18 projects and student mobility activities funded by the EU's education and training programmes today received the 2009 European Awards for Lifelong Learning. The awards recognise the important role of these innovative and creative projects and activities in modernising education and training systems in Europe.

The European Awards for Lifelong Learning, which exist since 2007, are handed out by the European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Youth, Ján Figel', and the Czech Minister of Education, Youth and Sports, Ondřej Liška. The award ceremony is taking place in the fringes of the annual conference on the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP), 'Create, Innovate and Co-operate', held in Prague, Czech Republic.

Commissioner Figel' underlined that the important of these awards lies in how many different partner organisations from across Europe can work together to develop creative and innovative approaches, tools and training materials in education and training. The Lifelong Learning Programme works to inject innovation into education and training.

18 winners from twelve countries (Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Liechtenstein, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the UK) participating in the Lifelong Learning Programme were selected from among co-operation projects and activities involving numerous European partner organisations. These projects received gold, silver or bronze prizes for their creative and innovative work in six categories: school education (Comenius), higher education (Erasmus), vocational education and training (Leonardo da Vinci), adult learning (Grundtvig), language learning and Information and Communication Technologies.

The six gold-winning projects include an initiative which developed new material and courses to help teachers become 'lifelong learners', an innovative transnational history and research network, an adult learning platform for the Roma community, a training project for specialists and students in circus arts, a language learning approach for adults with learning disabilities and an online interactive learning forum for theatre arts.

In addition, these awards come within the framework of the European Year of Creativity and Innovation, which aims to highlight the important role of creativity and innovation as key elements for personal, social and economic development.

As well as being a showcase of best practices, the conference serves as an open forum for debate on what creativity and innovation in the Lifelong Learning Programme can do both to support education and training systems in Europe and to identify mechanisms that will stimulate entrepreneurship and trigger co-operation between education and the business world.