Joint cross-border vocational education and training (cross-border IVET) entails long-term stays abroad as a part of the apprenticeship. It is important to establish and embed this stay abroad in the structures of vocational systems as an additional qualification. This step will enhance the appeal of vocational trainings in the crafts and skilled trades sector and foster oppportunities for young skilled workers on the labour market. A noticeable professional benefit occurs only after a stay of several months abroad. In an extended period abroad, the apprentices become part of the team and are integrated into daily routines. They learn about different procedural methods and gain important professional competencies.The growing Europeanization of markets requires a stronger internationalization of vocational education and training. This is the only way of substantially maintaining the economic power of companies and the employability of employees. However, structured assistance for implementation and adequate assessment instruments are not yet available. As a result, young people undertake only short-term stays abroad lasting just a few weeks, internship included. This adds less value to their professional education. There are also not yet adequate European instruments to evaluate the benefits of such measures.This project seeks to create conditions allowing the easy and successful use of GVA as an obvious qualification in connection with apprenticeship. Structural pre-conditions and operational implementation are taken into account. To optimize structures, the project will clarify general legal and financial conditions while taking into account networking between and qualification of facilitators at home and abroad and the inclusion of multipliers (opinion leaders). Comprehensible assessment measures for competencies gained during a stay abroad will be clarified and developed if necessary. To optimize the operational implementation of cross-border IVET, practical concepts and tools will be developed and tested. It is also important to ensure a systematic and continuous academic approach during the stay abroad to prevent learning deficits and to diminish apprentices' fears of receiving lower marks in exams due to their stay abroad. Therefore teaching concepts and contents will be developed using a web-based learning system. Project partners will view themselves as an interface between educational systems and potential users. These partners have experience in the development of qualification concepts and in their general implementation into the educational system. Owing to their practical orientation, they also know about the needs of apprentices and companies and how to implement new qualification offers in actual practice. Some of the project partners are long-standing and reliable partners of HWK Münster who have handled short-term stays abroad for apprentices and who are quite familiar with the challenges faced in mobility actions. Joint cross-border vocational education and training established and embedded in the structures of educational systems will foster mobility of employees even after apprenticeship. This will facilitate companies' business activities abroad. The project will lay the groundwork for introducing long-term stays abroad during apprenticeship as a standard part of European educational systems.