Why is Gest’UP needed?
Across Europe, rapid job transformation and labour shortages in key sectors coexist with persistent exclusion from employment. Underrepresented groups — including unqualified young people, migrants, and long-term unemployed individuals — continue to face significant barriers to professional integration. Gest’UP responds to this challenge with an innovative and inclusive approach: short, targeted micro-training programmes focused on essential professional tasks and directly aligned with the real needs of businesses.
What is Gest’UP?
Gest’UP places professional gestures — the concrete tasks and actions performed in real work situations — at the heart of integration and training pathways. Its ambition is clear: to sustainably improve the employability of people who are far from the labour market by identifying, developing, and recognising skills acquired through hands-on experience.
The project pursues two main objectives:
- Strengthen key skills of people in vulnerable situations through access to practical, short, and certifiable training pathways;
- Facilitate recruitment for companies by valuing what individuals can actually do, beyond formal qualifications.
Built on strong cooperation between companies, training providers, social partners, and support organisations, Gest’UP adopts a hands-on, practice-oriented methodology.
Partners will co-develop:
- A professional skills guide tailored to high-demand sectors;
- Sector-specific catalogues identifying essential professional gestures;
- Certified micro-training programmes tested in real work environments;
- An interactive web platform featuring educational videos demonstrating key job-related tasks.
Skills certification will be formalised through a tripartite agreement between the company, the training organisation, and the learner, ensuring shared recognition and validation of acquired competencies.
Ultimately, Gest’UP seeks to:
- Enhance practical skills for hundreds of beneficiaries;
- Support sustainable career pathways;
- Reduce inequalities in access to high-demand sectors;
- Contribute to the development of a European framework for micro-certification based on modular, flexible learning.