The maritime sector is strategically important for the EU, as it directly employs over 640,000 workers at sea and onshore and it supports over 1.4 million workers through indirect employment, with a total share of EUR 147 billion in the European Union’s GDP. The shipping industry could achieve even greater results, by responding to the European Green Deal which aspires to fight climate change and environmental degradation by turning Europe into a climate-neutral region by 2050. Overall, the maritime industry walks on its complete decarbonization and sustainable operation, constantly evolving and striving for increased innovation, not only with regard to the applied technologies but its human resources as well.
Within this context, UpSailing Project aims to introduce a holistic methodology which will bridge VET Education and Maritime/Shipping Industry, promote a green certification system and contribute to the respective policy dialogue with lessons learnt and good practices that will be developed throughout the project, starting from the participating countries (Italy – Greece – Malta – Portugal) and then expanding it to other European countries.
Project objectives are the basic pillars of the project, and they remain the same throughout the project. They provide a common overview of the importance of collaborating in view of a common scope. Having agreed on a set of objectives, partners will make a commitment to perform specific actions that will enable the project outputs and deliverables to be achieved.
The project objectives include:
Erasmus+ KA2 – Strategic Partnership in VET
2021-1-IT01-KA220-VET-000034700
296.428,00 €
02/2022 – 02/2024 (24 months)
Germany, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal
BK-con entails broad experience in EU funded projects, at a development and implementation level. Being founded in 1994, we have over 30 years of expertise in transnational projects having participated in the design and implementation of a total Project value that exceeds the budget of 4 billion Euros.

