Learning outside the framework of institutional education is coming increasingly into the perspective of educational policy. How do young people learn in contexts not designed for learning? What do they learn and can these skills and competencies be made visible? Acknowledgement and recognition of informal learning can help awaken motivation and interest in formal educational processes and make them more successful. Particularly those young people whose achievements in school are insufficient to guarantee a successful start in employment will benefit. However, making use of these competencies requires that the learners themselves recognize these and that they can be made evident to third parties.For this purpose the precursor project ICOVET developed a procedure for the validation of competencies, a manual, and a programme for further training which in ICONET were developed further, and transferred into the support systems. ICONET included 11 partners from 7 European countries.