Technological progress and globalisation are revolutionising the way we live, learn, work and do business. Digital and other key technologies are reshaping the foundations of industry and the wider global economy. This offers tremendous opportunities for innovation, growth and jobs, but it also requires skilled and adaptable individuals who are able to drive and support change.

In order to deliver sector-specific skills solutions, the New Skills Agenda for Europe has launched the Blueprint for Sectorial Cooperation on Skills1. The Blueprint is a new framework for strategic cooperation between key stakeholders (e.g. businesses, trade unions, research, education and training institutions, public authorities) in a given economic sector. It will stimulate investment and encourage the strategic use of EU and national funding opportunities. The aim is to develop concrete actions to satisfy short and medium-term skills needs to support the overall sectoral strategy.

Objectives

The aim of the project is to enable the realization of the aims of the Blueprint, namely the delivery of human capital solutions to supply chain SMEs through the establishment of an Automotive Sector Skills Alliance covering all levels of the value chain (vehicle production, automotive suppliers and automotive sales and aftermarket services). An SSA will be established to build upon the GEAR 2030 work, whilst proposing concrete and practical initiatives to address skills challenges, in particular through facilitating mobility of workers within automotive.

The key objectives are defined as follows:

1. Assessing and inclusion of existing and proven Skills Frameworks in European countries, modernize them to cope with future automotive trends (using expert analysis companies), and deployment into other countries.
2. Enabling mutual recognition of awards and certificates between formal and informal automotive education, VET and universities, and across Europe in order to enhance the use and success of government-funded mobility programmes such as Erasmus+.
3. Implementation of a common European automotive skills umbrella and integration of existing skills frameworks (Sector skills council, ECQA, AQUA, SkillMan, Skills Passport, etc.) including pilot training.
4. Deployment of the Apprenticeship Marketplace by enhancing its effectiveness for automotive job seekers. Creation of IT infrastructure to facilitate dissemination of common job requirements, which will be available for job seekers, training providers (namely universities), VET providers and other stakeholders. Promotion of the portal as a labour market place on local, national and European levels.

Main Deliverables
The objectives of the project are achieved in a number of concrete deliverables in the following areas:

• Profiles (occupational profiles in ESCO format, Automotive Skills Strategic Roadmap or establishing a pool of skills under defined norms)
• Recognition (encompassing already used tools such as OASQF – Open Automotive Skills and Quality Framework, ERFA – European Recognition Framework for Automotive or harmonised skills passport for harmonised ERFA)
• Implementation (Integrated Online Campus or European certificates)
• Apprenticeship (Understanding the Marketplace and Promoting the apprenticeship marketplace)
• Evaluation (recommendations on common European standards of automotive job descriptions or actions towards national and European stakeholders)