The FITT-NESS project was presented by Carina Dantas, CEO of SHINE 2Europe, during the Creative Skills Week 2025 (CSW2025) in Prague, at the session “Regional Skills Ecosystem Partnerships.”
As part of this high-level panel moderated by Gisa Schosswohl, Carina had the opportunity to highlight FITT-NESS as a good practice example of the importance of regional partnerships in building resilient, inclusive skills ecosystems, illustrating how regional collaboration can drive innovation and support Europe’s green, digital, and social transitions.
The session, moderated by Gisa Schosswohl, brought together a broad group of practitioners and policy actors to discuss how regional initiatives can align local strategies with Europe’s green, digital and social transitions — topics that are central to FITT-NESS’s ambition to boost interregional investments and capacity in smart homes and inclusive environments.
FITT-NESS was showcased as a concrete example of how focused regional partnerships can help the furniture and built-environment sectors navigate the twin transition.
FITT-NESS used the event to underline the concrete assets it is developing for regions and companies. These include a programme of twinning actions to foster peer learning across territories, targeted capacity-building and training modules for facilitators and SMEs in the furniture and smart-home value chains, and policy guidance aimed at unlocking interregional investment opportunities. The project is also convening an advisory board of experts to help shape its strategic direction and to ensure outputs are aligned with both market needs and public policy levers. These tools and governance mechanisms are being designed so regional partners can adapt and scale them according to local needs.
The discussion at Creative Skills Week not only reaffirmed the need to identify and close skills mismatches but also highlighted practical pathways for embedding long-term competences into regional development. By presenting FITT-NESS alongside related initiatives, the session fostered cross-sector exchange and produced practical feedback that the project will use to refine its training materials and twinning formats. Participation at events like this also supports FITT-NESS’s outreach to potential collaborators and regional authorities interested in piloting the project’s approaches.
FITT-NESS will build on the momentum from Prague by rolling out its twinning actions, finalizing training curricula and continuing to engage regions and clusters in pilot activities that demonstrate how smart, inclusive design can be a driver of competitiveness and social value.
We are proud to be part of this dialogue and look forward to continuing our engagement in shaping the future of skills and partnerships across Europe.