The COVID-19 accelerated the need for augmented collaboration tools within the water sector and especially in water education. The needs in the sector the coming decades are high with current and future transformations – such as climate change, digitalization – for a changing collaboration, new and different skills in personnel. With the focus and ambition in policies of the Green Deal and A Digital Future for Europe, combined with the European Skills Agenda the water sector needs to focus on future generation water professionals in higher education and LLL programs focusing on the early career professional.

To be able to create an impact and apply the needed transformation, the traditional water sector needs to learn to adapt and apply augmented collaboration tools.Within the augmented collaboration tools, serious games play a key role. They are not only the games itself, but the games will be used within the toolkit. The toolkit facilitates the games to support collaboration throughout the different target groups and work towards a joint narrative (storytelling) and other needed soft skills to create true collaboration. A joint skills approach and storytelling will improve collaboration through serious games from a different type of learners and supports the search for common and innovative solutions.

The augmented collaboration toolkit will be developed to support trainers and teachers within higher education and LLL programs to create the shared narrative, the skills to do their work in a digital surrounding. By providing more professional and attractive collaboration tools with the students and young professionals within the water sector will be inspired and supported to achieve their true potential and with that inspire the water sector and other networks to take on the needed changes also for the other generation of Young and Lifelong Learners. We need to develop ourselves from Basic Collaboration – Advanced Collaboration to Augmented Collaborative. We cannot do it by ourselves and need to be supported digitally. It supports the spontaneity needed for creativity and has its benefits of the planned and organized process, resulting in a fully engaged and participative process. The technological tools offer a collaborative working environment and the conditions for people to be productive and learn in the new space. The augmented toolkit will not only focus on technical digital innovations, but it will also focus on the process.

The Augmented Collaboration Toolkit will have a deep IMPACT on the way educators teach and train in organisations and how it is perceived by the participants/ learners. It will support digital transformation by introducing participative teaching and learning in active form of engagement and virtual mobility, engaging not only teachers and learners but also a wide range of stakeholders such as practitioners, experts, specialists, decision-makers and researchers to be able to get engaged in the process of learning in real-life, hybrid or completely digital. It will support the development of transversal and digital skills as well as management and leadership skills engaging learners and trainees into facilitation and using serious games. Creating a shared augmented collaborative toolkit between several organisation will support inter-institutional cooperation and focusing on real-life problems from Northern and South Europe in serious games will help to increase inter-regional cooperation. All the involved serious games create synergies between policy and practice by addressing relevant real-life case studies together with measurable policy interventions.

An augmented collaboration toolkit using serious games methodology is an innovative way to get learning objectives and add game mechanics in a digital environment. It can help an early career, students, and professionals, to easily take the lead with confidence in their field to their colleagues and within other collaborations. Through which not only the partner organizations will be excited to share the knowledge, but also the participants in their careers.Please describe the division of work, the tasks leading to the production of the intellectual output and the applied methodologyThe overall approach is to jointly design the augmented collaboration toolkit between the academia and LLL programs. Connecting not only teachers/ trainers and learners but also other stakeholders in a joined learning experience. This will be done within a Design Thinkers approach; a non-linear, iterative process that teams use to understand users, challenge assumptions, redefine problems and create innovative solutions to prototype and test.

The tasks will be taken in loops of design and redesign. H2O People will be leading the work to create and develop the toolkit.To advance the toolkit, we will assess and possible apply different digital collaboration tools to facilitate serious gaming in all its faces and needed skills to support collaborative learning.

The short-listed digital tools for the augmented toolkit are Miro, GroupMap and How space.
The short-listed collaborative skill development tools are InterVision (peer-coaching) methodology, Deep Democracy (Lewis) and Culture Mapping Tool (Erin Meyer), the toolkit will provide trainers with the trainer tools.

• Emphasize & Define. Partners will apply best practices on collaborative learning online and offline. The Partners Best practice and experiences with collaborations tools in education will be reviewed and applied to the best practices and knowledge on the use of serious games in education and state of the art virtual collaboration tools. This will result in a do’s and don’ts list for the toolkit, the wish list.
• Ideate & Prototype. The knowledge obtained in the first phase will be applied to a draft toolkit description. First ideas will be applied to a creative brainstorm of the Gamified Workshop to come to a prototype of the augmented collaborative toolkit.
• Test, the prototype will be tested within Gamified Workshops and applied within the training programme of EJWP in which also long term and hybrid (virtual mobile) tools can be evaluated with students, LLL target groups and their different teachers/ trainers. After the first feedback round and update of the toolkit, there will be a workshop together with other stakeholders in the water field. The test face is not only creating a better toolkit is also facilitates engagement and connection with networks- of – networks and other projects.

The Intellectual Output will be an augmented collaboration toolkit which connects virtual collaboration tools and tools for skill development which will support the learning experience of serious games within the water sector. The toolkit will be embedded together with the Case Studies into the jointly developed curriculum and Gamified Workshops.