The PortAbility Centre of Vocational Excellence (CoVE) has reached a major milestone with the completion of its Blueprint: a shared framework for skills, inclusion and cooperation in Europe’s port city regions.

PortAbility supports just transition in the port city regions of Taranto, Andalusia, Volos/Thessaly and Cyprus, drawing on Hamburg’s experience. The initiative brings together vocational education and training providers, port authorities, employers, chambers of commerce, trade unions, universities, NGOs, social enterprises and public bodies to strengthen skills, inclusion and cooperation in port city transition.

Over the past year, Rinova has led the Blueprinting phase: a structured process of applied research, stakeholder engagement, comparative analysis and synthesis across the PortAbility partnership. This work brought together evidence from all partners and from four regional contexts, including desk research, stakeholder consultation, social inclusion case studies, cluster analysis and an academic literature review developed by PortAbility university partners and published open access in Sustainability Journal.

The resulting PortAbility Blueprint provides the shared evidence base for the next phase of the CoVE. It identifies the main challenges, priorities and opportunities facing Europe’s port city regions, from green and digital skills to social inclusion, from stakeholder cooperation to flexible learning pathways.

The analysis shows that just transition in port city regions depends on more than infrastructure, technology and investment. It depends on people, skills, social inclusion and cooperation. It also confirms the central role of vocational education and training in helping workers, learners, trainers, employers and communities participate in change, rather than simply adapt to it.

For Rinova, the Blueprinting process reflects a core area of our work: designing participatory, evidence-informed methods that connect local realities with transnational learning and action. The Blueprint translates complex regional evidence into a shared framework that can now inform PortAbility’s competency framework, learning resources, training activities, upskilling actions, study visits, national events and wider cooperation between partners and stakeholders.

A key next step will be the development of PortAbility’s transnational and local Communities of Practice. Rinova will lead the methodology for this work, building on previous experience in initiatives such as NERAVET and on our wider involvement in the CoP CoVE network. The Communities of Practice will support partners and stakeholders to exchange knowledge, identify skills needs, share local experience and shape practical actions for training, inclusion and cooperation.

From 2026 to 2028, Local Communities of Practice will be established in Italy, Spain, Greece and Cyprus. They will bring together vocational education and training professionals, port authorities, employers, chambers of commerce, trade unions, researchers, NGOs, social enterprises, public bodies and local development actors working to strengthen VET for just transition in Europe’s port city regions.

The PortAbility Blueprint marks an important step from shared evidence to shared action. It gives the partnership a common basis for developing practical resources and building stronger regional skills ecosystems rooted in inclusion, cooperation and place-based transition.

Read the PortAbility Blueprint: Executive Synthesis here:

Find out more about PortAbility: https://portability-project.eu/

The PortAbility CoVE has been co-financed by the European Union. Its contents and materials are the sole responsibility of its authors. The European Commission cannot be held responsible for any use, which may be made of the information contained therein. Project Number: 101194158 Find details on the EC wesbite here: https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/projects/search/details/101194158