• ICT Competitiveness
• Boosting e-Business for SMEs
• e-Skills for the 21st Century
• ICT Standardisation
• e-Invoicing
• Assessing ICT and e-business impact

e-Skills - Supporting information

Dialogue and Consultation

The Commission established an e-Skills and e-Learning expert group in June 2006 to help designing a long-term e-Skills agenda.
The group was composed on representatives of Member States, relevant Commission's services, Cedefop, OECD and stakeholders. They met four times including for the European e-Skills 2006 Conference which was organised in Thessaloniki on 5-6 October 2006. It was an important milestone towards the preparation of a long term strategy to ensure adequate e-Skills for the future across both workforce and population.

The Commission also established in June 2006 an ICT Task Force to discuss issues relating to the competitiveness of the ICT sector and ICT uptake in Europe.
The Task Force set up six working groups, including one on skills and employability. The Task Force released its report in November 2006 including recommendations on e-Skills.

The Commission established the European e-Skills Forum in March 2003.
It was composed of representatives of Member States, Cedefop, the OECD and stakeholders. The Forum released its report "e-Skills in Europe: Towards 2010 and Beyond" in September 2004. Several initiatives and studies were launched in 2005 based on the recommendations of the Forum to prepare for the development of a long-term e-Skills agenda.

As a follow up of the major conference on the e-Economy organised in Brussels on 1-2 March 2001 and the e-Europe and Go Digital initiatives, the Commission established an ICT Skills Monitoring Group in September 2001.
Building in particular on the results of the Career Space industry-led initiative, its activities focusing on ICT practitioners were complementary to those of the High Level Group on the Employment and Social Dimension of the Information Society which focused on health, ageing, disabled people, inclusion and quality of work. A benchmarking report of national policies was discussed at the European e-Skills Summit organised in co-operation with the Danish Presidency on 17-18 October 2002 in Copenhagen. Council Conclusions were adopted on 5 December 2002.

The European e-Skills Forum, the Thessaloniki Declaration and the report of the ICT Task Force include detailed proposals for a long-term e-Skills agenda.

Supporting Studies and Actions

CEN/ISSS (European Committee for Standardisation/Information Society Standardisation System) published a CEN Workshop Agreement in February 2006 covering a state-of-the-art review of progress in ICT practitioner skills frameworks in the EU.
It also included concrete recommendations for next steps towards a European e-competence framework taking into account the proposal for a European Qualifications Framework. Two benchmarking initiatives were launched at the end of 2006: one on policies and initiatives in support of e-learning for enterprises and a second on e-Skills multi-stakeholder partnerships. A feasibility study concerning a European e-Skills and career portal was also launched.

A report of the study on the supply and demand of e-Skills in Europe was released in September 2005.
It analysed the evidence, qualitative and quantitative, on the supply and demand of e-Skills in Europe over the period 1998-2006. A dedicated e-Skills statistical module has been developed by Eurostat to include e-Skills in the regular Eurostat Enterprise Survey starting in 2007. A study on e-Skills foresight scenarios was launched in 2006 and a report "Thinking Ahead on e-Skills for the ICT Industry in Europe" was released in February 2007.

In addition, ICT companies commissioned market surveys on advanced networking skills in the areas of IP telephony, security and wireless networking (2005) and on ICT user skills (2007) as a contribution to improve the understanding of future e-Skills needs.