This website is for information about and discussions on issues of relevance to Aeronet, a pilot project funded under the European Leonardo programme.

AEROnet is an EU Leonardo pilot-project and has the aim to carry out accompanying work into a possible trend of universalisation of qualification requirements due to the accelerating harmonisation of technical and organisational processes in Europe. Raw material, technologies and processes are not only available in broad regions anymore. In fact globalisation - the demand of global markets - has led to a worldwide move to similar ways of organising work and processes at least in certain sectors of industry. This has had an impact on the qualifications required of employees. This in turn means Vocational Education and Training has to adapt to these production-induced tendencies that can be summed up under the headline "internationalisation of technical and economic processes."

Work processes and the use of material change faster and faster in their evolution. Therefore job profiles change more rapidly too and the requirements for workers are not anymore just of a purely technical nature - soft skills and key qualifications are needed to ensure employees have the ability to adapt these changing processes and industrial needs. This also implies evolving ideas and concepts about training and new ways and tools that involve HR development orientated approach to working processes and holistic skills and competencies.

These circumstances are observable to a considerable extent in the aerospace sector. The requirements for high-tech professions are changing more rapidly than in any other sector. This implies also for the aerospace industry introduction of more identical production processes, especially inside the European market where the production of civil airplanes is almost exclusively in the hands of one company: EADS / Airbus. At the moment, however, production processes are split up whereby single major production steps (wings, undercarriage etc.), or even similar production phases, take place in different countries. Training too is devolved and the training of young workers – even if qualified for the same work – takes place according to different training systems under diverse national authorities and legislations. In consequence they are trained in different patterns for similar, if not the same, work.

For the AEROnet project this presents a challenge. Researchers, teachers of vocational schools and managers of EADS wanted to document the existing diversity, the common contents and methods of training and want(ed) to define a core of vocational training in France, Germany, Spain and the UK, where there are major Airbus plants.

The project ran until the end of 2007. On this site you will find documents, interim findings and further information about the project and the training practice in EADS / Airbus plants in the four countries.