The European Conference "Innovations in the Environmental Sector" (INES) has prolonged its Call for Papers until 4th of July due to many requests! All experts from the environmental sector, human resources development, and competence modelling are invited to contribute their own related professional or academic efforts and to present them in a scientific paper and presentation. The conference will take place in Brussels, Belgium on the 21st of September, 2011 and is organized by the European consortium for water competences WACOM. "By sharing the results of the WACOM project with European professionals and academics and asking them to draw upon their own experience, we hope to greatly benefit the discourse concerning innovations for the environmental sector by competence models, E‐Learning and social communities", says Christian M. Stracke, the Coordinator of the WACOM project from the University of Duisburg‐Essen in Germany, ISO Convener and editor of many competence standards and specifications. Additionally, the key note speeches and participation of representatives from the European Commission, competence modelling experts, and European standardisation bodies ensure a competent and influential audience and thus fruitful exchange of ideas.

By this prolonged Call for Papers all experts and practitioners are invited to contribute to our dialogue on competence modelling for the environmental sector and to submit high quality papers describing fully developed results, on‐going work or innovative concepts on the following topics:
• Competence models for the environmental sector
• E‐Learning for the environmental sector
• Social communities for the environmental sector
• Competence modelling in human resource development
• E‐Learning for vocational education and training
• Social communities for vocational education and training
• Learning outcomes and competences orientation
• Job profiles and working places defined by competences
• Standardization of environmental competence models
• Implementation of E‐Learning and social communities
• Harmonization of competence models
This European Conference "Innovations in the Environmental Sector" (INES) is focusing new ways and approaches for the lifelong learning by competence models, E‐Learning and social communities. The 4th conference INES 2011 continues the discussion developed at the first three related European conferences in Vilnius (Lithuania), Budapest (Hungary) and most recently in Bucharest (Romania) last September 2010. The WACOM consortium has organized and utilised these previous opportunities, along with national workshops in each of the WACOM partner countries, to raise the awareness of the stakeholders in the water sector, human resource development, and vocational education and training concerning the benefits and implementations of competence modelling in the water sector.

The conference is organized in conjunction with the European Conference "Competence Modelling for the Water Sector" that will present the major outcome of the European WACOM consortium and initiative for competence modelling in the water sector: The Water Competence Model (WCM) with its tools for harmonized descriptions of job profiles and working places in the water sector. The overall objectives of WACOM are the transfer and adaptation of a competence model to the water sector and its integration and harmonisation with the European Qualification Framework (EQF), thus contributing to European competence standardisation and improving vocational education and training. Attendance at the European conference "Innovations in the Environmental Sector" (INES) is free of charge and requires online registration as places are limited. Submissions of papers related to the conference (max. eight pages) must be sent to the WACOM Consortium by Monday, 16th of May 2011. The submitters are informed about the acceptance of the papers by 13th of June 2011. All accepted will be published in the official proceedings of the European Conference (with ISBN) and distributed to all conference participants and across whole Europe. Specific guidelines and requirements can be found on the INES website at www.learning‐innovations.eu and at www.qualitydevelopment.eu.

Overview of the important dates:
• Paper submission deadline: July 04, 2011 (*prolonged!*)
• Notification of acceptance: July 11, 2011 (*prolonged!*)
• Camera-Ready copy due: July 25, 2011 (*prolonged!*)
• Conference program: September 21, 2011

Direct enquiries and full papers can be sent to the WACOM project manager Xenia Kuhn, University of Duisburg-Essen, via e-Mail to: xenia.kuhn@icb.uni-due.de.