About the conference

The annual conference of the Lifelong Learning Programme will be held in Barcelona, at the Eurostars Grand Marina Hotel on 19 May under the auspices of the Spanish Presidency of the European Union, in close cooperation with the Spanish National Agency (OAPEE) and the European Commission. This event will be an excellent occasion to debate the direction of the future education and training programmes funded by the European Union. The central topic will be “Looking beyond 2013”.

The Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP) is a joint project of all European countries designed to facilitate exchange, cooperation and mobility between education and training systems in participating countries. It is a strong commitment oriented towards fostering a united Europe and making education accessible for people of all ages, regardless of socioeconomic status. The Lifelong Learning Programme strengthens social cohesion, active citizenship, intercultural dialogue and equality between men and women.

During this conference, the focus will be on the role of the Lifelong Learning Programme in its various aspects, and the deepening need for Europe to have high quality, flexible educational systems and training. In turn, this will support citizens in reaching their full potential and in preparing for the workplace, promoting social inclusion and the assumption of responsible citizenship.

During this one-day event a vision for the new programme 2014-2020 will be presented under European Union and national policy perspectives with the keynote speeches of the European Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou and the Spanish Minister of Education Ángel Gabilondo. In addition, the keynote speech of the EAC Director General Jan Truszczynsky will be about the achievements of the current programme, which are useful lessons to build the future programme in the areas of education and training, and will link it to the award ceremony presenting results of six outstanding activities across Europe. In the afternoon four workshops will be an excellent opportunity to concentrate on the discussion on relevant areas for the future programme: mobility, partnership, management simplification and social inclusion. This last subject is a priority of the current programme LLP and addressed in the European Year 2010. The results of the workshops will be shown at a round table.

As accompanying communication activities, there will be the photography exhibition “Youth against social inclusion” and an exhibition of the 27 projects included in the brochure "European Success Stories," published by the European Commission in 2010.

Ultimately, our aim is to promote an active dialogue among participants to obtain significant contributions regarding the activities of the next generation of the Lifelong Learning Programme.