Stride for stride for skills adaptation/anticipation in European Regions Erasmus Project

Project Title

Stride for stride for skills adaptation/anticipation in European Regions

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Overcoming skills mismatches (basic/transversal); Cooperation between educational institutions and business; Regional dimension and cooperation

Project Summary

Cedefop’s European Skills Index 2020 shows wide differences between European countries when it comes to skills matching. Indeed, according to Cedefop’s publication “Insights into Skill Shortages and Skill Mismatch” (January 2018), four out of ten employers in Europe are struggling to find people with the right skills. In a labour market heavily impacted by Industry 4.0 and SDG commitment (2 million employments will be created by the latter), and the rise of soft skills as a new area of interest in terms of qualifications, differences between skills offer and demand have widened. The context of the COVID-19 outbreak must also be noted, affecting the need of resilience as a fundamental skill; as the Commission has already stated, upskilling and reskilling programmes to protect workers from unemployment and loss of income to avoid permanent effect will be an essential tool to mitigate the effects of the crisis, with 59 million jobs at stake and those without university degrees in a higher risk (short-term job risk is highly correlated with level of education, McKinsey & Company, April 2020). Therefore, there is a crucial need for education and training systems to identify, anticipate and teach skills that are suitable for future needs, rather than to catch up with technological, demographic and environmental changes after they have happened. Vocational Education and Training (VET) is crucial to teach students, adults and workers the necessary skills and will therefore have a significant impact on the future of work.

For all these reasons and with the objective of aligning the education and training provision with regional smart specialisation strategies (S3), the Stride for Stride project will work on building up the concept of Regional Skills Ecosystems. Six regions (Catalonia, Basque Country, Tuscany, Brittany, Varaždin, and Vestland) in five European countries (including high achievers, such as Croatia, mid-achievers, such as Norway, and low-achievers such as Spain, Italy and France when it comes to skills matching according to the European Skills Index 2020) will improve their capacity to identify skills needs and adapt their training provision accordingly. And this process needs to be done by engaging four main axes: public authorities, education centres (VET in this case), companies and the individual.

Four workshops corresponding to the four steps of skills governance (adaptation, anticipation, transmission and use) will be organised in Florence, Rennes, Bergen and Barcelona between 2020 and 2022, with a double European-regional perspective that allow all the previously mentioned actors build together skills intelligence systems by means of exchanging their experiences (both though workshops and study visits) and taking part in multi-stakeholder open discussion hubs. These workshops will be attended by international regional representatives who wish to learn on the ground from each others’ success stories and share their own, but also by local/regional stakeholders who will contribute to dialogue to build strong skills ecosystems based on the skills governance process.

In this sense, the Stride for Stride project will add an international aspect to regional success stories, with a two-folded innovative aim:
1. Tackling skills intelligence and forecasting at regional level to build regional skills ecosystems, and
2. involving all relevant actors featured in the quadruple helix interaction system to help building powerful skills intelligence tools, not only as external “validators” of the process, but as an intrinsic part of it.

A regional perspective for skills challenges mapping and forecast is of utmost importance to tackle the new opportunities that industry 4.0, SDGs and soft skills relevance are already opening in Europe. Regions allow a closer contact with citizens and are in a privileged position to assess
territorial economic, labour and well-being needs, including lifelong and lifewide learning opportunities. This project will also serve as a starting point for the development of exhaustive territorially-aware assessment tools that complement existing ones such as Cedefop’s national skills forecasts and OECD skills outlooks.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 139463 Eur

Project Coordinator

REGION BRETAGNE & Country: FR

Project Partners

• Srednja skola “Arboretum Opeka”
• REGIONE TOSCANA
• DEPARTAMENT D’EDUCACIÓ- GENERALITAT DE CATALUNYA
• HARDANGERRADET IKS
• ASSOCIATION EUROPEENNE DES AUTORITES REGIONALES ET LOCALES POUR L’APPRENTISSAGE TOUT AU LONG DE LA VIE AISBL
• ISTITUTO REGIONALE PROGRAMMAZIONE ECONOMICA TOSCANA
• DEPARTAMENTO DE EDUCACION, POLITICA LINGUISTICA Y CULTURA DEL GOBIERNO VASCO