Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) awareness of the importance of digitalization in boosting business development and competitiveness is growing. The insufficient experience and qualifications of prospective employees is one of the main obstacles that European SMEs must overcome.

In order to address this problem, the European project EAGLE, funded under the Digital Europe Programme (DIGITAL), is creating and offering free, high-quality specialized training programs that reflect the most recent advancements in the previously mentioned key capacity areas. These programs will help managers and employees in SMEs develop advanced digital skills.

During the first year of implementation four working groups have been established supporting course content, evaluation and quality, enrolment, and accreditation. The consortium successfully delivered the assessment of user needs and digital skills evaluation, the research design, and circulation and analysis of survey and focus group data to deeply understand the digital competences and requirements of SME business associations. Furthermore, a useful course comparison mapping exercise was delivered to identify content duplication or overlaps in learning outcomes.

The results of the peer review and the pilots have been very positive and provided constructive comments to obtain the final version of the courses. Following the course review and taking the feedback from the Pilot and Peer Review into account, the Final Version of the Courses was delivered.

Additionally, an enrolment process for the courses has been established. Admission criteria have been defined to follow a set of guiding principles: easily understood by applicants, transparent and fair, based on principles that are applied consistently across the universities. The students must comply the following criteria: the age of the students must be higher or equal to 16; students must belong at least to one of the targeted collectives identified in the EAGLE project; students must commit themselves to complete the course and to participate in the course quality evaluation processes set out in the project, including the completion of questionnaires for statistical and research purposes.

To ensure the effectiveness of our courses and to gather feedback for continuous improvement; upon completion of each course, participants have been asked to complete questionnaires designed to assess various aspects of the course, including the applicability of the content, the effectiveness of the teaching methods, and the overall learning experience. The feedback received is considered invaluable in helping assess the quality of our courses and make necessary adjustments for future iterations.

In order to promote the project results and maximize their impact, a joint Communication and dissemination strategy was defined as a draft at the beginning of the project by the communication and dissemination Manager.

As a proof of the interest attained, preliminary figures of the first iteration of the project include a total of 257 enrolment applications, from which 156 participants from 104 different companies could be accepted within the limits in the number of learners observed by each of the organizing partners. At the current stage, a percentage of 81.5% of participants who have completed the trainings, have expressed their satisfaction with the activities.

Keywords: SMEs, Workplace Learning, Digitalization, ICT.