Digital Skills and Jobs Platform -

• Connected National Coalitions for Digital Skills and Jobs to the Core Platform.

The Commission has set ambitious targets in the Digital Decade Policy Programme of increasing to 80% the number of European adults possessing at least a basic level of digital skills and reaching 20 million ICT professionals in Europe, while promoting access to women in this field in order to bridge the gender gap in the technology sector, by 2030.

The Digital Skills and Jobs Platform contributes to the Digital Europe Policy Programme and aims to support the closing of the digital skills gap and the reaching of the Digital Decade targets. To achieve this, the Platform provides a single point of information related to digital skills in Europe. At EU level, the Platform gathers all relevant information and funding opportunities for stakeholders to benefit from. It also provides access to an EU-funded self-assessment test in which users can evaluate their digital skills and receive training/learning recommendations. The Platform also provisionally hosts the Cyber Security Skills Academy. At national level, as a result of Connecting European Facility (CEF) calls in 2019 and 2020, connections to 22 National Coalition websites are being established. These national websites are connected to the core Digital Skills and Jobs Platform, establishing a mutually enriching exchange with relevant content and data on digital skills and jobs at EU and national level.

The objective of this topic is to consolidate and uphold the operation of the Digital Skills and Jobs Platform, including corrective and adaptive maintenance. This topic will also sustain and extend the activities related to the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition, notably by further supporting collaboration among National Coalitions and the digital skills community in Europe, as well as deepening the exchange between the National Coalition websites and the core Platform. This topic aims to further increase the number of National Coalitions, to get existing and new National Coalitions to be more active and engaged, and to increase the number of members of the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition. Events, communication campaigns and other activities should be foreseen to raise awareness of the need to close the digital skills gap in the EU and mobilise the community of relevant stakeholders. Synergies should be sought with the EIT Campus and the Deep Tech Talent Initiative (DTTI).

The action under the second work-strand, the National Coalitions for Digital Skills and Jobs, will be implemented through a coordination and support action and will aim to further extend the activities of National Coalitions’ websites established under CEF calls in 2019 and 2020 as well as support the creation of new websites in Member States who do not have any National Coalitions yet.

Activities under the second work strand will include:

• Develop and connect the infrastructures (websites) of National Coalitions for Digital Skills and Jobs that are not yet connected to the Core Digital Skills and Jobs Platform through interoperable interconnections, integrating and enabling exchanges with the Core Platform components.

• Provide access to national/regional/local actors and practices, building interoperable links to provide services relevant to the local context.

• Expand and engage National Coalitions for Digital Skills and Jobs that are already connected to the Core Digital Skills and Jobs Platform.

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