide a concise overview of what has been, in fact, a very rich and varied Community initiative - of which the main elements have been safeguarded under the new LEONARDO DA VINCI programme.