Re- & Upskilling for the EU Recovery Plan

Submitted by Tedora Aibu on 18 June 2020

Summary of the European Alliance Against Coronavirus Daily Webinar on 17 June 2020

The daily session was composed by three blocks with three different contributions.

In the first part, André Richier from DG Grow presented the “European Pact for Skill”, a new agenda that will be published on 1 July 2020. It is a tool for upskilling and reskilling of people in the working age and will support the skills necessities identified for the 14 industrial ecosystems as it belongs to the measures for the economic recovery. There will be consultation process starting in July. After the consultations, the Pact will be launched in Berlin, November 2020.

In the second block, Aurelie Lechien from DG Grow focused on the European Cluster Excellence Programme, a programme dedicated to strengthen cluster management excellence and strategic interregional partnering to foster cluster capacity building and SMEs competitiveness. The action aims at facilitating cross-cluster networking and learning to support the professionalisation of specialised and customised business support services to SMEs. Clusters can involve members to be more innovative and implement strategies in terms of skills.

In the third part of the daily session, Cristina Urtiaga from the Cluster GAIA in the Basque Country shared a best practice regarding Talent Management System. It is a tool to attract and train people for the ICT sector and solve the need for professionals in this ecosystem. Their mission is to provide services to members and talents regarding digital skills for the development and growth in the age of digital transformation in order to response at the lack of workforces and skill gap in the ICT sector.

The discussion showed there is a need for clusters to be an integral part in employees’ training. Together with local authorities, universities and VET centres, clusters can design and implement trainings tailored to the direct needs of the companies.