Progetti di ricerca

Our project has been designed to support the European Union by addressing two priorities. The first priority is “Addressing digital transformation through the development of digital readiness, resilience and capacity”. All of the partner institutions are members of the European Network for… Leggi tutto Regional Labour Market Monitoring (ENRLMM) and as a network, we have lobbied for many years for more nuanced use of labour market intelligence (LMI) within regions and within educational institutions in the current digitalized context. Our Network has over 400 members from all countries of the European Union and is financially self-sustaining. It is the expert European network on the use of Labour Market Intelligence in regional and local geographies and it will fully support this project. Our lead partner, the West University of Timisoara is a very active member of the Network and the host of ENRLMM Big Data Knowledge Hub. This is a collaborative platform for mutual exchange and learning where all the members of the EN RLMM can look for guidance when aiming to use big data in their labour market. LMI is critical for understanding the new challenges on the labour market and to help HEI to increase the capacity and readiness to manage an effective shift towards digital education. Additionally, it helps to develop the appropriate digital skills and competencies through better matching of education supply to demand and for forecasting and fore-sighting skills needs. Within this priority we will seek to support digital transformation through the development of digital readiness, resilience and capacity in three areas that the Network has identified are a priority for Universities and Higher Education institutions: a. Matching education/skills supply to local and regional labour market demand (covering topics such as ecosystems, partnerships, forecasting, real-time Labour Market Intelligence); b. Fitting curriculum content to a rapidly evolving world of work (employer-input, fore-sighting etc.) and the provision of new types of course (higher VET, 2-year degrees, etc.); c. Evidencing impact and outcomes for policymakers (such as employability, graduate tracking, internships and placement provision). Up-to-date labour market intelligence is also critical to the HEI Priority “Stimulating innovative learning and teaching practices”. This is our second priority and within the project, we will explore how Universities can develop student-centred curricula and ensure that their offer tackles the skills needs of the current and predicted European workforce and what lessons around this can be disseminated across the sector.

Context Europe is facing a demographic crisis, with a shrinking workforce coupled with increased demands for social services. The labour force in Europe is projected to decrease by an average of two million people every year until 2030. This represents a… Leggi tutto loss of 1% of its current size each year for the next 10 years. Yet, in many countries, most workers still retire (relatively) early. They often do so not because they want to, but because they feel compelled to, or that they do not have other options. Solutions need to be found to make work more sustainable, and to extend working lives in order to avoid old-age poverty and to reduce state expenditure on pensions and welfare. (Changing places: Mid-career review and internal mobility, Eurofound Report, 2017) Recent OECD research has highlighted that there are many millions of adults in Europe with low levels of functional literacy and/or numeracy skills and that the majority of these are in employment (OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) 2019). This has negative implications for their employment potential and longer term career prospects. The concept of the Mid Life Skills Review is gradually gaining favour in many countries and the role of social partners in both lobbying for and delivering elements of this can be critical to its success (Eurofound 2017). The Learning and Work Institute and the TUC can take some of the credit for their campaign for everyone to have this mid-life entitlement at 50. Indeed, the recent (John Cridland) report on pensions in the UK included a recommendation to have a mid-life 'MOT' at 50 for, amongst other things, skills. This is the perfect time for this project, which can make a real and lasting impact. Our recent ERASMUS+ Project developed the Value My Skills tool that takes users/learners through steps with clear instructions to identify and rate their skills, keep reflection notes, design an action plan and record their progress. The tool is best used in partnership with a learning coach - so that the learner can discuss their findings in a safe and supportive environment. The tool is freely available in several European languages. Aim We aim to add value to the already much used Value My Skills tool that was developed by the Mid Life Skills Review ERASMUS+ Project which successfully launched in 2019 and is hosted by the TUC. The potential benefits of our additional work in this field emerged from the evaluation of the Mid Life Skills Review ERASMUS+ project. We will extend the tool to new countries and boost functionality. Innovations Our project will develop a suite of innovative new materials to support the delivery of the Mid Life Skills Reviews. These include new Quick Win online modules that will enable learners to see positive impacts from returning to learning - vital given our target audience is hard-to-reach low skilled adults in the workplace. We will also build new online materials to help boost the support for the critical role of the skills coaches. To help with mainstreaming and wider adoption we will design new National Delivery Models, bespoke for each partner country. In addition, we will develop - an Occupation Profile Tool - that will enable the users/learners to see how their skills match with the skills needed for different occupations. This will be done by linking to the EU ESCO skills classification system. The user/learner will also able to see where a skills boost (via the Quick Wins for example) could lead to routes into other occupations. As the Value My Skills Tool uses workplace coaches to work through the Tool with the learners - the coaches from across the partnership will be encouraged to become ‘mid-life skills champions’, with the support of a virtual e-network. This network will support its members and share ideas and experience. Finally, in keeping with the European priority for promoting the recognition of skills and qualifications, we will accredit the learning through the use of new online Digital Badges and will enable links to be made into the Europass CV Programme. Badging of this kind is increasingly valued and is an innovation which the lead partner has considerable existing expertise. Impacts We will gain sustainable impacts by: delivering a series of events in each partner country to highlight the new materials and support available; using social media to disseminate the positive outcomes from the mid-life skills reviews e.g. progression, promotion, career change etc; and ultimately through boosting the skills of hard-to-reach older workers within the labour market, benefiting themselves, their families, their employers and European labour markets. The partners have been selected as all have existing close working relationships with employers, policymakers and trade unions and all have significant experience in working in the adult education and skills sector and together we have the expertise to carry out all of the activities required within the project.