Various actors are working together to set up EU level action in support of improving citizens’ and organisations’ digital skills.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, digital technologies have proven to be essential for the functioning of our society. Technology has also been widely used as a powerful tool to predict and track the spread, to help diagnose patients and to find a vaccine. The fight against COVID-19 has pushed digitalisation a step further, but it has also highlighted the barriers that Europe is facing to fully grasp its digital potential. One of the barriers is the growing demand for digital skills in areas such as cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and software engineering. To resolve this barrier, there has been a multitude of initiatives involving various stakeholders such as experts from universities, public policy makers and businesses.
Under the next EU budget period (2021-2027), the Digital Europe Programme (DEP) should, amongst others, provide financial support to tackle the skills gap in the digital field. In view of supporting the preparation of the DEP’s skills pillar, the European Commission and Informatics Europe organised the workshop “Bridging the Digital Talent Gap-Towards a Successful Industry” in October 2019. This workshop gathered over 120 experts from various sectors, and the results of the workshop were finally published this month. The report highlights that there needs to be closer cooperation between businesses and universities as this will be the key enabler to boost the education offer in digital technologies and attract students. The academic offer needs to be expanded; there is a need for master courses, short-term trainings and traineeships in AI, cybersecurity and high-performance computing, as well as, interdisciplinary curricula to boost cooperation across sectors. However, none of this is useful if there are no students attracted to a career in technology which is why a key objective is to raise awareness to the importance of technology early on in the school system and expand the knowledge that digitalisation will be shaping every aspect of society. The report underlines that joint action by all stakeholders across the European Union is crucial to increasing the talent pool and making sure that Europe and its Member States develop and progress together.
The new crisis has also brought up a special campaign with a call for pledges by the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition (DSJC) to address the surging need for digital skills. The DSJC is a community supported by the European Commission that focuses on enabling stakeholders to propose initiatives to improve the digital skills gap. It is also a source of exchange that lets companies, schools, non-governmental organisations and any social partner join forces and pave the way for a strengthened digital Europe. The DSJC pledge invites organisations across Europe to join and help provide digital skills to help employees, students, teachers, SMEs, older adults to navigate in these difficult times. The pledge was set up on 30 March and has until now received 124 pledges for actions such as providing coding workshops for children and reskilling young people, but also remote work mentoring. The DSJC offers a Pledge Viewer to overview the pledges.
Additionally, the European Commission has adopted the amended Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Telecom Work Programme 2019-2020 that will continue to support the development of European digital skills and jobs with an additional €11.5 million. There will be new learning opportunities supported by CEF Telecom with a call for designing Master programmes in artificial intelligence with some of the elements being disseminated online through the Digital Skills and Jobs Platform. The call is open to tertiary education institutions alongside excellence centres and relevant industry partners in EU Member States with a total budget of €6.5 million for two Master Programmes. The deadline for submissions is 12 May 2020. European Member States, Norway and Iceland are eligible applicants; Switzerland is not eligible for this call. The amended work programme will also fund the development of the European Digital Skills and Jobs Platform, which facilitates the access, and dissemination of digital skills opportunities. It will serve as a tool for its members and other stakeholders to network and collaborate on common initiatives.
Furthermore, European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) struggle to overcome the challenges of digitalisation as there is a skill shortage within every hierarchic level of SMEs, which is why the report ‘Skills for SMEs’ was launched by the European Commission and the Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME). It aims to research and support how SMEs can obtain the necessary digital skills needed in the field of big data, the internet of things (IoT) and cybersecurity to fully grasp the digital opportunities. This initiative solicited over 200 experts, SMEs and other stakeholders to participate in online surveys, interviews and six workshops; a detailed final project report was published in March. This project created a shared vision for skills development and a toolbox, which will facilitate the implementation of supported measures and an evidence-based roadmap to help SMEs advance their skills development. This initiative also proposes to develop a European Skills 4SMEs Partnership dedicated to build a stronger alliance between the public and private sector.