From 26 to 28 May 2026, more than 130 educators, researchers, teacher trainers and policymakers from 19 countries came together at the Hedy Lamarr Hall in Vienna for the FOOTT PRINTTS International Conference. After three years of Erasmus+ cooperation, these three days brought the project to a close and placed its central result, the FOOTT PRINTTS CPD framework, directly into the hands of the people who will use it.
Dr Norbert Kraker, Vice President of the University College in Vienna, opened the conference, followed by the project coordinators Dirk Kolar and Anna Kapsalis (Bezirksregierung Arnsberg), who framed the days ahead as both a presentation of results and an invitation to act on them. As Dirk Kolar, head of the teacher trainer department in Arnsberg put it: “If you dig into Europe, it’s worth it. If you dive into education, it’s worth it. And how rewarding it is to combine them.”
The opening keynote was delivered by Prof. Chrissi Nerantzi (University of Leeds), Facts, Fairytales and Freedoms: Professional Learning for Educators. She invited participants to question common assumptions about effective CPD and to treat professional autonomy as a condition for meaningful learning rather than an obstacle to it. “We are told stories,” she reminded the room, “but we can come up with our own versions.”
The panel discussion Teacher Professional Development: Now and In The Future brought together Prof Dr. Chrissi Nerantzi, Dirk Kolar, Prof. Zhang (SUNY Brockport, New York) and Marco Pacagnella (OECD/TALIS Analyst). The exchange connected international research and policy with the realities of institutional implementation hosted by Diana Pastoriza from the Teacher Training Center CAFI in Santiago de Compostela.
On the second day, Cormac Noonan (Founder and CEO, Wolf Academy) gave the keynote A Rooted Wellbeing Framework: Strengthening Teacher Wellbeing in a Changing World, making the case for wellbeing grounded in routine, community and everyday school practice, and offering participants concrete tools to take away and experience right on spot.
At the heart of the conference stood the FOOTT PRINTTS work itself. The project team presented the full evidence base: the design and validation of the CPD framework and the milestones throughout the 36month project. This was put into practice in several dedicated FOOTT PRINTTS workshops, where participants designed CPD sequences, planned professional learning in technology contexts and worked directly with the framework, guided by colleagues from Arnsberg, Aalborg and Vienna drawing on their own implementation experience. A dedicated Erasmus+ mobility session, Using the FOOTT PRINTTS Framework for Erasmus+ Course Mobilities, connected the results to the Erasmus+ KA1 institutions ready to apply them. But also our experts from the panel and keynote invited our participants into practical workshops in the afternoon. OECD analyst Marco Pacagnella led a TALIS workshop presenting findings from TALIS 2024 and the Teacher Knowledge Survey 2026, situating our evidence base within the most current international data available and Cormac Noonan invited participants to learn more about teacher wellbeing tools.
The programme reached far beyond project team and keynote participation, with more than 40 contributions from Uppsala University, LMU München, Sumy State Pegagogical University, West Ukrainian National University and many others. Poster sessions on both days gave early career researchers and school teams space to present their work, a moderated round table opened structured discussion to all participants, and a networking evening with live music created new connections across institutions.
The response among participants was clear. Colleagues in and around professional development told us the framework gives language and structure to what good CPD has always required, and that it works as a practical instrument from the first moment it is used.
The FOOTT PRINTTS project is now formally complete, but the framework, the research and the professional community built around it continue. The CPD framework, the Trainer Companion Card and our publications remain freely available, and the framework is already being carried forward in schools, training institutions and Erasmus+ mobilities across Europe.
We warmly thank everyone who joined us in Vienna and helped make these three days what they were. To stay connected with our results and ongoing work explore the framework and publications at www.foottprintts.eu or become a member of our Teacher Education eTwinning Group. You can find the presentations of our conference here: https://bra.taskcards.app/#/board/72ccbeba-ab7d-45b7-9717-4afa02c6263a?token=a6860f72-1f05-4ead-8775-023fe9d0a81b
