A  —  Accessibility

In construction, accessibility is more than a ramp or a lift — it is the principle that every space must be designed for everyone. In the Erasmus+ world, accessibility means ensuring that vocational education and training programmes are open, reachable, and relevant to all, regardless of gender, background, or circumstance. For CoHER, the two meanings are inseparable: we build access into every wall we raise.

B  —  Blueprint

Every building begins with a blueprint — a precise technical drawing that guides each stage of construction. An Erasmus+ application is the project's blueprint: it maps objectives, timelines, partner roles, and expected outcomes before a single brick is laid. CoHER's blueprint traces a 24-month journey from systemic barriers to structural change in the construction sector.

C  —  Curriculum Development

At the heart of CoHER lies curriculum development — the deliberate redesign of VET programmes to embed gender sensitivity into every module, learning activity, and assessment method. Like laying a foundation, good curriculum work is slow, methodical, and invisible once complete. But everything that stands afterwards depends on it.

D  —  Dissemination

A finished building speaks for itself — you can see it, touch it, walk through it. Project results are less visible until dissemination does its work. CoHER shares its findings through publications, conferences, social media, policy briefs, and open-access toolkits, ensuring that what is built in one country can inspire construction — literal and metaphorical — across Europe.

E  —  Equity

Equality gives everyone the same brick. Equity gives each person as many bricks as they need to build to the same height. CoHER is built on equity, not just equality: it recognises that women entering the construction sector face steeper climbs, heavier loads, and fewer handholds — and designs its programmes to address those specific realities.

F  —  Foundation

No structure survives a weak foundation. CoHER's foundation is a robust transnational partnership, a shared commitment to gender equity, and an evidence-based methodology. In Erasmus+ terms, a strong foundation also means institutional trust between partners — the kind built through honest communication, transparent reporting, and mutual accountability.

G  —  Gender-Sensitive VET

Gender-sensitive Vocational Education and Training goes far beyond adding a module about diversity. It means rethinking language, imagery, learning environments, mentoring structures, and assessment criteria through a gender lens. CoHER's most distinctive contribution is proving that this transformation is not only possible in the construction sector — it is necessary.

H  —  Hard Hat & Hard Skills

The hard hat is the universal symbol of the construction site — a marker of presence, protection, and belonging. Hard skills are what the helmet protects: the ability to read technical drawings, operate machinery, manage a site, and understand building materials. CoHER ensures that women not only wear the hat, but carry the skills and confidence to lead the site.

I  —  Inclusion

Inclusion is one of the cornerstone principles of the Erasmus+ programme — and for CoHER, it is the reason the project exists. The walls of the construction sector are not built only of concrete and steel; they are reinforced by centuries of cultural bias and institutional inertia. Dismantling those invisible barriers is what genuine inclusion demands.

J  —  Job Shadowing

Spending a day alongside a female civil engineer, a site manager, or a master tradesperson — this is job shadowing at its most powerful. As a recognised Erasmus+ mobility format, job shadowing offers participants a live, unfiltered view of what a career in construction actually looks like. In CoHER, it also makes role models visible: proof that women belong on every level of the sector.

K  —  Key Competences

The eight key competences defined in the European Framework — from digital literacy to civic engagement to entrepreneurship — form the backbone of CoHER's curriculum design. A modern construction professional needs far more than technical knowledge: they need to communicate across cultures, adapt to green building standards, and navigate an industry in rapid transformation.

L  —  Load-Bearing Wall & Learning Outcomes

Remove a load-bearing wall and the structure collapses. In project design, learning outcomes serve the same function: they carry the full weight of educational intent. CoHER defines clear, measurable outcomes for every training activity — what participants will know, what they will be able to do, and what attitudes they will carry with them into the industry.

M  —  Mentorship

The apprenticeship tradition in construction is centuries old: knowledge passed from master to apprentice, hand over hand, tool by tool. CoHER reimagines this tradition through a gender-aware mentorship model — pairing young women entering the sector with established professionals who offer not only technical guidance, but solidarity, strategy, and lived experience.

N  —  National Agency

Every Erasmus+ project is anchored to a National Agency — the body responsible for managing and monitoring the programme at country level. CoHER's partners work in close dialogue with their respective national agencies, ensuring compliance, quality, and transparency throughout the project lifecycle. Think of the National Agency as the building inspector: rigorous, essential, and ultimately on the side of quality.

O  —  Output

A construction project's output is a finished building — something you can measure, photograph, and hand over. CoHER's outputs are equally concrete: training modules, educator guides, mentorship toolkits, policy recommendations, and an open-access digital platform. All outputs are published under open licences, freely available to VET providers across Europe.

P  —  Partnership

No building rises without an architect, an engineer, a site manager, and a skilled workforce. No Erasmus+ project creates lasting change without a genuinely collaborative partnership. CoHER's consortium brings together VET institutions, industry associations, civil society organisations, and research bodies — each contributing a different expertise to the same shared structure.

Q  —  Quality Assurance

In construction, the wrong concrete mix is not discovered until the structure cracks — often years later. Quality assurance in project management prevents exactly this: each activity is planned, monitored, evaluated, and improved in real time. CoHER operates both an internal quality mechanism and an independent external evaluation, ensuring that no fault line goes undetected.

R  —  Resilience & Reinforced Concrete

Reinforced concrete is neither concrete nor steel — it is what happens when the two work together. Concrete resists compression; steel resists tension. Separately, each has limits. Together, they become something extraordinary. CoHER builds resilience the same way: by combining individual empowerment with collective support networks, creating women who can withstand the pressures of a demanding industry.

S  —  Scaffolding & Stakeholder

Scaffolding is temporary. It goes up to enable the building, then comes down when the structure can stand alone — and that is exactly the point. In education, scaffolding describes the guided support given to learners until they no longer need it. CoHER provides this scaffolding to women at every stage of their VET journey. Stakeholders — employers, trade unions, sector bodies — are the ones who hold the scaffolding steady.

T  —  Transnational Cooperation

A good practice developed in one country is only as powerful as the network willing to share it. Transnational cooperation — the defining feature of Erasmus+ — allows CoHER partners to test ideas in different national contexts, learn from each other's failures as much as their successes, and build solutions that are robust enough to travel across borders.

U  —  Upskilling

Construction is not what it was a decade ago. BIM (Building Information Modelling), green building certification, smart sensors, and sustainable materials have transformed the sector. CoHER's upskilling programmes equip women — both newcomers and those already in the workforce — to lead this transformation rather than be left behind by it.

V  —  VET — Vocational Education and Training

VET is the arena in which CoHER operates — and the vehicle through which lasting change in the construction sector becomes possible. Across Europe, VET programmes train millions of people for skilled employment every year. Yet women remain dramatically underrepresented in construction VET pathways. CoHER works to change this, not just by adding women to existing programmes, but by transforming the programmes themselves.

W  —  Women in Construction

Across Europe, women represent roughly 12% of the construction workforce — a figure that has barely shifted in decades. Behind that statistic are systemic barriers: gender stereotyping in career guidance, unwelcoming site cultures, lack of flexible working arrangements, and an absence of visible role models. CoHER treats this not as a pipeline problem but as a structural one — and structural problems require structural solutions.

X  —  Cross-Sectoral Impact

X marks the unknown. In mathematics, it is the variable we are solving for. In CoHER, the unknown — and the ambition — is the project's cross-sectoral impact: ripple effects that extend beyond construction and VET into employment policy, urban planning, gender equality legislation, and social cohesion. We do not yet know how far the waves will travel. That is precisely why we keep building.

Y  —  Youthpass & Recognition

Youthpass is Erasmus+'s tool for recognising non-formal learning — a document that makes visible what participants have gained beyond a classroom. CoHER adopts this spirit of recognition across all its training activities: every woman who completes a CoHER programme receives formal documentation of her competences, acknowledged across European borders and by industry partners.

Z  —  Zero Barriers

This is where CoHER is headed: a construction sector with zero barriers to entry based on gender, origin, or background. Not a slogan — a structural target. Every training module, every mentorship session, every policy recommendation produced by this project is a brick laid toward that goal. Because the most important building CoHER will ever complete is the one that finally makes everyone feel they belong inside it.