DBI attends the Kick-off Meeting “Towards a large-scale skills partnership for the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs) ecosystem”
In June 2021, Don Bosco International (DBI) subscribed to the Pact for Skills, joined by some more DBWAVE partners. On the 15th of October, then, DBI attended an Online Conference organized by the European Commission within the framework of the Pact, with a specific focus on the skills partnerships for the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs).
Investment in skills is an important component of investing in people, an indispensable element of a fair growth and recovery. A workforce equipped with the right skills is essential to accelerate the twin (green and digital) transition and strengthen long-term resilience, which are among the key objectives of the updated industry strategy of 5 May 2021[1]. Europe needs to look closely at the opportunities and challenges facing industrial ecosystems. The industrial strategy identifies 14 industry ecosystems and Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs)[2] are one of them. These ecosystems encompass all players operating in a value chain: from the smallest start-ups to the largest companies, from academia to research, service providers to suppliers. And they each have their own features.
The European Skills Agenda supports the green and digital transitions with flagship initiatives like the Pact for Skills[3]. It helps mobilise the private sector and other stakeholders to upskill and reskill Europe’s workforce. The EU budget for 2021-2027 includes a number of instruments that can support upskilling and reskilling (e.g European Social Fund +, Erasmus +, Creative Europe Programme, Digital Europe Programme, InvestEU etc.). In addition, Recovery and Resilience Facility and respective national plans will support investment in upskilling and reskilling as one of the flagships.
The Pact for Skills supports large-scale skills partnerships per industrial ecosystem to federate efforts towards a shared vision. Some ecosystems have already put forward skilling commitments (automotive, microelectronics, and aerospace and defence industries).
Regarding the CCIs ecosystem, a high-level roundtable was held by Commissioners Schmit, Gabriel and Breton on 12 April 2021. The Roundtable brought together representatives from the music, audiovisual, museums, publishing, performance and other cultural and creative sectors to discuss the skills needs of their sectors, presented their initiatives in the area of upskilling and reskilling and reflected on what they could contribute to in the framework of the Pact. The report from the Roundtable for CCIs ecosystem is available here: https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1517&langId=en
The Commission intends to facilitate discussions among stakeholders interested to set-up a skills partnership for the CCIs industrial ecosystem under the Pact for Skills. For this reason, the Commission will organise a series of meetings aiming to mobilise interested stakeholders (private and public) to engage in a skills partnership for the cultural and creative sector/sub-sectors. The online event which took place on the 15th of October, therefore, was the first of these meetings. It was open to all interested CCIs stakeholders aiming at informing about the Pact for Skills, sharing first insights from stakeholders about skills needs and gaps, and identifying interested, engaged and committed stakeholders who will be willing to lead and/or be involved in the skills partnership for the CCIs ecosystem.
The follow-up meetings will be facilitated by the Commission, to help stakeholders/participants come up with clear statements of commitments to finding practical and operational solutions to the identified skills problems, defining the most appropriate structure of the partnership, its governance, scope and responsibilities. The work of the large-scale partnership would include determining target commitments and key performance indicators which the ecosystem or selected sub-sectors would aim to achieve.
The kick-off meeting which took place online on the 15th of October consisted of three parts:
1. Pact for Skills initiative
General presentation of the concept and objectives, commitments (partnerships) under the EU Pact for Skills including in other industrial ecosystems, type of EU support for the signatories of the Pact, including introduction to EU funding opportunities on up/reskilling.
2. Skills needs in CCIs – a first stock-taking
General introduction about existing initiatives, projects, intelligence received from industry associations, private and public stakeholders.
For this part, the participants were invited to reflect on the following questions in view of a first exchange at the meeting, and send their contribution in written to:
GROW-CREATIVE-INDUSTRIES@ec.europa.eu by 30 October 2021, with the title: “Skills needs in CCIs”.
1) What are the three types of skills the most needed by the CCIs ecosystem? What evidence / figures exist to back this? Do you have data (surveys, analysis or studies)? If yes, for which sub-sectors?
2) What is the proportion, number of people needing upskilling or reskilling in CCIs /or in your sub-sector? What are the estimated costs?
3) What kind of concrete upskilling and reskilling activities should be in your view favoured for Cultural and Creative industries ecosystem? Do you have concrete successful experience on upskilling and reskilling that you would like to share?
3. Towards building a large-scale skills partnership for CCIs ecosystem
Open discussion with participants about their interest to be part of the skills partnership. Organisations who signed the Pact for Skills and volunteering to lead/be part of the steering committee or be involved in the partnership are invited to express their interest and readiness.
[2] CCI ecosystem description at pages 98-104 https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/default/files/swd-annual-single-market-report-2021_en.pdf
[3] https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1517&langId=en
