MESO Events Hub wins Erasmus+ support for Music Industry Skills

We are happy to announce that MESO Events Hub has been selected for funding under the Erasmus+ 2026 programme for the new project “Vocational Pathways to the Music Industry”, a two year project exploring how vocational education can respond more closely to the professional realities of today’s music sector.

The project has been approved under the Erasmus+ 2026 KA210 VET Small scale Partnerships in Vocational Education and Training programme, coordinated in Greece by IKY, the State Scholarships Foundation. It will run from October 2026 to October 2028, bringing together MESO Events Hub with Idea OK in Skopje, North Macedonia, and the Educational Association of Athens HFAISTOS.

Preparing people for an industry that keeps changing

Much of the conversation around the future of music today focuses on technology, platforms, AI, new business models and changing patterns of music consumption. But there is another part of that transformation that matters just as much: how people entering the sector learn to navigate it professionally.

Artists and young professionals may leave education with strong creative or technical skills, while still having relatively little structured exposure to the mechanisms that increasingly determine whether a career can become sustainable: digital distribution, metadata, rights, contracts, revenue streams, entrepreneurship, live sector operations and the realities of freelance and project based work.

“Vocational Pathways to the Music Industry” is designed to work on that gap. Rather than proposing a new formal curriculum, the project will develop short, modular vocational learning units that can complement existing education and professional development programmes. The aim is to translate real music industry practices into learning outcomes that educators can teach, professionals can contribute to, and emerging talent can actually use.

Digital transformation runs across the project as a central theme, including platform dynamics, streaming revenues, metadata, discoverability and digital rights management.

The first step will be to work directly with people from the sector. The consortium plans to consult 6 to 10 music industry professionals to identify and validate some of the most relevant competence gaps facing emerging professionals today. Based on this work, the partners will develop a Music Industry Competence Framework and a target of five short vocational training modules.

The learning will be built around practical situations rather than theory alone. This can include cases related to release planning, platform exploitation decisions, metadata, licensing routes, contract clauses and live production workflows.

Once developed, the modules will move into a pilot phase in Greece. The project plans to involve 20 to 35 VET learners and early career professionals, combining trainer led learning, guided self study and applied tasks.

Alongside the training, music industry professionals will participate as mentors, bringing real cases, professional perspectives and direct feedback into the learning process. The project foresees 6 to 10 structured mentor inputs, sessions or case walkthroughs during the pilot.

The purpose is not simply to deliver a series of seminars. The pilot will be evaluated with learners, trainers and mentors so that the consortium can understand what works, what needs to be improved and which approaches can realistically be integrated into vocational and continuing professional development environments.

A consortium connecting industry, education and learning design

The partnership has been built around three complementary roles. MESO Events Hub coordinates the project and brings its connection to music industry professionals, creative sector networks, mentoring, stakeholder engagement and European cooperation. Within the project, MESO will contribute industry expertise and real cases, support the mentoring programme and lead the work around sustainability, dissemination and wider sector engagement.

Idea OK, based in Skopje, brings 20 years of experience in vocational education and instructional design. Its work focuses on competence based learning, modular curricula, learning outcomes, assessment methodologies and trainer resources. Idea OK will lead the design and development of the vocational modules and ensure that industry knowledge is translated into structured, transferable learning.

HFAISTOS Educational Association of Athens brings 22 years of experience in vocational and lifelong learning and works as an accredited training provider. HFAISTOS will provide the training environment and lead the pilot implementation, helping test the modules with real learners and trainers.

We will share more about the programme, partners, activities and opportunities to participate as the project officially begins.

Project: Vocational Pathways to the Music Industry
Programme: Erasmus+ 2026, KA210 VET
Project reference: 2026-1-EL01-KA210-VET-000462719
Duration: October 2026 to October 2028
Coordinator: MESO Events Hub
Partners: Idea OK, North Macedonia and HFAISTOS Educational Association of Athens, Greece