Project Information

The availability of adequate skills for developing, implementing and using information and communication technology (ICT) is an important condition for the competitiveness and the innovation capabilities of the European economy. The skills, which are required, go far beyond the narrow confines of ICT practitioner skills within the ICT industry, but also comprise ICT practitioner skills in user industries, ICT user skills and e-business skills, as defined by the European Skills Forum in its Synthesis Report. Broad agreement exists that e-skills are central aspects of any policy to ensure that Europe can boost the productivity and the employability of its workforce and can respond to global competitive challenges. Europe needs to ensure that the knowledge, skills, competences and inventiveness of the European workforce – including but not limited to its IT practitioners – meet the highest global standards and that they are constantly updated in a process of effective lifelong learning. This means that “the way forward towards the widening and deepening of e-skills within the EU is through involvement of all actors from government, industry, social partners and academia in multi-stakeholder dialogue and partnerships for action” (Declaration of the European e-Skills Conference 2006).

The objective of this study for the European Commission DG Enterprise and Industry therefore is to monitor and understand better the evolution of the supply and demand of e-skills in Europe in order to anticipate change and facilitate dialogue between policy makers at the regional, national and EU level and leading stakeholders to reduce e-skills shortages, gaps and mismatches. The work process consists of two main phases. The first phase will provide a report on “The evolution of the supply and demand of e-skills in Europe” (focusing on ICT practitioners). The second phase will provide a foresight report: “Anticipating the evolution of the supply and demand of e-skills in Europe (2010-2015)”. The collection of the most recent information and statistical data available concerning the supply and demand of e-skills in Europe will be complemented by an assessment of the most recent and important statistical studies and market surveys on the supply and demand of e-skills as well as of the policy debate on this issue in the U.S.A, Japan, India and China. For this purpose, the study will cooperate closely with experts from these countries from the “European Network for Information Society Research” (ENIR) (www.enir.org). The project results will be published in an overall study report and summarised in a professional brochure. These will be presented at a workshop in late 2009 in Brussels.

The core study team comprises two organisations:

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empirica Gesellschaft für Kommunikations- und Technologieforschung mbH

Oxfordstr. 2
53111 Bonn
Tel. (+49) 228 98530-0
Fax (+49) 228 98530-12
E-Mail: info at empirica dot com

Internet: www.empirica.com

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IDC EMEA
c/o IDC Italia
Viale Monza 14
20127 Milano
Tel. (+39) 02 28457374
Fax (+39) 02 28457333

The study is supported by National Correspondents in China, India, Japan and the USA and an Advisory Board of experts:

National Correspondents:

USA: Prof. Dr. Alladi Venkatesh; CRITO Center for Research on Information Technology, University of California, Irvine
JAPAN: Prof. Dr. Dennis Tachiki; Graduate School of Management, Tamagawa University, Tokyo
INDIA: B. Rajesh Kumar  AAUM RESEARCH & ANALYTICS PRIVATE LIMITED – Madras
CHINA: Dr. Sean Xin Xu, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) Business School

Advisory Board (preliminary list):

  • Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, Peterson Institute for International Economics, Research Fellow, Washington, DC
  • Graham Vickery, OECD, Head of the Information Economy Group at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris
  • Peter Hounsome, e-Skills UK, Research, London
  • Gary Kildare, IBM VP HR – Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific
  • Roberto Bellini, President AICA, Milano
  • Gerhard Rohde, UNI Union Network, Head of Department, Nyon
  • Michail Skaliotis, Ingo Kuhnert, Heidi Seybert, and Jean-Louis Mercy, Eurostat, Luxembourg
  • Peter Hagedoorn, Euro CIO, St. Quentin-en-Yvelines
  • Hara Klasina, EICTA – European INformation, Communications and Consumer Electrnics Industry Technology Association
  • Volker Rein, Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung – BIBB
  • Joao Ricardo Vaconcelos, Ministerio da Ciencia Tecnologia e Ensino Superior (Portugal)
  • Stephan Pfisterer, BITKOM Bundesverband Informationswirtschaft, Telekommunikation und neue Medien e.V., Berlin