Andre Richier is Principal Administrator at the European Commission in Brussels within the Directorate General Enterprise and Industry (Key Enabling Technologies and Digital Economy Unit). This Keynote Presentation was delivered at the EDEN 2014 Annual Conference in June 2014. http://www.eden-online.org

1. Filling the Gap: e-Skills for Jobs
Fostering Competitiveness and Growth
EDEN Conference, Zagreb, 12 June 2014

5. Communication on e-Skills
Adopted by the Commission on 7 September 2007
• The Communication on “e-Skills for the 21st Century”
includes a long-term e-skills strategy. It was followed by:
• Council Conclusions on the e-skills strategy
Competitiveness Council on 23 November 2007
• Europe 2020 Flagships adopted in 2010 (Digital Agenda,
Innovation Union, News Skills for Jobs etc.)
• Employment Package (2012)
• Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs (4-5 March 2013)
• European Council Conclusions (24-25 October 2013)
• External Evaluation (2010 and 2013)

6. e-Skills Strategy: Main Priorities
 Developing a Shared Vision and Forecast Scenarios
 Monitoring the Evolution of Supply and Demand
 Benchmarking Policies and Stakeholders Partnerships
 Promoting ICT Professionalism and e-Leadership
 Developing Curricula Development Guidelines
 Promoting e-Learning and e-Inclusion
 Raising Awareness and Evaluating Progress

7. ICT Workforce Growth in Europe

8. The Growing Gap: Three Scenarios (2012-2020)
509,000
Main
Forecast
Scenario
913,000
449,000
Stagnation
730,000
274,000
558,000
Disruptive
Boost
1,346,000
0
200000
400000
600000
800000
1000000
1200000
1400000
1600000
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

9. • Demand keeps growing despite crisis
• Growth trend in core jobs between 2 to 4%
• Management jobs up to 8% growth p.a.
• Technician/associate level jobs declining
• Need to continuously increase the quality of e-skills
• Job growth largest in highly skilled jobs
• Management, Architecture and Analytics positions, where also
e-Leadership skills are required. Usually recruited from
seasoned practitioner pool and other (non-ICT) managers.
• New job profiles not yet fully covered in classification, such as
Big Data and Cloud computing specialists

10. European e-Competence Framework
A common pan-European framework for ICT practitioners in all
industry sectors : it is a reference framework of 36 ICT competences that
can be used by ICT user and supply companies, the public sector,
educational and social partners across Europe.
The framework provides a pan-European tool for:
 ICT practitioners and managers, with guidelines for their competence development
 HR managers, enabling the anticipation and planning of competence requirements
 Education and training, enabling effective planning and design of ICT curricula
 Policy makers and market researchers, providing a clear and Europe-wide agreed
reference for ICT skills and competences in a long-term perspective

11. www.eskillslandscape.eu

12. The Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs (March 2013)

13. • The Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs should be
strengthened to address skills mismatches…;
• Part of the European Structural and Investment Funds
(2014-2020) should be used for ICT education, support for
retraining, and vocational education and training in ICT,
including through digital tools and content, in the context of
the Youth Employment Initiative;
• A higher degree of integration of digital skills in
education, from the earliest stages of school to higher
education, vocational education and training and lifelong
learning should be ensured;
EU Council Conclusions (24-25 October 2013)
13

14. Towards a Digital Economy
Importance of Policy Initiatives on e-Skills

15. Collect info on skills
gaps at local level
Provide financial
support for
additional ICT
training
Work with industry
to provide high
quality ICT
education through
dual learning
schemes
Provide open
education resources
Improve professional
development of
teachers
Offer services to
improve cross-
border mobility
Promote the use of
the e-Competence
Framework
What should policy makers do?
15
Identify and exchange
best practices

16. http://www.linkedpolicies.eu/pledge/

18. e-Leadership

19. Definitions

21. e-Leadership Initiative
• The goal is to increase our digital talent pool by promoting
better education and training fostering e-leadership skills
based on the needs of businesses
 Initial focus (2013): innovation empowerment for IT executives and
CIOs in medium to large enterprises
 Complementary initiative (2014) targeting entrepreneurs, managers
and advanced ICT users in SMEs, start-ups and gazelles
• Approach
• Survey of existing relevant curricula and programs
• Best practice identification at European level
• Development of quality criteria and guidelines with
leading stakeholders from business and academia
• Multi-region pilot demonstration and dissemination

22. e-Leadership Candidate and Potential
Programmes in Europe (provisional)

23. Portfolio of e-Leadership Curriculum Profiles
e-Leadership Curriculum Profiles
• define programme learning outcomes to deliver emerging
requirements for e-leadership competences;
• help align demand and supply of e-Leadership curricula
• respect autonomy of educational institutions
• increase transparency for students and employers
• Encourage and support teaching innovation
Initial portfolio
• Business and Enterprise Architecture
• Innovation and Transformation through ICT
• Information Security Governance

24. www.eskills4jobs.gr

25. Contact
André Richier
European Commission
DG Enterprise and Industry
Key Enabling Technologies and Digital Economy
e-mail: andré.richier@ec.europa.eu
websites:
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sectors/ict/e-skills/index_en.htm
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sectors/ict/documents/e-skills/index_en.htm
http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/grand-coalition-digital-jobs-0