workshop no. 2 - report software what needs to be done for...

written by

ERIONA DASHJA

WERNER B. KORTE

May 2016

SCALE – Leadership Skills for Digital and

Key Enabling Technologies

Workshop No. 2 - Report

Software– what needs to be done for Europe to move from

‘use’ to ‘creation’

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Content

1 Towards a European Agenda ......................................................................................................... 3

2 Designing the Agenda ................................................................................................................... 5

2.1 Setting the scene for workshop no. 2 .............................................................................................. 6

2.2 Key points raised and discussed at the workshop ........................................................................... 6

2.2.1 Software as a strategic weapon ...............................................................................................................................6

2.2.2 Towards new approaches and structures in education, training and research ........................................................7

2.2.3 One size does NOT fit all – diverse pathways to digital leadership training for SMEs ............................................10

2.2.4 Build ecosystems that create ecosystems ..............................................................................................................11

2.2.5 Coexistence of formal certification, light weight certification and digital badges .................................................12

2.2.6 The future IT Profession .........................................................................................................................................12

2.2.7 Diagnostics tools.....................................................................................................................................................13

2.2.8 Take two in one: alignment of digital leadership skills and entrepreneurship skills policy and education and training activities..........................................................................................................................................................................13

2.2.9 New ways of financing and funding .......................................................................................................................13

2.3 Towards recommendations and actions ....................................................................................... 15

2.3.1 Initial set of recommendations and actions ...........................................................................................................15

2.3.2 Conclusions and consolidated recommendations and actions (Status: May 2016) ...............................................15

3 ANNEXES .................................................................................................................................... 22

3.1 Initial set of recommendations for discussion (status: January 2016) .......................................... 22

3.2 Recommendations after completion of workshop no. 1 (status: March 2016) ............................ 27

3.3 Workshop no. 2 agenda and participants ..................................................................................... 30

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1 Towards a European Agenda Under the service contract “Promotion of e-Leadership Skills in Europe” - which empirica, PwC and IDC are carrying out together with researchers from the Oxford Martin School at Oxford University for the European Commission (DG GROW) – a proposal for an Agenda on "Leadership Skills for Digital and Key Enabling Technologies in Europe: Towards 2020 and Beyond" will be developed. This will take place in iterations and supported through experts providing contributions and feedback on early drafts, expressing their views and making recommendations in a series of expert workshops conducted throughout the year 2016. Our ambition is to ensure that Europe can be a global leader for skills and talent for digital and key enabling technologies (KETs).

The first workshop was organised by empirica on the topic ‘Disruptive Digital Trends and the Implications for the Workforce, Skills and Policy Initiatives’ and took place in Brussels on 22 January 2016. The second workshop on “Software – what needs to be done for Europe to move from use to creation” took place in Brussels on 20 April 2016.

A summary of the recent developments including results from this second expert workshop are presented in this report. It comes timely for consideration by the European Commission for its Communication on "A New Skills Agenda for Europe" and related initiatives. It will build on the EU long term e-skills strategy (2007) and the Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs (2013) and address the digital skills of the workforce and citizen, IT specialist skills and leadership skills for digital and key enabling technologies. It will also seek to make elaborations for better use of existing funding instruments at all levels.

This concern is shared by many leading organisations in the world. For example, the International Society of Service Innovation Professionals (ISSIP) is promoting ‘T-shaped’ professionals who are “future ready” adaptive innovators. In March 2016 the T-Summit took place in Washington bringing together government, industry and academia to,” maximize dissemination on the latest learnings of T-Shaped professionals, and how policies, curriculum, and student and employee behaviour can prepare the future workforce.” Simply, T Shape is a way to navigate and present individual career experience with breadth of experience (top of the T) with depth of mastery of a recognized discipline (the I of the T). The core idea is to facilitate the ability of professionals to work in collaborative teams with others in complementary disciplines and to be able to pivot with uncertainty and changing workplace requirements.

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The T-shape metaphor had also been used when referring to and describing digital leadership (e-leadership) skills. It still uses this in addition to the presentation format of the e-leadership skills triangle. They are the skills required of an individual to initiate and achieve digital innovation:

The e-Leadership triangle:

Strategic Leadership: Lead inter‐disciplinary staff, and influence stakeholders across boundaries (functional, geographic)

Business Savvy: Innovate business and operating models, delivering value to organisations

Digital Savvy: Envision and drive change for business performance, exploiting digital technology trends as innovation opportunities.

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2 Designing the Agenda The agenda will be developed in collaboration with experts from a range of national governments and associated institutions, policy developers, industry and its association representatives at national and European level, think tanks, researchers and academics as well as higher and executive education institutions and other relevant key stakeholders all providing their views on the future necessary (policy) actions and thereby directly contributing to and shaping European and Member State policy development for the coming years.

As mentioned above a series of expert consultations will take place with the above stakeholder in the preparation of the agenda organised through workshops to which experts will be invited and as follows:

Workshop Topic Date and venue

Workshop 1 Disruptive Digital Economy Trends and the Implications for the Workforce, Skills and Policy Initiatives on e-Leadership Skills

22 January 2016, Brussels

Workshop 2 Software in Europe – what needs to be done for Europe to move from ‘use’ to ‘creation’

20 April 2016, Brussels

Workshop 3 Best Practices: Lessons and Contributions to the Development of the ‘Agenda for Leadership Skills in Europe’

22 September 2016, Brussels

Workshop 4 Tbd 24 November 2016, Brussels

It goes without question that the ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking demanded from experts at these workshops will require that the relevant actors in Europe need to get out of their comfort zones. Education system players like universities and business schools need to move away from traditional behaviours, ontologies, curriculum standards, and existing programmes and other players are likely to also come up with offers in this domain or take over should the traditional education institutions not react. Industry needs to specify their needs in more detail and also need to train people in order to become more creative and innovative. They also need to find ways of dealing with non-conformance behaviour since this is often the way to innovation and success. Finally, policy makers need to set the right framework conditions including joint initiatives with industry and universities to create a new sustaining business oriented software creation and engineering network in Europe.

The final results will be presented at a European conference on 26 January 2017 in Brussels.

Under the service contract “Promotion of e-Leadership Skills in Europe” - which empirica, PwC and IDC are carrying out together with researchers from the Oxford Martin School at Oxford University – an ‘Agenda for e-Leadership in Europe 2016-2020’ will be developed. Development will take place in iterations and supported through experts providing feedback on early drafts, expressing their views and making their contributions in a series of expert workshops conducted throughout the year 2016. Our ambition is to ensure that Europe can act as a global leader for leadership skills and talent for digital and key enabling technologies.

The first workshop was organised by empirica on the topic ‘Disruptive Digital Economy Trends and the Implications for the Workforce, Skills and Policy Initiatives on e-Leadership Skills’ and took place in Brussels on 22 January 2016. The second workshop on “Software – what needs to be done for Europe to move from use to creation” took place in Brussels on 20 April 2016.

A summary of the results of the agenda development activities to date including the results from this second expert workshop are presented in the present report. It comes timely for consideration by the new European Commission Communication to be published in May 2016 which is expected to include a revision of the current European Commission e-skills strategy and address digital skills, IT specialist skills and Setting the scene for workshop no. 2

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In an article by Marc Andreesen in 2011 (Why software is eating the world) the author demonstrates that more and more major businesses and industries are being run on software and delivered as online services, that software programming tools and Internet-based services make it easy to launch new global software-powered start-ups in many industries and that software is eating much of the value chain of industries that are widely viewed as primarily existing in the physical world. Software enables one to create new economies and markets that only exist in cyberspace (Internet).

In the USA software is the largest single investment category and software has become key for driving growth and jobs. It is the case of innovation and in the very end only innovation is driving growth. However, decision and policy makers in the European economy missed the move from ‘analogue’ to ‘digital’. If Europe wants to succeed it has to change over from the ‘use’ of software and services to software ‘creation’ to become really innovative, globally competitive and successful in the market today and in the future. Organisations in Europe need to regain their competitive position by improving leadership of software-driven business innovation.

2.1 Setting the scene for workshop no. 2

In an article by Marc Andreesen in 2011 (Why software is eating the world) the author demonstrates that more and more major businesses and industries are being run on software and delivered as online services, that software programming tools and Internet-based services make it easy to launch new global software-powered start-ups in many industries and that software is eating much of the value chain of industries that are widely viewed as primarily existing in the physical world. Software enables one to create new economies and markets that only exist in cyberspace (Internet).

In the USA software is the largest single investment category and software has become key for driving growth and jobs. It is the case of innovation and in the very end only innovation is driving growth. However, decision and policy makers in the European economy missed the move from ‘analogue’ to ‘digital’. If Europe wants to succeed it has to change over from the ‘use’ of software and services to software ‘creation’ to become really innovative, globally competitive and successful in the market today and in the future. Organisations in Europe need to regain their competitive position by improving leadership of software-driven business innovation.

2.2 Key points raised and discussed at the workshop

2.2.1 Software as a strategic weapon

In his introductory presentation Mika Helenius from Aalto University emphasised that “software needs to be seen as the raw material to create industries and businesses” and that “we need to get this understanding in Europe!” Universities and business schools need to change their approaches to teaching and training and have to be much more open towards an interactive learning with customers and suppliers. Mika Helenius quoted General McDermott who is seen as the father modern military education who said the “information systems are strategic weapons, not cost centres”. Using military as a metaphor he compared the situation in Europe as an “army without airforce, solely relying on foot soldiers”. On the contrary we can observe companies in China like Huawei who managed to become the largest cloud computing service provider (i.e. to stay in the above metaphor: they established an ‘airforce’) within just 15 years. In order to properly respond and move away from software ‘use’ to ‘creation’ he demanded a much closer connection and collaboration between research, design and production in Europe and was asking for a European ‘software agenda’. One expert even went so far to argue that instead of using the term e-leadership skills one may want to speak about software leadership skills to best illustrate the right emphasis needed.

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2.2.2 Towards new approaches and structures in education, training and research

In his view, software design and engineering are those domains which have been strongly neglected in Europe in terms of research, education and training but also in terms of funding.

For him more top-down investments are needed which need to be accompanied by new kinds of education and training systems as for instance implemented and practiced at the IT University Copenhagen (which was newly established in 1999) and the Technical University Munich.

The current university structures in Europe offer very little space for new approaches in education, training and research. However, Europe needs structural innovations in its higher and executive education and training landscape to support actual innovation and make it happen in industry. The social and business sciences are starting to touch this topic. E-leadership-type programmes teaching subjects like digital innovation or transformation are starting to emerge. However, they are regularly using an approach where ‘creation’ (design, engineering and innovation) is a black box not to be touched or created by them. Computer science and software design and engineering faculties and institutes are lagging behind and very often stick to educating and training technology oriented science students in topics of the past, not real software creation and engineering focusing on business models and platforms. The subjects are not well aligned to what is needed by the industry in digital transformation now and in the future and demanded by industry and governments, although industry has never been very good at specifying what it really needs in terms of skills and strategic innovation competencies. One of the aims is to push software based innovation with entrepreneurial business creation and development approaches.

Workshop experts argued that at the top level businesses have to be business-driven and always start with a business idea but it needs to be acknowledged that today these are heavily based on software. The example of Spotify was given stating that it is important to understand that the real revolution is the business that is driven by software. They continued that Europe is missing the right culture with a lack of understanding among leaders that ‘software is cool’, a lack of understanding of how best to use social media and other emerging new technologies which increasing become fundamental for innovation and business success.

This has implications demanding platforms to change from the vertical mode of operation (software in vertical silos) into a horizontal model – where there are no borders. Furthermore, time and speed to implementation was seen as important and crucial in today’s businesses which requires a move away from old software developing principles to more rapid prototyping and building a business around these prototypes with parallel and incremental further development of the software.

Interesting and successful examples of how to design new approaches and implement new structures in higher and executive education and training were presented and discussed. These include the case of Mälardalen University, Sweden with their project PROMPT – Professional master in software development, the IT University in Copenhagen, Denmark and a series of activities of the Technical Universities Munich, Germany. They all share the principles outlined above and are closely cooperating and collaborating with industry actors.

Mälardalen University, Sweden - PROMPT – Professional master in software development

The advanced education programme PROMPT aims at ensuring the supply of software experts to industry and to increase industrial competitiveness through customised, free education for engineers and developers.

PROMPT has been launched, a national educational initiative in cooperation with several academic parties and a number of leading Swedish industrial companies and organisations. Together the parties develop academic courses on advanced level, adapted for professional engineers and software developers. The goal is to guarantee the supply of advanced software competencies and innovativeness to industry.

The courses, all on master´s level, are developed to suit those gainfully employed and who need to be able to combine work and studies. The courses are produced in cooperation with the companies in need of the

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competence, and teaching has been adapted for those who are gainfully employed. The courses combine conventional studies with distance, web-based learning and teaching at the participating companies.

The goal of the project is partly to implement an upgrading of skills that will significantly improve competitiveness in industry, and partly to support the development of new software based innovations. The participating companies get a head start when it comes to integrating new research in the area into their activities.

PROMPT is an open initiative which welcomes additional companies and higher education institutions (HEIs). The PROMPT project has funding from the Swedish Knowledge Foundation’s programme “Expert Competence for Innovation.

http://www.promptedu.se

IT University Copenhagen (ITU), Denmark – Newly founded ‘software’ university

The IT University is the youngest university in Denmark established in 1999. Based on its mission of contributing to making Denmark exceptionally good at creating value with IT the IT University strives to deliver internationally recognized and highly relevant research and education. The IT University Principle # 1 is described as “The essence of Information Technology is the creation, sharing and handling of mental constructions using digital technology.”

Study programmes (BSc, MSC and PhD) are provided in the areas described in the ITU triangle below:

The IT University of Copenhagen offers 3 BSc programmes, 4 MSc programmes and an extensive PhD programme as well as professional Masters Degrees and a Diploma programme, including interdisciplinary

http://www.promptedu.se/

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studies within the Sciences, the Humanities, Design and Business. The students come from very different backgrounds and many are internationals, offering new perspectives and approaches. The entrepreneurial spirit of both the University and its students is high as shown by the list of around 50 start-up companies founded by ITU students: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ViJx3LulRDZ_fOSmjV2A9OJiOq8FUd7oj1ytHaEqJ3w/edit#gid=0

http://en.itu.dk/

The institute of Entrepreneurial Software Engineering (for business informatics) and others at the interface of IT and business at the Technical University Munich (TUM) are running a range of activities and initiatives aimed at the proper education and training in software and software engineering as well as digital leadership skills which all focus on and follow a multidisciplinary approach. These include – amongst others – the Unternehmertum initiative, Softwareforum Leipzig and the Software Campus initiative where TUM acts as one of the initiators and active university partners to help create the new generation of digital leaders. The Software Campus is an example where companies collaborate with universities in the education of IT professionals and digital leaders with students getting insights into the business operation of these companies through their stays at these organisations where they run a project in which they solve a company issue or problem agreed on. Finally TUM is also running executive education programmes like the “Executive MBA in Business & IT” jointly developed with EuroCIO – The European CIO Association and partners from industry in cooperation with universities and business schools from different European countries including the UK, Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland.

Software Campus – Your path to becoming an IT leader

Software Campus trains and professionally develops tomorrow’s senior IT executives while opening up excellent career prospects to young IT experts in Germany. Software Campus combines scientific leading-edge research with hands-on management practice into an entirely new and innovative concept.

Software Campus seeks outstanding masters’ and doctoral students enrolled in computer science programs or computer-science related disciplines with a keen interest in taking over executive management functions in the industry and/or in business establishment. This executive development program, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), enjoys the support of a total of 19 partners from the industry and research.

It can be described as a new model for knowledge exchange with industry and the generation of the new generation of digital leaders and executives to lead industry towards successful digital transformation and innovation.

http://www.softwarecampus.de/en/home/

The experts in the workshop agree that the provision of economic incentives by national governments to universities who do a good job of attracting a large number of well-qualified students for multidisciplinary programmes developed in close cooperation with industry and giving them software skills and the set of further business and digital leadership competences demanded in the labour market.

Some even go as far to propose the establishment of a Software University in every European country, co-funded by the national and the EU level. The template for such an activity could be the IT University Copenhagen (ITU). ITU would be happy to assist with sharing experiences they have gained during the creation of the IT University of Copenhagen. The same holds true for the other university decision makers from a variety of countries who attended the expert workshop.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ViJx3LulRDZ_fOSmjV2A9OJiOq8FUd7oj1ytHaEqJ3w/edit#gid=0

http://en.itu.dk/

http://www.softwarecampus.de/en/home/

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2.2.3 One size does NOT fit all – diverse pathways to digital leadership training for SMEs

e-Leadership skill profiles for SME leaders cannot usually be acquired merely from an e-leadership programme at a university. It is usually the result of experiences during a career, education and training, and informal learning such as mentoring and coaching.

As the depth of e-leadership skills evolves, companies’ needs will usually be either for further steps on the e-leadership ladder, or for diversifying and complementing existing skills at the same level. This requires suitable e-leadership courses which can be taken during work instead of fully fledged programmes which would take the individual out of work for longer periods of time.

The e-leadership journey may go from awareness and curiosity to a vision for digital transformation and its potential for innovation – that will then need translating into an implementation plan. Information events and open lectures familiarise larger numbers of individuals from target groups with the topic and stimulate their own vision. Subsequent more focused events can cater for individual needs assessment. Further stages may include training in specific e-leadership skills and competences, through traditional education programmes, specific training courses, or coaching, consulting and the co-creation of knowledge.

Needs vary from operational to strategic, and from digital to business. Prospective learners with business or IT backgrounds may choose entry points at operational or strategic level.

Opportunities should exist for providers of education and training to develop and offer suitable training programmes and courses for the different stages of this e-Leadership journey. In addition to universities and business schools, providers may include professional or industry academies, chambers of commerce, coaching and consulting organisations, and publishers.

Higher Education and commercial or semi-commercial training and learning material providers are well positioned to offer courses and programmes, online or offline. Consulting and coaching might be tailored to the specific needs of the enterprise.

The education and training systems of all EU Member States need to move quickly. MOOCs offer scalability and wide reach. The short courses of higher and executive education institutions that explicitly address e-leadership have only limited reach, and coaching and consulting services have high costs. Self learning should be considered as an option. The greatest scope for improving e-leadership education is currently seen in MOOCs and self-directed learning, Higher and Executive Education post–graduate life-long learning offerings, and in specialist training providers. Experts at the workshop emphasised that teaching has to allow for problem-based and project-based learning and has to stimulate a continuous learning attitude.

The importance of creating T-shaped professionals in collaborative activities across educational disciplines and in a multidisciplinary fashion and in close cooperation with industry was emphasised whereby curricula need to be designed in a very flexible format to allow for quick adjustments. Another expert argued to the re-use of educational material across disciplines in different formats, e.g. blended learning, MOOCs etc.

To address the lack of appropriate e-leadership education for SMEs, different universities and business schools set out to engage with gazelle and entrepreneurial SMEs to discuss their training and education needs and to develop educational programmes accordingly (see http://eskills-lead.eu/documents). In doing so they adopted the view of universities to see themselves as lifelong learning institutions, i.e. a continuous supplier of education and training throughout the career of workers.

Given the requirements of the SME market course development in this area needs to focus on continuous curriculum improvement based on an agile methodology of incremental innovation in sprints. The traditional approach following the waterfall model of career evolution impedes quick reaction to changing skills requirements. The New Bulgarian University belongs to the group of pioneering universities and business schools who have in 2015 started to develop and teach a mix of hands-on, technical and strategy-related courses, responding to the needs of SMEs. These include courses on:

http://eskills-lead.eu/documents

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Strategy Development for Digital Intensive Organizations

Cyber Security and Resilient Business

IT Marketing

Cloud Technology

TSP (Total Software Process) Executive Strategy

Leading a Development Team.

Further universities with whom the New Bulgarian University teamed up in the development of e-leadership skills courses for SMEs have developed other courses which map the e-leadership journey, serving different e-leadership needs at different stages.

It is these types of well focussed e-leadership courses taken as ‘pills’ or ‘tapas’ at an appropriate point in time which can help to create the necessary e-leaders of the future. These are also needed to create an own national software industry and thereby counter developments like those present already for many years in countries like Bulgaria.

The “army of taxi drivers” - the story of the Bulgarian software industry and why Europe needs digital leaders (Prof. Valentina Ivanova, New Bulgarian University

Bulgaria had an army of engineers - both hardware and software, and they became taxi drivers when the more competitive western technologies overtook the market. Not your education but your customers pay your salary if and only if you can offer something of value to then. The education just improves your chances to add value but it's not enough.

E-leaders create new value for the customers utilizing technologies. They give the reason to build an army of software engineers. If you do not have e-leaders but just software engineers your army will march under a Chinese or an American flag.

Bulgaria is the preferred software and services outsourcing destination in Europe. And the outsourcing labour market is pushing us to train more software engineers every day to work for companies from all over the world. But no matter how many and how fast we educate, we will never have our own software industry until we grow up our own e-leaders.

2.2.4 Build ecosystems that create ecosystems

In order to reach the highest level of innovation one needs to develop the necessary ecosystems of key actors active at different stages of the value chain in industry, research, education and training etc. from different backgrounds (technical and non-technical) and their interactions as already described above. This also requires that the leaders of today need to get a much better understanding of the app economy, software etc. and the role of these for achieving innovations. They need to understand all the layers and the need for systems with high levels of built in flexibility. Furthermore, context and content matter a lot, whereby and especially in an age of ‘living services’, where people are constantly on the move, highly flexible contextual services are important since they have the potential to create new businesses never thought about and envisioned before.

Ecosystem development needs to bear in mind that these need to be replicable, i.e. easy to understand and implement elsewhere to ensure Europe is widely covered with these. One expert described this by stating: “Instead of giving fish, teach and train how to catch fish”, i.e. teach ecosystems how to build ecosystems.

The idea came up at the event of creating software hubs (Digistars) in European countries with specific focal points according to country’s strength and speciality, e.g. on telecommunications in the Nordic countries, finance in the UK, education in Finland or automotive in Germany.

Europe should also bear in mind to create larger software companies to achieve more leverage in all these activities. There could be a role here for governments and the Commission to find ways to help such companies to grow. It is not sufficient to only focus on start-up creation which is only one part of the market.

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2.2.5 Coexistence of formal certification, light weight certification and digital badges

Traditional university programme certification is strongly regulated and follows the ‘Bologna’ process, which started as a series of ministerial meetings and agreements between European countries designed to ensure comparability in the standards and quality of higher education qualifications. The basic framework adopted is of three cycles of higher education qualifications and defines the qualifications in terms of learning outcomes. In describing the cycles (Bachelor, Master, doctoral degree/PhD) the framework makes use of the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS). The process is generally judged as rather heavy-weight and universities show little interest in undergoing this process for new programmes of uncertain lifetime and sustainability which increasingly is the case with programmes responding to the new industry demands faced by higher and executive education institutions which are resulting from technological changes, changes in industrial structures and business models.

The alternatives used are university certificates like for instance those offered by non official degree programmes in cooperation with industry next to the strongly regulated official Bachelor and Master degree studies in countries. These are non-official degrees not formally approved by the national ministry of education and for instance in Spain called titulo propio, taught as one year programmes in cooperation with industry. Students achieve a university degree (not an official one). These degrees are well recognised by industry. Depending on the length and intensity of the studies different degrees can be obtained: Experto Universitario (‘expert’) (open also for non-academics with several year of job experience) (250 hours), Especialista Universitario (‘specialist‘) or Diploma Universitario de Postgrado (‘post graduate diploma) (300 hours), Máster or Magíster Universitario, also Maestría (500 hours);

The same holds true for new players in the market (for instance ISDI with the DiTex programme presented at the workshop) who design and offer programmes and courses responding directly to the market and industry demands in form of programmes addressing ‘hot’ topics like data analytics, digital transformation etc. Again, the vast majority of these programmes have not gone through the regulated formal Bologna process for certification.

Through these and other programmes and courses, workers continuously earn skills which are not certified or recognised formally. Here digital badges step in. These can be displayed wherever wanted on the web, and shared for employment, education or lifelong learning. A digital badge is an online representation of a skill an individual earned. Digital badges help share skills and interests with the world and they allow get recognition for skills learned anywhere. People start collecting badges from multiple sources and then display these recognizing skills and achievements on social networking profiles, job sites, websites and more. Mozilla OpenBadges (http://openbadges.org/) is one if not the best known scheme in this area. Open Badges allows verify your skills, interests and achievements through credible organizations. And because the system is based on an open standard, one can combine multiple badges from different issuers to tell the complete story of achievements.

For the future one can foresee the coexistence of all these types of certificates and skills recognition means. But it is not unlikely that we will experience a shift from the more heavy-weight certification scheme to other light-weight schemes in the future, with the former experiencing an increasing loss of significance.

2.2.6 The future IT Profession

So far universities have offered degree and related studies to students for a well specified profession. Due to the different not only technological changes happening it becomes increasingly difficult to address this ‘profession’. As a workshop expert put it: “Degree is fine, but for which profession? The profession does not yet exist”.

The future IT profession – and its differentiation into occupations and jobs - only becomes visible rudimentarily. There is the need to define the IT profession of the future resulting from latest technology,

http://openbadges.org/

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industry and business developments and trends and new job profiles in form of 'competence and skill bundles' including (core) competences which have the potential to ‘survive’ in the future. This process could be supported by using the (enlarged) e-CF and / or ESCO as framework(s) allowing remain flexible and responsive to the changes likely to emerge in increasingly shorter time frames.

On that basis one could start develop suitable VET, higher and executive education and training and further training paths, curricula, programmes and courses to be offered by all co-existing training providers (see above).

2.2.7 Diagnostics tools

We are all aware that there is a potential or a need to drive the digital transformation and foster ICT and digital leadership skills of a company but often we are faced with a not explicit demand yet. The same kind of tool could also serve to measure impact of better and improved ICT and digital leadership skills on the company.

Digital baseline assessment tools could help to stimulate this demand. There are already several tools under development ranging from organisation ICT maturity models and tools to innovation management performance tools. It is recommended develop and offer a repository of online tools and guidance supporting diagnosis and self-assessment in ICT maturity of organisations but also tool providing guidance in recruitment, appraisal and career advancement processes mainly based on 'development potential' and less on certificates.

2.2.8 Take two in one: alignment of digital leadership skills and entrepreneurship skills policy and education and training activities

The skills needed – described here as ‘e-leadership skills’ - can typically be found with entrepreneurial teams with software based business in their DNA. There is an urgent need for Europe to come up with more people of that type and entrepreneurs acting as ‘positive non-conformers’ emphasising that there is the need for design thinking (engineering and architecting) which can be seen as the balance between analytical and intuitive thinking. Helenius in 2013 (Business and Information Systems Engineering - In quest for research and education agenda in Europe) identified a serious lack of business oriented software creation and development education in Europe. The lessons learnt from the creation of EIT Digital during 2009 – 2013 also show that innovation needs to start with student entrepreneurs and “creativity inspired innovation”, whereby “entrepreneurship” is not only about starting new ventures – it is a mindset and a skill set of exploiting opportunities in the face of resource constraints.

Entrepreneurial thinking and entrepreneurship skills come very close to what is termed ‘e-leadership skills’, the skills required of an individual to initiate and achieve digital innovation. It would therefore make sense to aim at an alignment and integration of different policy fields on ICT, digital entrepreneurship and leadership skills for digital and key enabling technologies (KETs) and related education and training programmes. Such an alignment should be reflected in national policies and policy programmes supporting integration and alignment and cooperation on these issues between higher and executive education institutions and industry actors by providing incentives to speed up the process.

2.2.9 New ways of financing and funding

Policy makers at all levels in Europe – European and national - need to establish the framework conditions to achieve the necessary increase in innovation and competitiveness of European industry and businesses. This should include the move away from ‘use’ to ‘creation’ of software in Europe with the establishment of the prerequisites to make it happen. Foremost these need to tackle the education and training area, include activities for setting the right incentives and the development of suitable funding concepts.

In Europe we need to re-consider existing funding concepts and programmes which are often dating back to the late 1980s. While the past was characterised by funding legacy including large national IT giants in Member States and less creative new players and agile industry actors (see for instance the European

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Commission programmes ESPRIT, RACE, ACTS in the 1980s and 90s) new concepts need to address and support digital disruption as a topic. Policy makers and leaders and the actors preparing and developing policy actions need to be ‘educated’ to fully understand the working of the digital economy and society. Europe needs to move away from the not always future-oriented lobbying of the ‘incumbents’ mostly interested in protecting their companies and investments but not always leading to the innovations needed to increase the competitiveness in the market.

So far European Framework Programmes for Research and Innovation were more science and basic-research type programmes and regularly the activities in funded projects took place in silos and were not sufficiently cross-disciplinary in scope and insufficiently embedded in real life. There are first signals to change this. Furthermore funded projects typically run for about 3 years and the application procedures starting with proposal writing and ending with successful proposal approval (or rejection in the vast majority of cases) and project start easily last for around one year. Finally, projects suffer from a substantial administrative overhead and burden distracting from the real work, resulting in significant payment delays which start-ups and SMEs find very difficult to cope with.

However, and in today’s economies innovation is often not based on a lot of science and research but a business idea whereby a successful business build the business model around the software (see examples like airbnb). The role of software is no longer to be seen as a cost factor but key to success. There is an interdependency of business idea and software, none is replacing the other and both are needed.

How can future policy action and funding schemes look like?

Funding has to address different stages of development. The start-up and initial entrepreneurship and business development phases today typically receive – if at all - support from incubators and accelerators. Start-ups and innovative entrepreneurs receive very little funds from research and innovation programmes from the European Commission. A European Commission funding programme in this area would require a faster, easier and low threshold funding schemes to enable for rapid action. In the rapidly evolving market of today an innovative idea cannot wait a year until the funding is approved (or not) and three years development time, let alone the administrative and bureaucratic burden for securing payment of funds.

The growth phase of companies and young enterprises is a crucial and key problem in Europe. Funding schemes are needed for helping these innovations and innovators to quickly grow and scale up their business. Funding opportunities should be very specific and made visible and addressed to the potential target groups intended to become applicants. Again, a funding programme in this area would require fast application procedures and easy and quick access to funding. In the late 1990s, Erkki Liikanen, Commissioner of the European Commission with responsibility for IT from 1995 – 1999 made a proposal to give away funding of up to one million Euro per project in European research and innovation programmes to those innovative proposals approved and accepted without these having to enter the bureaucracy for proving the proper use of the funding received. In those days this idea did not have any chance of survival and implementation. However, today and due to the much more rapidly evolving markets and different framework conditions such an approach or similar approaches may need to be investigated and thought of for funding innovators in the start-up and - very importantly – also in the growth and scaling up phase.

Finally, experts recommend to not only focus funding on start-ups and innovative SMEs in their growth phase but also to develop instruments which support the creation of large software companies to create more leverage.

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2.3 Towards recommendations and actions

2.3.1 Initial set of recommendations and actions

Focussing on strategic priorities is needed to meet the ambitious targets. These together with recommendations were firstly derived from those identified in relevant precursor studies and activities including the European e-Leadership Initiative which started in 2013 (see www.eskills-guide.eu) and which was continued in 2014 by also addressing SME and start-ups (www.eskills-lead.eu) and ended in late 2015 and the KETs Skills Initiative (‘Vision and sectoral pilot on skills for key enabling technologies’) which ended in 2016.

Secondly, these recommendations were and will continue to be validated, enhanced and further developed in discussions and consultations with stakeholders by what the experts envisage as relevant and most important strategic priorities and recommendations addressed to different policy makers and stakeholders at all levels and the necessary actions resulting from these.

2.3.2 Conclusions and consolidated recommendations and actions (Status: May 2016)

The second workshop was consulting experts on recommendations which they were asked to formulate as potential policy actions with an interest in delivery, scalability and sectoral focuses, aiming at new skills development and the strategy to achieve this. Preference was to be given to joint activities with Member States able to make use of existing European Commission funding instruments.

http://www.eskills-guide.eu/

http://www.eskills-lead.eu/

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These expert recommendations for action have been described in more detail above and have been included and considered in the further development of the overall set of recommendations. The tabular overview below now reflects the current state-of-the-play in the development of strategic priorities, recommendations and actions for inclusion into the ‘Leadership Skills for Digital and Key Enabling Technologies 2016-2020’.

The consultation process will be continued in all the other workshops referred to above.

The revised overview of recommendations as of May 2016 is as follows:

Type Group / Topic Recommendation NEW (in brackets: reference to numbering of the original recommendation)

1 New indicators, statistics, monitoring, benchmarking and forecasting

Scoreboard (1): Engage with a broader set of stakeholder groups to sharpen definitions and metrics for e-leadership skills: Continuously update e-leadership indicators and scoreboard in a coordinated Europe-wide activity reaching beyond Europe where possible and regularly and continuously report about the results.

Observatory (2, 21, 24): Continuously update workforce, demand, supply and forecast figures for EU28 and each Member State. Develop Big-Data-type approaches and methodologies based on comprehensive vacancy data sources and seek cooperation with key players in the market including global business-oriented social networking service operators offering relevant big data datasets covering (many) European countries and beyond. Regularly and continuously report about the results.

2 New education and training New partnerships and players (4, 10, 20): Universities to more rapidly align curricula and programmes to newly emerging skill requirements. Co-existence of different actors and approaches and division of work between a) universities and business schools, b) other training providers and consultants, c) new players and market entrants; programme development more aligned to user industry needs; rapid new curricula development for programmes; 'on-demand' courses without curricula and Bologna certification behind.

New approaches and structures in education, training and research (NEW): The current university structures in Europe offer very little space for new approaches in education, training and research. Computer science and software design and engineering faculties and institutes are lagging behind and very often stick to educating and training technology oriented science students in topics of the past, not real software creation and engineering focusing on business models and platforms. The subjects are not well aligned to what is needed by the industry in digital transformation now and in the future and demanded by industry and governments, although industry has never been very good at specifying what it really needs in terms of skills and strategic innovation competencies. One of the aims is to push software based innovation with entrepreneurial business creation and development approaches and make decision makers aware that software and other emerging technologies are becoming increasingly fundamental for innovation and business success. Software platforms need to change from the vertical mode of operation (software in vertical silos) into a horizontal model – where there are no borders. Furthermore, time and speed to implementation is important and crucial in today’s businesses which requires a move away from old software developing principles to more rapid prototyping and building a business around these prototypes with parallel and incremental further development of the software. National government should provide economic incentives to universities who do a good job in attracting a large number of well-qualified students for multidisciplinary programmes developed in close cooperation with industry and giving them software skills and the set of further business and digital leadership competences demanded in the labour market.

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Investigate the possibility of an establishment of a Software University in every European country, co-funded by the national and the EU level. The template for such an activity could be universities like the in 1999 newly founded IT University Copenhagen (ITU).

Build ecosystems that create ecosystems (NEW): In order to reach the highest level of innovation one needs to develop the necessary ecosystems of key actors active at different stages of the value chain in industry, research, education and training etc. from different backgrounds (technical and non-technical) and their interactions as already described above. This also requires that the leaders of today need to get a much better understanding of the app economy, software etc. and the role of these for achieving innovations. Ecosystem development needs to bear in mind that these need to be replicable, i.e. easy to understand and implement elsewhere to ensure Europe is widely covered with these. Europe may wants to create such ecosystems in form of software hubs (Digistars) in European countries with specific focal points according to a country’s strength and speciality, e.g. on telecommunications in the Nordic countries, finance in the UK, education in Finland or automotive in Germany.

New formats (4, 22): Motivate and support education and training institutions to implement and offer a range and variety of learning formats: from f2f, blended to online teaching/learning including ‘hybrid’ learning models (e.g. using MOOCs, remote and f2f tutorship and exercises, in order to achieve measureable and certified outcomes) and make 'horizontal' skills (social, soft and leadership skills) teaching mandatory. Significantly increase the number and share of teachers/lecturers from user industry (strategists, executives) to better align education and training with user industry and social partner requirements. Support more experimentation with 'loose' or no curricula-based (ad hoc) education and training programmes using new approaches for creative learning like for instance peer-to-peer learning (e.g. ecole 42) offering co-working and learning spaces as opposed to the traditional tutorial teaching approach.

Diverse pathways to digital leadership training for SMEs (NEW): Universities to adopt the view to see themselves as lifelong learning institutions, i.e. a continuous supplier of education and training throughout the career of workers. Given the requirements of the SME market course development in this area needs to focus on continuous curriculum improvement based on an agile methodology of incremental innovation in sprints. The traditional approach following the waterfall model of career evolution impedes quick reaction to changing skills requirements. Learn from the pioneering universities and business schools who have in 2015 started to develop and teach a mix of hands-on, technical and strategy-related courses, responding to the needs of SMEs (www.eskills-lead.eu). These types of well focussed e-leadership courses taken as ‘pills’ or ‘tapas’ at an appropriate point in time can help to create the necessary e-leaders of the future especially in SMEs. These skills are also needed to create and further developing own national software industries in EU28 Member States.

http://www.eskills-lead.eu/

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Platform-based toolbox (3, 12, 13, 15, 16; relationship to 11, 34): Develop and provide online tools and guidance supporting diagnosis and self-assessment in recruitment, appraisal and career advancement processes mainly based on 'development potential' and less on certificates; provide tools and guidance for rapid programme adaptation building on new approaches such as the 'curriculum profile' approach followed by rapid light-weight certification; base developments on lessons learnt from tools like the 'Berufsnavigator' (occupation navigator) from the German employment agency linking career advancement to training and thereby demonstrating short and long-term effects of training activities; assess existing diagnostic tools which reflect the e-leadership skill requirements for their suitability (e.g. LMSA in Northern Ireland, the Entrepreneurial Skills Check as part of ECN Network in Austria, improve tool: https://www.improve-innovation.eu/ to provide a checkpoint or baseline assessment for individuals and signpost areas for development; use tools in providing benchmark data to individuals, so they can see how they compare and also information for the Monitoring and Benchmarking of e-leadership skills; could support the Innovative platform-based career support and job search services (see topic 3 below); develop an online European repository for the promotion of tools and best practices of tool use but also case studies on how e-leaders of today developed their skills to make them successful.

Light-weight Certification (14, 15): Find the right balance between, recognition and a co-existence of formal certification, light-weight certification and digital badges to ensure quality of higher education qualifications, recognition of light-weight certification and digital skills for skills recognition. If deemed appropriate develop light-weight certification and quality label for ad-hoc and short-term courses in close cooperation with industry. Promote ‘digital badges’ as further means for the recognition of skills which are not certified or recognised formally.

Start early and in schools (10): Teach ICT use potential and digital literacy focussing on real-world challenges and situations starting already in primary and secondary schools and with a strong industry-related focus in vocational schools; increase exploration and experimentation with a 'boot camp' approach (e.g. Generation initiative of McKinsey).

Replication, upscaling and expansion (NEW) of tested and successful approaches, methodologies and partnerships for the development of leadership skills for digital and key enabling technologies supported by the promotion of best practices offering guidance and a concrete methodology for replication to achieve upscaling and expansion.

3 Platform-based online career support, recruitment and job search

Innovative platform-based online career support, recruitment and job search services (11, 34; relationship to 3, 12, 13, 15, 16): Explore avenues for exploiting big data analytics and information generated on online job/talent, job advertising platforms and job-matching sites. The European Commission to work with national employment agencies to ensure that national systems are aligned with Europe-wide initiatives. To facilitate workers’ shifting into new types of jobs, training providers should exploit labour market intelligence to offer relevant learning opportunities that allow workers to plug skill gaps as they emerge over the course of work life. The e-CF to be used as the common ‘language’ in this online mapping and matching process.

https://www.improve-innovation.eu/

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4 Maturing the IT Profession IT profession definition using further developed e-CF (4.0 and 5.0) (12, 18): Define the IT profession of the future resulting from latest technology, industry and business developments and trends and new job profiles in form of 'competence and skill bundles' including (core) competences which have the potential to ‘survive’ in the future. This process could be supported by using the (enlarged) e-CF and / or ESCO as framework(s) allowing remain flexible and responsive to the changes likely to emerge in increasingly shorter time frames. Where appropriate enlarge the e-CF by new leadership requirements skills and competences for digital and key enabling technologies allowing to fully define the ICT profession/professionals; encourage convergence of disparate related competence frameworks in the realm of e-leadership and e-skills; motivate industry, job-seekers, career changers, employment agencies and staffing industry to use the e-CF framework as the common ‘language’ in the (online) competence and skill mapping and matching process to achieve a best match between demand and supply in the market and to counsel job seekers on re-skilling and certification.

Future ICT Professions and job profiles 2020+ (12, relationship to 4, 10, 20): Define the ICT professions of the future resulting from latest technology, industry and business developments and trends and the new job profiles in form of 'competence and skill bundles' using the (enlarged) e-CF and / or ESCO as framework(s) allowing to remain flexible and responsive to changes likely to emerge in increasingly shorter time frames; develop suitable VET, higher and executive education and training and further training paths, curricula, programmes and courses to be offered by all co-existing training providers

5 Alignment and integration of different policy fields on ICT, e-leadership, digital entrepreneurship and KETs and related education and training programmes

Alignment (5, 6): Entrepreneurial thinking and entrepreneurship skills come very close to what is termed ‘e-leadership skills’, the skills required of an individual to initiate and achieve digital innovation. Align higher and executive ICT and business education and training with leadership training and integrate these into KET higher education programmes. Reflect this in national policies and policy programmes supporting integration and alignment and cooperation on these issues between higher and executive education institutions and industry actors by providing incentives to speed up the process.

6 Longer-term national EU28 member state policy commitment and action towards leadership skills for digital and key enabling technologies

Longer-term policy commitment (8, 9, 17, 25, 32, 33): Motivate Member State governments for a longer-term policy commitment and scale up effort through launching initiatives especially in countries lagging behind which could include the establishment of digital competence centres in all NUTS2 regions building on already existing infrastructures (e.g. telecentres) and well equipped laboratories for KETs training.

7 Test different policy options to address e-leadership skills challenge (NEW): Based on the experiences of and lessons learnt in the UK Commission for Employment and Skills ‘UK Futures programme’ (UKFP), policy programmes could be developed throughout Europe with a relatively small sum of public money to pilot innovative solutions, with specific learning delivery mechanisms, awarded in a competitive process, with a strong employer leadership and collaboration between partners, with the potential for scalability and replicability, committed to dissemination operating in timebound manner to stimulate swift activity and working towards concrete goals with the potential for co-creation across different projects working to tackle the same problem.

8 Promotion and awareness raising for e-leadership, KET and e-skills

Promotion and awareness raising (7, 19, 23, 31): Continue promotion and awareness raising throughout Europe, not only at later stages of education, but also from early ages onwards.

9 New KET skills training Embedding technical multidisciplinarity in the curriculum (26): Training students in various disciplines simultaneously so that they can work ‘at the

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crossroads’ of those disciplines (e.g. mechatronics combining mechanics, electrics and systems engineering).

Embedding non-technical courses in technical curricula (27): offering non-technical courses for technical students in the areas of quality, risk & safety; management & entrepreneurship; communication; innovation-related competences and emotional intelligence skills.

Updating the skills of teachers/professors (28): sending educational personnel to companies to get insights into the latest developments, while inviting people from companies to regularly teach in the classroom, to increase the (practical) relevance of education.

Train transformational skills (NEW; relationship to 26, 27): there is a need to train a combination of technical and non-technical skills that together drive the transformational capacity of people in KETs, particularly by stimulating agility and their ability to solve complex problems. This includes a need to stimulate the skills required for solving problems as a team, as today’s complex (societal) challenges demand a multidisciplinary approach.

10 New ways of financing and funding for new talent development, innovation and competitiveness

Setting new framework conditions (NEW): Policy makers at all levels in Europe – European and national - need to establish the framework conditions to achieve the necessary increase in innovation and competitiveness of European industry and businesses. This should include the move away from ‘use’ to ‘creation’ of software in Europe with the establishment of the prerequisites to make it happen. Foremost these need to tackle the education and training area, include activities for setting the right incentives and the development of suitable funding concepts. In Europe we need to re-consider existing funding concepts and programmes which are often dating back to the late 1980s. While the past was characterised by funding legacy including large national IT giants in Member States and less creative new players and agile industry actors (see for instance the European Commission programmes ESPRIT, RACE, ACTS in the 1980s and 90s) new concepts need to address and support digital disruption as a topic. Policy makers and leaders and the actors preparing and developing policy actions need to be ‘educated’ to fully understand the working of the digital economy and society. Europe needs to move away from the not always future-oriented lobbying of the ‘incumbents’ mostly interested in protecting their companies and investments but not always leading to the innovations needed to increase the competitiveness in the market.

Funding schemes addressing the ‘growth’ phase of start-ups and SMEs (NEW): Funding has to address different stages of development. The start-up and initial entrepreneurship and business development phases today typically receive – if at all - support from incubators and accelerators. Start-ups and innovative entrepreneurs receive very little funds from research and innovation programmes from the European Commission. A European Commission funding programme in this area would require a faster, easier and low threshold funding schemes to enable for rapid action. In the rapidly evolving market of today an innovative idea cannot wait a year until the funding is approved (or not) and three years development time, let alone the administrative and bureaucratic burden for securing payment of funds. The growth phase of companies and young enterprises is a crucial and key problem in Europe. Funding schemes are needed for helping these innovations and innovators to quickly grow and scale up their business. Funding opportunities should be very specific and made visible and addressed to the potential target groups intended to become applicants. Again, a funding programme in this area would require fast application procedures and easy and quick access to funding.

Funding instruments to support the creation of large software companies

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(NEW): Focus funding not only on start-ups and innovative SMEs in their growth phase but also develop instruments which support the creation of large software companies to create more leverage.

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3 ANNEXES

3.1 Initial set of recommendations for discussion (status: January 2016)

GROUP RECOMMENDATIONS ACTIONS 2016-2020

1 e-Leadership indicators, scoreboard, continuous demand and supply monitoring based on new (big) data sources, benchmarking and forecasting for EU28 and beyond

1. Sharpen metrics: Engage with a broader set of stakeholder groups to sharpen definitions and metrics for e-leadership skills.

Continuously update e-leadership indicators and scoreboard in a coordinated Europe-wide activity reaching beyond Europe where possible.

1 2. Monitor demand and supply: Regularly monitor demand and supply of e-leadership while improving planning and data availability about e-leadership skills.

Continuously update e-leadership demand, supply and forecast figures 2016-2020 in a coordinated Europe-wide activity reaching beyond Europe where possible.

1 21. Gap monitoring: Establish and disseminate robust estimates of supply and demand

Identify new data sources for information on demand and supply of e-leadership skills and develop big data-type approaches for addressing this issue to establish a comprehensive monitoring and projection system.

1 24. Monitoring and benchmarking: Develop innovative estimates on e-leadership supply and demand

Develop innovative estimates on e-leadership supply and demand using new data sources for a pan-European observatory and where possible extending beyond Europe (see also recommendations 1, 2 and 21)

2 New e-leadership education and training

4. Create new teaching formats and partnerships: Create new formats and partnerships for teaching and acquiring e-leadership skills.

A greater number of educational institutions to team up with industry and roll out a range of e-leadership curricula and programmes / courses.

2 20. Skills variety: Continue stakeholder dialogue to stimulate supply-side response to the variety of e-leadership skills requirements across the economy

Continue stakeholder dialogue to stimulate supply-side response to the variety of e-leadership skills requirements across the economy.

2 22. Research and training: Utilise the opportunities for e-leadership training course / programme development

Training institutions to put greater emphasis on digital leadership, act as life-long training providers and utilise the opportunities for e-leadership training course / programme development and develop new or adapt existing programmes building on curriculum profiles and including ‘hybrid’ learning models such as MOOCs thereby using EC funding opportunities where appropriate.

2 3. Develop curricula guidelines and quality label: Develop and apply e-leadership curricula guidelines and quality labels.

Prepare the consolidation and maintenance of e-leadership guidelines and curriculum profiles in conjunction with key stakeholders in Europe.

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2 13. Broad adoption: Promote understanding of e-leadership and widespread adoption of the Guidelines

Promote widespread use of the e-leadership curriculum guidelines in EU28 member states. Initiate the preparation of a CEN CWA (CEN Workshop Agreement) to prepare for Europe-wide standardisation.

2 16. Online presence: Support the setting up online services for e-leadership skill development, for learners and for education and training institutions

Enable use / emulation of prototypes currently (2016) under development for e-leadership content, user dialogue and general functionality.

2 15. Governance: Encourage stakeholders to establish governance for e-leadership development, quality assessment and recognition

Propose suitable governance model for e-leadership education and training supply and motivate and encourage stakeholders to take active and efficient government roles.

2 14. Certification: Foster appropriate certification structures for e-leadership skill documentation and transparency

Establish and propagate best practice in the certification of e-leadership skills and define common certification principles across the EU.

2 10. Adapt education and training: Adapt education and training to the digital age

National and regional authorities should ensure that primary and secondary school curricula embed ICT use and digital literacy throughout the learning process, with a focus on creative ICT applications for real-world challenges.

2 New KET skills training 26. Embedding technical multidisciplinarity in the curriculum: training students in various disciplines simultaneously so that they can work ‘at the crossroads’ of those disciplines (e.g. mechatronics combining mechanics, electrics and systems engineering)

Designing adjustments in the curricula for VET/Bachelor/Master/PhD programmes (pilot projects); development and promotion of pan-European MOOCs training multidisciplinarity in KETs; development of European Multidisciplinary Master Programmes.

2 27. Embedding non-technical courses in technical curricula: offering non-technical courses for technical students in the areas of quality, risk & safety; management & entrepreneurship; communication; innovation-related competences and emotional intelligence skills

Stimulating educators to introduce this change to the educational system by means of providing financial support to design new teaching strategies and to implement those to practice; incentivising educational institutions to adopt this change; supporting training to teachers to introduce this change

2 28. Updating the skills of teachers/professors: sending the educational personnel to companies to get insights into the latest developments, while inviting people from companies to regularly teach in the classroom

Promoting and funding dedicated training programs for teachers implying their exchange with industry

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2 29. Promoting innovation in teaching: rewarding educational institutions and teachers/professors for introducing innovative approaches; these aspects need to be embedded in the assessment schemes for both organisations and individuals.

- Adjusting the reward system; - Adjusting regulation to provide the educational institutions with sufficient flexibility to change the curriculum; - Providing educators with additional financial means to introduce change; - Specifically, continuing to offer funding support for cooperation projects between business, education and training institutions to try out new approaches (currently offered by DG EAC Erasmus+ programme); - Increasing awareness of educators about the existence of programmes mentioned in the point above

2 30. Convincing companies that the return on training and skills development investment is sufficient to offset the costs: encouraging employers to invest in up-skilling of their personnel by offering them factual evidence and by showcasing good practices.

Collecting evidence of benefits of personnel training in KETs and to disseminate existing good practices

2 18. e-CF: Further enrich the European e-Competence Framework

Maintain the use of the e-CF as standard competence framework for all e-leadership curriculum profiles, encourage convergence of disparate related competence frameworks in the realm of e-leadership and e-skills and ensure that new e-leadership skills requirements are incorporated in the future version 4.0 of the e-CF.

2 12. ICT professionalism: Foster ICT professionalism and quality

National and EU-level initiatives should be fostered to strengthen ICT professionalism, to steer professional skills to where there is demand for ICT practitioners using the e-Competence Framework (e-CF) and online tools for career support and lifelong learning, and to counsel job seekers on re-skilling and certification.

3 e-leadership and digital entrepreneurship policy and education and training alignment

5. Align e-Leadership and entrepreneurship actions: Align actions to develop e-leadership skills with efforts to foster entrepreneurship across the EU.

Align both e-leadership and digital entrepreneurship types of policies and actions and develop common approaches.

3 6. Integrate e-Leadership skills development in entrepreneurship programmes: Foster e-leadership in the context of entrepreneurship and self-

Include and integrate e-leadership skills development in/with entrepreneurship programmes and innovation incubators in all EU28 member states.

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employment.


7. Awareness raising: Build awareness of e-leadership skills for innovation, competitiveness, and employability

All stakeholders to continue to play an active role in awareness creation of e-skills in general and e-leadership skills in particular using multiple formats.

4 19.SME leaders: Extend concept of e-leadership to SMEs, consulting, entrepreneurial activity and self-employment

Continue awareness creation and promotion of e-leadership skills addressed to SMEs, consulting, entrepreneurial activity and self-employment.

4 23.Stakeholder coordination: Foster cooperation activities on e-leadership

Coordinate stakeholders to foster promotion, governance and cooperation activities on e-leadership in a coherent and efficient manner.

4 31. Developing a targeted communication strategy to increase awareness on KETs: mobilising mainstream media and social media

Developing targeted national communication plans for KETs; developing targeted national communication plans for KETs with a particular emphasis on girls, with an objective to inspire them to join the world of KETs; implementing the abovementioned communication plans on MS level

5 Longer-term national EU28 member state policy commitment and action towards e-leadership, KETs and e-skills

9. Longer-term policy commitment: Scale up effort through longer term policy commitment

All European national governments should continue to put in place a long-term strategy with clear goals, targets and measures to ensure sustainability of successful activities and partnerships that can address the e-skills challenge.

5 17.EU Member States: Strengthen cooperation and capitalise on Member State initiatives and best practices

Encourage action by EU28 member states national governments, stakeholders and associations to strengthen current policy initiative to create a more ambitious approach to e-leadership skill development focusing on innovation.

5 25. Policy commitment: National policy makers to demonstrate commitment towards e-leadership skills

National policy makers to demonstrate commitment towards e-leadership skills and scale up their efforts in a longer term perspective, and where appropriate using European funding opportunities to invest in training and lifelong learning projects.

5 8. National initiatives: Launch initiatives in countries lagging behind

Governments in countries with low levels of e-skills activity should continue to establish comprehensive strategies, foster multi-stakeholder partnerships and engage in related measure and activities.

5 33. Digital competence centres: Establish digital competence centres in all NUTS2 regions

Establish digital competence centres in all NUTS2 regions to support and incentivise the adoption of digital technology in local companies and engage with local stakeholders to promote the development of basic digital and e-leadership skills of individuals located in disadvantaged regions and urban areas, which would involve promoting exposure to digital technology. Importantly, by sharing technological knowledge

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with local businesses, and training the local workforce, these centres should help boost local productivity.

5 32. Raising the quality of infrastructure and improving working conditions: makes KETs an attractive field to work in

Building well-equipped laboratories; offering workers safe working environment; offering flexible project budgets; offering attractive remuneration.

6 Innovative platform-based online career support, recruitment and job search services

11. Advise on future job opportunities: Build bridges for students, graduates and workers

National governments should offer access to high quality information and career-support services for young people, providing advice on existing and future job opportunities and industry demand, and demonstrating that they could quickly find a job.

6 34. Platform-based talent markets for ‘disruptive’ online recruitment and job search: Explore avenues for exploiting big data analytics in job search and recruitment processes

Explore avenues for exploiting big data analytics and information generated on online job/talent, job advertising platforms and job-matching sites.The European Commission to work with national employment agencies to ensure that national systems are aligned with Europe-wide initiatives.To facilitate workers’ shifting into new types of jobs, training providers should exploit labour market intelligence to offer relevant learning opportunities that allow workers to plug skill gaps as they emerge over the course of work life.The e-CF to be used as the common ‘language’ in this online mapping and matching process.

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3.2 Recommendations after completion of workshop no. 1 (status: March 2016)


1 New indicators, statistics, monitoring, benchmarking and forecasting

Scoreboard (1): Engage with a broader set of stakeholder groups to sharpen definitions and metrics for e-leadership skills: Continuously update e-leadership indicators and scoreboard in a coordinated Europe-wide activity reaching beyond Europe where possible and regularly and continuously report about the results.

Observatory (2, 21, 24): Continuously update workforce, demand, supply and forecast figures for EU28 and each Member State. Develop Big-Data-type approaches and methodologies based on comprehensive vacancy data sources and seek cooperation with key players in the market including global business-oriented social networking service operators offering relevant big data datasets covering (many) European countries and beyond. Regularly and continuously report about the results.

2 New education and training New partnerships and players (4, 10, 20): Universities to more rapidly align curricula and programmes to newly emerging skill requirements. Co-existence of different actors and approaches and division of work between a) universities and business schools, b) other training providers and consultants, c) new players and market entrants; programme development more aligned to user industry needs; rapid new curricula development for programmes; 'on-demand' courses without curricula and Bologna certification behind.

New formats (4, 22): Motivate and support education and training institutions to implement and offer a range and variety of learning formats: from f2f, blended to online teaching/learning including ‘hybrid’ learning models (e.g. using MOOCs, remote and f2f tutorship and exercises, in order to achieve measureable and certified outcomes) and make 'horizontal' skills (social, soft and leadership skills) teaching mandatory. Significantly increase the number and share of teachers/lecturers from user industry (strategists, executives) to better align education and training with user industry and social partner requirements. Support more experimentation with 'loose' or no curricula-based (ad hoc) education and training programmes using new approaches for creative learning like for instance peer-to-peer learning (e.g. ecole 42) offering co-working and learning spaces as opposed to the traditional tutorial teaching approach.

Platform-based toolbox (3, 12, 13, 15, 16; relationship to 11, 34): Develop and provide online tools and guidance supporting diagnosis and self-assessment in recruitment, appraisal and career advancement processes mainly based on 'development potential' and less on certificates; provide tools and guidance for rapid programme adaptation building on new approaches such as the 'curriculum profile' approach followed by rapid light-weight certification; base developments on lessons learnt from tools like the 'Berufsnavigator' (occupation navigator) from the German employment agency linking career advancement to training and thereby demonstrating short and long-term effects of training activities; assess existing diagnostic tools which reflect the e-leadership skill requirements for their suitability (e.g. LMSA in Northern Ireland, the Entrepreneurial Skills Check as part of ECN Network in Austria, improve tool: https://www.improve-innovation.eu/ to provide a checkpoint or baseline for individuals and signpost areas for development; use tools in providing benchmark data to individuals, so they can see how they compare and also information for the Monitoring and Benchmarking of e-leadership skills; could support the Innovative platform-based career support and job search services (see topic 3 below); develop an online European repository for the promotion of tools and best practices of tool use but also case studies on how e-leaders of

https://www.improve-innovation.eu/

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today developed their skills to make them successful.

Light-weight Certification (14, 15): Develop light-weight certification and quality label for ad-hoc and short-term courses in close cooperation with industry.

Start early and in schools (10): Teach ICT use potential and digital literacy focussing on real-world challenges and situations starting already in primary and secondary schools and with a strong industry-related focus in vocational schools; increase exploration and experimentation with a 'boot camp' approach (e.g. Generation initiative of McKinsey).

Replication, upscaling and expansion (NEW) of tested and successful approaches, methodologies and partnerships for the development of leadership skills for digital and key enabling technologies supported by the promotion of best practices offering guidance and a concrete methodology for replication to achieve upscaling and expansion.

3 Platform-based online career support, recruitment and job search

Innovative platform-based online career support, recruitment and job search services (11, 34; relationship to 3, 12, 13, 15, 16): Explore avenues for exploiting big data analytics and information generated on online job/talent, job advertising platforms and job-matching sites. The European Commission to work with national employment agencies to ensure that national systems are aligned with Europe-wide initiatives. To facilitate workers’ shifting into new types of jobs, training providers should exploit labour market intelligence to offer relevant learning opportunities that allow workers to plug skill gaps as they emerge over the course of work life. The e-CF to be used as the common ‘language’ in this online mapping and matching process.

4 Maturing the ICT Profession e-CF 4.0 and 5.0 (12, 18): Enlarge the e-CF by new leadership requirments skills and competences for digital and key enabling technologies allowing to fully define the ICT profession/professionals; encourage convergence of disparate related competence frameworks in the realm of e-leadership and e-skills; motivate industry, job-seekers, career changers, employment agencies and staffing industry to use the e-CF framework as the common ‘language’ in the (online) competence and skill mapping and matching process to achieve a best match bewteen demand and supply in the market and to counsel job seekers on re-skilling and certification.

Future ICT Professions and job profiles 2020+ (12, relationship to 4, 10, 20): Define the ICT professions of the future resulting from latest technology, industry and business developments and trends and the new job profiles in form of 'competence and skill bundles' using the (enlarged) e-CF and / or ESCO as framework(s) allowing to remain flexible and responsive to changes likely to emerge in increasingly shorter time frames; develop suitable VET, higher and executive education and training and further training paths, curricula, programmes and courses to be offered by all co-existing training providers

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5 Alignment and integration of different policy fields on ICT, e-leadership, digital entrepreneurship and KETs and related education and training programmes

Alignment (5, 6): Align higher and executive ICT and business education and training with leadership training and integrate these into KET higher education programmes. Reflect this in national policies and policy programmes supporting integration and alignment and cooperation on these issues between higher and executive education institutions and industry actors by providing incentives to speed up the process.

6 Longer-term national EU28 member state policy commitment and action towards leadership skills for digital and key enabling technologies

Longer-term policy commitment (8, 9, 17, 25, 32, 33): Motivate Member State governments for a longer-term policy commitment and scale up effort through launching initiatives especially in countries lagging behind which could include the establishment of digital competence centres in all NUTS2 regions building on already existing infrastructures (e.g. telecentres) and well equipped laboratories for KETs training.

7 Test different policy options to address e-leadership skills challenge (NEW): Based on the experiences of and lessons learnt in the UK Commission for Employment and Skills ‘UK Futures programme’ (UKFP), policy programmes could be developed throughout Europe with a relatively small sum of public money to pilot innovative solutions, with specific learning delivery mechanisms, awarded in a competitive process, with a strong employer leadership and collaboration between partners, with the potential for scalability and replicability, committed to dissemination operating in timebound manner to stimulate swift activity and working towards concrete goals with the potential for co-creation across different projects working to tackle the same problem.


Promotion and awareness raising (7, 19, 23, 31): Continue promotion and awareness raising throughout Europe, not only at later stages of education, but also from early ages onwards.

9 New KET skills training Embedding technical multidisciplinarity in the curriculum (26): Training students in various disciplines simultaneously so that they can work ‘at the crossroads’ of those disciplines (e.g. mechatronics combining mechanics, electrics and systems engineering).

Embedding non-technical courses in technical curricula (27): offering non-technical courses for technical students in the areas of quality, risk & safety; management & entrepreneurship; communication; innovation-related competences and emotional intelligence skills.

Updating the skills of teachers/professors (28): sending educational personnel to companies to get insights into the latest developments, while inviting people from companies to regularly teach in the classroom, to increase the (practical) relevance of education.

Train transformational skills (NEW; relationship to 26, 27): there is a need to train a combination of technical and non-technical skills that together drive the transformational capacity of people in KETs, particularly by stimulating agility and their ability to solve complex problems. This includes a need to stimulate the skills required for solving problems as a team, as today’s complex (societal) challenges demand a multidisciplinary approach.

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3.3 Workshop no. 2 agenda and participants

The Workshop no. 2

Software – what needs to be done for Europe to move from ‘use’ to ‘creation’

20 March 2016; 10:30 – 17:00 h; EU Liaison Office of the German Research Organisations (KoWi); Rue du Trône 98, B - 1050 Bruxelles (Belgium)

Agenda

10:30 Welcome and Introduction

European Commission Policy Background

The service contract ‘Promotion of e-Leadership Skills in Europe’

The ‘Agenda for e-Leadership in Europe 2016-2020’

André Richier, European Commission DG GROW [confirmed] Werner B. Korte, Director, empirica GmbH [confirmed]

10:45 Why Software is Eating the World and Economies!

New creative destruction

Industrialisation of innovation

Dream – Vision – Use - Create – Lead & Build

The innovation gap

Mika Helenius, Professor at Aalto University, Finland [confirmed]

11:00 INDUSTRY: Innovation through e-Leadership skills: case studies

1. Comptel – mobile usage data analytics for value adding services for the telecoms industry (Ari Vänttinen, CMO, Comptel Corporation, CEO, Helsinki, Finland) [confirmed]

2. Mendeley – join millions of researchers (Jan Reichelt, Managing Director and Co-founder, London, United Kingdom) [confirmed]

Discussion

11:30 UNIVERSITY: e-Leadership skills training in Higher and Executive Education

1. Entrepreneurial Software Engineering for Business Information Systems / Platforms (Prof. Dr. Florian Matthes, Technical University München, Germany) [confirmed]

2. PROMPT – Professional Master’s Education in Software Development (Malin Rosqvist, Research Coordinator and PROMPT project manager at Mälardalen University, Eskilstuna, Sweden) [confirmed]

3. Master in Software Engineering and other programmes at the IT University Copenhagen (Mads Tofte, Rector, IT University Copenhagen) [confirmed]

4. The Institute for the Internet Development (ISDI) Digital Talent Executive Program (Victor Molero, Academic Director ISDI, Fátima Gallo, Digital Talent Manager ISDI, Madrid) [confirmed]

Discussion and further expert statements from participants

13:00 LUNCH

14:00 POLICY: e-Leadership skills in Policy Initiatives

1. Denmark: The Danish Government Digitisation Strategy (Yih-Jeou Wang, Head of Director’s Office, Digitaliseringsstyrelsen) [confirmed]

2. Ireland: The Irish ICT Skills Action Plan 2014-2018 (Gerard Walker, Department of Jobs, Enterprise, Innovation, Assistant Principal Officer/Senior Policy Advisor, Education, Skills and Labour Market Policy Unit Strategic Policy Division) [confirmed]

3. Europe: EIT Digital Master School (Anders Flodström, EIT Digital, Director Education) [confirmed]

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Discussion

15:00 AGENDA DEVELOPMENT: Developing the ‘Agenda for e-Leadership in Europe 2016-2020’

Key objectives

Targets

Major topics and building blocks

Types of actions at different levels (awareness, research, education, training, policy, coordination, monitoring, benchmarking ...)

o European level o National level o Stakeholder level

Actions by different actor groups and stakeholders present at the workshop: o Industry (incl. industry / professional associations, lobbyists) o Higher and executive education institutions o Governments

Alliances and partnerships

Time schedule / line

Funding and financing

Discussion

Facilitators:

Mika Helenius, Professor at Aalto University [confirmed]

Werner B. Korte, Director, empirica GmbH [confirmed]

Discussion

16:45 Conclusions and Next steps

André Richier, European Commission DG GROW [confirmed]

Werner B. Korte, Director, empirica GmbH [confirmed]

Participants

First Name Surname Role Organisation Cty.

Mehmet Akşit Chair Software Engineering; Department of Computer Science

University of Twente NL

Joao Alvaro Carvalho Professor Universidade do Minho PT

Hans De Canck Human Capital iMinds BE

Eriona Dashja Research Consultant empirica DE

Anders Flodstrom Director Education EIT Digital SE

Fátima Gallo Digital Talent Manager ISDI ES

Mika Helenius Head of Research Program Aalto University FI

Barry Hodgson Manager Newcastle University Digital Institute UK

Valentina Ivanova Professor New Bulgarian University BG

Werner B. Korte Director empirica DE

Florian Matthes Professor Technical University Munich DE

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First Name Surname Role Organisation Cty.

Victor Molero Academic Director ISDI ES

Maria Nikkilä Ministry of Finance FI

Markku Oivo Professor of software engineering; Head of M3S & M-Group

University of Oulu FI

Joe Peppard Professor ESMT - European School of Management and Technology

DE

Pascal Ravesteijn Professor in Process Innovation & Information Systems; Project Leader Master of Informatics

Utrecht University of Applied Sciences NL

Jan Reichelt Managing Director and Co-Founder Mendeley UK

André Richier Principal Administrator European Commission BE

Malin Rosqist Research Coordinator Mälardalen University SE

Martin Ruppert Managing Director IMPROVE European Innovation Management Academy EWIV

DE

Mads Tofte Rector IT University Copenhagen DK

Ari Vänttinen CMO Comptel Corporation FI

Freddy Van den Wyngaert

Secretary General EuroCIO BE

Niels van der Linden Senior Consultant Capgemini Consulting BE

Tapio Virkkunen Development Director Ministry of Development and Economy FI

Janne Viskari Director, Architecture for Digital Services

Population Registry Center FI

Gerard Walker Senior Policy Advisor Department of Jobs, Enterprise, Innovation Ireland

IE

Yih-Jeou Wang Head of the Director-General's Secretariat

Digialiseringsstyrelsen DK

Dirk Werth Scientific Director AWS-Institut für digitale Produkte und Prozesse gGmbH

DE

Anton Wijs Assistant Professor Eindhoven University of Technology NL

Laurent Zibell Policy Advisor industriALL BE

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