European maritime industry companies face challenges in getting enough qualified labour force. Companies focus more on their core businesses and are more dependent on other core business focused companies, which highlights the importance of networks in the industry. At the same time, the increased success and complexity of products have created additional demand for highly skilled staff.

The overall objective of the RADICAL project is to close these urgent skills gaps between the demands of working life and education by developing a new regional implementation model for post-secondary engineering education. The core of the model is work-based learning supported by new VET-businesses mentoring model.

The RADICAL project can be seen as a radical reformation of the enterprise-university-VET provider cooperation in the Blue Industry sector as a whole. The project offers new guidelines and maps for the students and professionals in the career path towards new and better jobs in the shipbuilding industry as a part of the Blue Economy.