The TRAIN4BLUE project officially launched on 3 October 2025 with its Kick-off Meeting hosted by UNIVERSUS CSEI in Bari, Italy. The event gathered all partners from Italy and Greece, together with representatives of the Joint Secretariat of the Interreg Greece–Italy Programme, marking the formal start of the project’s activities.
TRAIN4BLUE aims to strengthen blue-economy skills and employment opportunities for young people, particularly NEETs, by developing cross-border training programmes, entrepreneurial pathways, and an innovative AI-driven platform that maps skills needs and labour market trends.
This meeting marked the formal start of the project’s activities and provided an opportunity to confirm shared objectives, review the implementation framework, and coordinate the first steps across the development of the methodology for analysing blue-economy training needs, and the development of the future AI platform that will support upskilling and job matching.
Partners expressed their commitment to strengthening cooperation and delivering concrete opportunities for young people and NEETs in the Blue Economy sector.
As a next step, the consortium will soon launch surveys addressed to young people, NEETs, stakeholders, and organisations active in the Blue Economy. These surveys will help map existing skills, training offers, and labour market needs in both countries, forming the basis for the project’s training programmes and further activities.
The meeting concluded with a positive and collaborative spirit, setting the foundations for two years of intensive joint work toward upskilling youth, fostering innovation, and supporting sustainable blue growth in the programme area.
