As the European labour market is becoming more and more flexible and changeable,disadvantaged people (because of old age and/or low skills and/or because expelledafter company crises) have many difficulties in maintaining access to the labour market.A “non-working phase of life” should not represent an interruption of active life, but itshould be used to develop new competences and to find new occupationalopportunities.The consortium of the “Re-Start” project, which includes 2 VET Centres, a ResearchCentre, a University and a Trade Union Organisation, aims to develop and share acommon and innovative approach for helping disadvantaged people to access again thelabour market.The project will:• compare the different approaches already available in each partner country concerningwork reintegration for those who have lost their job, through comparative studies;• develop, test and validate an integrated approach (developing innovative tools fortransition like “new experience contracts”) directed to the working reintegration of oldand low-skilled workers and draw up guidelines for testing and for an easy geographicaldiffusion;• transfer the successful results to other service providers and to decision-makersthrough local seminars, a final conference, the project website, a comprehensivepublication and mainstream the good practices through the signature of localagreements for labour policies.The main impact of the project will be to help the target group to re-enter the labourmarket through integrated transition pathways, and to have effective tools (like newexperience contracts) for reducing the time of unemployment. This will help achieve theLisbon goal for a 50% employment rate among 55-64 year olds by 2010, promote activelife for marginalized groups and reduce social assistance costs, according to theGrundtvig priority of “promoting adult learning for marginalised and disadvantagedcitizens”.