Beyond the Project: What Lifelong Guidance 5.0 Has Changed for Its Partners
When a European project comes to an end, it is tempting to look back at what was delivered: the activities, the resources, the meetings and the events.
But perhaps a more important question is what partners take with them.
Has the project changed the way they think? Has it introduced new perspectives into their organisations? Has it created relationships that will continue? And, ultimately, has it changed the way they see the future of guidance?
For Lifelong Guidance 5.0, the answer seems to be yes.
Following the project’s milestone conference in Vienna, we asked three partners from very different organisational backgrounds one question: What added value does Lifelong Guidance 5.0 bring to your organisation?
Their answers reveal three different perspectives — but also a common thread: the future of guidance cannot be approached from one perspective alone.
Finding others who are asking the same questions
For Matthias Trauner, Project Lead at Die Wiener Volkshochschulen, one of the most valuable aspects of Lifelong Guidance 5.0 has been the opportunity to connect with organisations across Europe.
Networking is an important part of the project, but for Matthias it goes beyond simply making new professional contacts.
There is value in discovering that organisations working in different countries and contexts are facing many of the same questions.
“One of the main key takeaways is definitely that we share the same views about the future — or that we share maybe, in some respects, the same fears about the future.”
Those questions are increasingly pressing for guidance professionals. How will the profession develop? What questions will people bring to counsellors in the coming years? And how will counsellors themselves adapt to a changing environment?
For Die Wiener Volkshochschulen, the project has provided both a European network in which to explore these questions and practical opportunities for professional development.
One example is the modular training programme organised through Lifelong Guidance 5.0, in which the organisation’s counsellors participated.
For Matthias, therefore, the added value is both practical and strategic: counsellors gain new opportunities to learn, while the organisation gains a broader European perspective on where the profession is heading.
And perhaps there is particular value in discovering that the uncertainties are shared.
The future may be difficult to predict, but partners do not have to think about it alone.
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A new mindset around skills and the future of work
For Johan Bürger Hyllienmark, CEO of Industrial Development Centre Jämtland/Härjedalen (IDC), the project has brought a different perspective.
IDC works with competitiveness in Swedish industry, making it somewhat unusual within a project focused on lifelong guidance.
As Johan puts it:
“We’re the odd ones in this project, I would say, and we are the private sector.”
Yet this difference has become one of the organisation’s strengths within the partnership.
Johan describes the project as having created “a new mindset” for the organisation.
His perspective starts with a question that is crucial for industry: where are the skills gaps, and how can we understand and address them?
At the Vienna conference, IDC shared its experience of revealing skills gaps through a validation process connected to its business development work.
For Johan, participating in Lifelong Guidance 5.0 has helped connect this work with a wider discussion about the future.
“For us being part of this project, we’ve been really interested in knowing what the skills gaps are and how we can find our future competence.”
This is an important contribution to the wider conversation about guidance.
Career decisions do not happen in isolation from the labour market. The skills people have, the skills employers need and the opportunities available in different regions are closely connected.
Bringing an industrial development organisation into the conversation creates an opportunity to look at guidance from the other side of that equation — from the perspective of changing skills needs and the future competitiveness of industry.
The result is not simply better understanding of skills gaps. It is, as Johan describes it, a new way of thinking about the future.
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For Kees Schuur of the Foundation for Validation of Prior Learning (VPL), the added value of Lifelong Guidance 5.0 is rooted in a fundamental question: what comes after traditional career guidance and counselling?
For an organisation focused on the evaluation and recognition of prior learning, this is particularly relevant.
People do not stop developing once they have chosen a career. Their competences, interests and circumstances continue to change throughout life.
Kees sees Lifelong Guidance 5.0 as part of this next step:
“We need a next step after career guidance and counselling. We have life guidance and lifelong guidance.”
That shift is becoming even more significant in a society where information is everywhere and artificial intelligence is increasingly becoming part of everyday life.
For Kees, guidance therefore needs to respond to a much broader range of life situations — from young people making their first educational and career choices to older people continuing to develop their lives and make use of their competences after retirement.
The question is no longer simply: What career should I choose?
It is also: How can I continue to develop, use and value my competences throughout the different phases of my life?
This is where validation of prior learning and lifelong guidance meet.
People bring knowledge, experience and competences with them. Recognising those assets can help them understand their possibilities and make informed decisions about what comes next.
There is no single future
Although the three partners come from very different contexts, their reflections point towards a common conclusion.
The future of guidance cannot be reduced to one model, one profession or one solution.
As Kees puts it:
“It is not one world but it is actually the differences, the many possibilities to reach a goal.”
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That diversity is precisely where European cooperation can add value.
A guidance organisation in Vienna, an industrial development organisation in Sweden and a foundation working with validation of prior learning may approach the future from very different starting points. Yet bringing those perspectives together creates something that none of them could develop alone.
The project has created opportunities to exchange methods and experiences, but also something less tangible: a shared space for asking difficult questions about what comes next.
For Matthias, that means discovering that counsellors across Europe share many of the same hopes and concerns.
For Johan, it means looking at skills gaps and the future of industry through a new lens.
For Kees, it means imagining guidance that extends across the whole life course and responds to a society increasingly shaped by digitalisation and artificial intelligence.
What remains after Lifelong Guidance 5.0?
The project may now be coming to an end, but its questions remain very much alive.
How should guidance evolve as artificial intelligence becomes more important?
How can counsellors prepare for new expectations from the people they support?
How can guidance connect more effectively with employers and changing skills needs?
And how can people be supported not just at one career crossroads, but throughout the different stages and transitions of their lives?
The answers will not come from one organisation or one European project.
They will come through continued experimentation, dialogue and cooperation.
That may ultimately be one of the most important legacies of Lifelong Guidance 5.0: not a single answer to the future of guidance, but a stronger community equipped to keep asking the right questions.
As the project closes, the network, knowledge and perspectives developed through it can continue to shape what comes next.
Because lifelong guidance is, by definition, never really finished.
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