Talent Gap Workshop

Informatics Europe in partnership with the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT) will organise on October 30, 2019 the workshop: “Bridging the Digital Talent Gap - Towards Successful Industry-University Partnerships” to held in Rome, Italy. The event will bring together higher education organisations, industry and public policy makers to reflect and act on the problem of the Digital Talent Gap in Europe.

At present, around 53% of European employers say they face difficulties in finding the right people with the right qualifications. There are hundreds of thousands of open vacancies for ICT professionals in Europe. Yet, at the same time, education providers are twice as likely as youth or employers, to consider recent graduates adequately prepared for the labour market. The demand for digital and high-end skills already exceeds supply, which in the future is expected to grow further. This talent gap is particularly striking for certain “technologies” such as artificial intelligence solutions and data analytics, or cyber security.

Objective

The workshop will bring together higher education organisations, businesses, intermediaries, public policy makers and some students to identify current challenges, opportunities and solutions to bridge the supply/demand gap in Europe for graduates with the skills needed by European businesses to grow and innovate. The workshop would leverage the networks of Informatics Europe, the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition and experience gained through the Digital Opportunity Traineeships. For example, the AI communication published in April 2018 stated that the Commission will “encourage, through the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition, business-education partnerships to take steps to attract and retain more AI talent and to foster continued collaboration”. Cyber Security and Software Engineering will also be among the areas under discussion.

Find out more details about the exciting programme of the Talent Gap Workshop

Planned Results

As an outcome of the workshop, a report is going to be published, containing for example, proposals for new and amended courses; suggestions for new models of industry-academy cooperation in higher education; input to existing and future funding programmes at the European (Digital Europe Programme, Horizon Europe), national and regional level; ideas for possible increase of private-sector investments. It will be considered, whether a large consensus emerges on some key points that could be the base for a possible joint manifesto signed by the workshop participants.

Format

The workshop will be a mixture of:

• presenting results of preparatory desk research, including a short survey;
• presentation of success stories;
• participatory worksessions on concrete topics run by professional facilitators with a high degree of interactivity;
• harvesting and discussions;
• planning next steps, as emerged at the workshop.

Participants

The workshop will gather up to 200 participants representing universities, industry and public institutions. Attendance for those not attending ECSS 2019 is by invitation only.

Read the blog post on the website of the European Commission to find out how can industry-university collaboration help?