Background Hyria Education (Hyria) is a multidisciplinary educational institution offering vocational education and training. Hyria was established in August 2009 by merging seven vocational education institutions and adult education centers. Hyria operates in the rapidly growing Hyvinkää – Riihimäki region which has nearly 90 000 residents, 34 000 jobs, and 5000 companies of which many operate internationally. The development of international operations is very important to Hyria and therefore internationalisation is one of the focus points in its strategy and operations. Student and staff mobility have been identified as critical success factors in reaching the objectives set for international activities. The aim is to increase our students’ and teacher’s professional and international skills by offering them a possibility to participate in international mobility programs. By enabling our students and teachers to acquire new skills and knowledge the quality of education increases as well as student’s employment opportunities. At the same time, Hyria serves the needs of the area’s working life by producing a highly skilled workforce. Objectives and expected results The most important objective is the increase of students’ professional skills, knowledge and attitudes by emphasizing the acquisition and development of key competencies of lifelong learning. The exchange period comprehensively enables students to develop those key competencies which are needed for personal fulfillment and development, active citizenship, social inclusion and employment. During the exchange period students encounter new situations; apply already gained knowledge and language skills in practice; learn to use new technological solutions and platforms while communicating with their teachers, friends and family in the home country; and, compare working methods, the acquisition of technical solutions, the level of sustainable development and legislative issues in the host country. In addition, students are able to develop international and personal capabilities such as cultural awareness, language skills, interpersonal skills, individual growth, independence and the ability to work in a multicultural environment. For teachers the project activities give a possibility to update their professional knowledge and understanding of current requirements of a working life. With the help of this project the students’ and teachers’ professional identity gets stronger, and they are able to find out more field-specific professional development possibilities. It enriches the education in many ways and encourages students’ to entrepreneurship and to learning languages. The second objective is to continue the development activities of the mobility processes at Hyria. This time the development activities are focus on the following issues: - Facilitate the implementation of skills demonstration/competence tests abroad (create instructions, process flowcharts etc.) - Moving from short-term co-operation agreements to longer ones (MOU, LOI) - Building up a partner information database for improved information flow within the organization - Creating a centralized mobility process, instructions and orientation to teachers and staff members. Mobility With the help of the project, Hyria aims to reach its objectives for student mobility (10% of young students). The project comprises 8 1student mobility (for 4-15 weeks) covering 25 vocational qualifications. Principally exchange periods are offered to Hyria’s second or third year students (young), but also to adult students and recent graduates. In addition to that we wish to send two special needs students for collecting experiences. Hyria would like to develop international mobility possibilities of special need students in the future. Teacher mobility is connected development of mobility activities (skills demonstration, ECVET) and visiting partners in Italy and Denmark. In addition to that there will be 2 teachers and one work life partner completing 3-week partner visit/work life period is Spain.