Sector Skills Alliance Blueprint projects aim to support skills needs of the industry
by Vytaute Ezerskiene | Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) | EO4GEO Project Officer
Technological progress and globalization in many sectors including the space industry are changing the working environment very rapidly. Digital and other new developments are continually reshaping the industries and the ways of working. These changes offer enormous opportunities for growth, but they also require skilled and adaptable people. However, the industry calls for action: skills gaps and mismatches are striking. Many people work in jobs that do not match their talents. At the same time, 40% of European employers have difficulty finding people with the skills they need to grow and innovate.
A Blueprint for Sectoral Cooperation on Skills was designed as part of the New Skills Agenda for Europe to offer a strategic response to sectoral skills needs. The ten actions of the New Skills Agenda, adopted by the European Commission in June 2016, are aiming to improve the quality and relevance of training and other ways of acquiring skills; make skills more visible and comparable and improve information and understanding of trends and patterns in demands for skills and jobs (skills intelligence) to enable people make better career choices, find quality jobs and improve their life chances. The Blueprint is going to reinforce the cooperation between key stakeholders in various sectors such as businesses, social partners, public authorities, research organizations and education institutions by supporting overall sectoral strategies and developing concrete actions to address short and medium-term skills needs.
The Blueprint for Sectoral Cooperation on Skills was included as Lot 3 of the Erasmus+ Sector Skills Alliances call for proposals published in 2017 by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). The first five Blueprint projects were selected in the following pilot sectors: automotive, maritime technology, space/geo information, textile-clothing-leather-footwear, and tourism. EO4GEO — Towards an innovative strategy for skills development and capacity building in the space geo information sector supporting Copernicus User Uptake’ is the Blueprint for Sectoral Cooperation on Skills funded for the space/geo-information sector.
The projects were successfully launched and started their activities in January 2018 and will deliver final results in December 2021. A careful monitoring is implemented by EACEA in close cooperation with the European Commission to support the EO4GEO alliance in reaching the objectives of the project and to ensure that the project outputs would be long-term and sustainable.
