The national teachers training systems in Europe are based in traditional standardized models not taking into account, most of the times, the outcomes of the research in the field of science teaching. As a result they are losing the chance to respond to the challenges of the 21st century and they are failing to capture young people’s interest for scientific ideas. In addition, the structure of science teachers training systems is not uniform across Europe. The European project, SCIENCE TEACHERS TRAINING ACROSS EUROPE: Establishing a pathway for a common science teachers training framework aims at developing a common initial and in service training framework for science teachers across Europe using in particular, the exchange of experience between policy makers, curriculum developers, researchers, teachers’ trainers and teachers. The project will last two years (started on April 2003). The overall contribution of the project will be the determination of the basic principles and standards for the science teachers’ training that could be applied to the different national training curricula across Europe. In order to meet its objectives the project will evolve through the following steps:

• Identification of the science teachers’ needs
• Correlation survey on the existing training systems
• Identification of successful approaches – case studies across Europe
• Assessment of the exemplary models in different environments across Europe
• Design and Development of a common training framework
• Determination of the science teachers (professional) standards

The main outcome of the project will be a series of four reports, “The pathway to high quality science teaching”, which will present the common European initial and in-service training framework for science teaching in secondary education. In September 2003 the first report about the “Science Teachers’ needs” will be published in GIREP seminar.