As a response to the fact that performing artists are often faced with unemployment, the project sets out to develop and promote alternative employment opportunities for artists who often undertake supplementary work in the Third Sector (not-for-profit and non-governmental organisations, including voluntary work). The project will validate and accredit artists' experiential non-formal learning. Through this accreditation process it expects to enhance artists' employment opportunities. Two of the project partners, the UK and the Netherlands, have developed and are in the process of developing practices for validation and accreditation of artists' alternative skills. These ongoing projects will inform developments by the other project partners with partners learning from each others experience in order to develop a model for the validation and accreditation of (non-formal) post-graduate training in the Third Sector. Common principles for certification, based upon a common student training curriculum, will be researched, piloted and exchanged between the project partners. Possible educational/training models for artists will be tested in Austria, Finland, Ireland and Poland with cultural expectations about educational training programmes also being considered in the development and delivery of country-specific curricula. In addition to targeting individual artists, the project will also target Third Sector employers and social partners in the performing arts, in order to change attitudes regarding the transferable employment skills of the target group. The project will build upon an existing 'Transmission Network', for artists working outside the stage and will further establish a permanent forum for discussion in consideration of the artist's place in changing societies.