Vocational education and training (VET) systems across Europe face growing pressure to adapt to evolving labour market demands and rapid technological change. Despite reform efforts, many institutions still operate with fragmented curricula and limited opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration or applied learning.

This study explores how design thinking, agile methodologies and collaborative digital tools can enhance VET by supporting the co-design of Innovation Frameworks (IFs) in Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain, with guidance from Irish universities.

First, focus groups with 38 teachers and surveys with 100 teachers and 257 students from six VET schools identified key challenges such as low student motivation, gaps between curriculum and market needs, and difficulty integrating new technologies. Second, a train-the-trainer programme was introduced, enabling school teams to engage with agile and design thinking tools through experiential learning. This capacity-building phase ensured educators could apply these methodologies in their own contexts. Subsequently, cross-disciplinary teams co-designed school-specific IFs through workshops and training. Finally, five schools completed two design sprints. Cross-national interactions, lessons learned, and experiments supported schools to prepare for the final iteration.

This research demonstrates the potential of adaptive innovation processes to foster innovation, collaboration, learner engagement and resilience, offering a replicable model for real-world, practice-oriented learning.