Established in November 2020, the Automotive Skills Alliance (ASA) is now proud of its second year of facilitating European collaboration for skills development in the automotive-mobility ecosystem. As a large-scale Pact for Skills partnership, the ASA is the first and the most successful network of partners, counting more than 90 members from the industry, education and training providers, social partners and regions. Built on the strategic European blueprint projects ALBATTS and DRIVES, the goal of the ASA is to facilitate cooperation of various stakeholders to ensure the upskilling and reskilling of the automotive-mobility ecosystem’ workforce.
Key highlights
- As of January 2022, the ASA is a legal entity eligible to become a partner in European projects. This opportunity was already seized – the ASA helped to facilitate submission and therefore participate in two European projects with international partners and two more projects are awaiting approval in 2023
- 31 new members and partners have joined the ASA network in 2022
- The first ASA Conference, organized in cooperation with the Stuttgart region, took place in September 2022. The event brought together more than 70 participants from various parts of the automotive-mobility ecosystem and led to the formulation of the Stuttgart Brief
Working groups
- A new sub-working group (WG 3.7) has been launched, facilitating up- and reskilling in the areas of Life Cycle Assessment and Environmental Footprint, under the supervision of the ASA partner SPIN 360
- The ASA Skills Intelligence working groups (WG1 and WG3) has been expanded with new topics such as apprenticeships, the attractiveness of employment in the automotive sector and a human-centric approach to up and reskilling
- In the Regional Implementation working group (WG4) regional workshop on skills development in the automotive sector was organized as part of the European Week of Regions and Cities (EURegionsWeek). To support regional cooperation, the ASA team has initiated a number of bilateral meetings with automotive regions from Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Sweden, and others. The WG4 members have further have participated in several conferences of the European Committee of the Regions´ Automotive Intergroup (CoRAI) and helped co-found the Automotive Regions Alliance (ARA) in the CoR. For a more detailed overview of WG4 activities, visit the ASA website
- ASA maintains and further extends the Skills Framework. The Skills Framework is a one stop shop database for training courses in the Automotive-mobility ecosystem with an integrated framework for definition and recognition of job roles and skills / competence concepts using microbadges. The training courses are linked and advertised by providers according to coherent structure and mapping exercise – more than 120 courses are linked through the platform covering various topics
- ASA maintains and further extends the Learning Platform. Online platform hosting online courses. More than 30 online courses are available on the platform now and growing
Important events
- The ASA has participated in a high-level conference of the Automotive Regions Alliance. On behalf of the ASA, Jakub Stolfa took floor in a discussion with the Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights, Mr. Nicolas Schmit. The ASA was thus able to voice the importance of skills development in managing the twin transitions at the highest European level.
- The ASA has pulled together with the European Commission´s Support Service on the Pact for Skills Hubs, focused on knowledge sharing, networking and funding for the pacts for skills.
- The ASA has joined forces with the Czech presidency of the EU Council and co-organized a high-level discussion on the 21st of November 2022. The objective was to discuss ways forward towards the Just Transition, with inputs from European representatives of employers, employees and regions.
- On behalf of its regions, the ASA has participated in the stakeholders´ consultation on Transition Pathways co-creation process launched by DG GROW of the European Commission in May 2022, resulting in the publishing of the staff working document. The ASA has been also represented in the roundtable organized by DG GROW on the November 28th though active involvement of its members, Trnava Region, Lombardy Region, IndustriALL, and Ceemet
European and regional cooperation
- The year 2022 has brought new partnerships within the battery sector – the ASA has joined Batteries European Partnership Association (BEPA) as a member to work on focus on the up-/re-skilling topics as well as Mobility Applications and Integration
- ASA joined forces in strategic partnership with the European Battery Alliance Academy to leverage know-how and cooperation for skills development along the entire battery value chain
- Two Erasmus+ co-funded projects have been granted, allowing the ASA and its partners to cooperate on specific skills initiatives across multiple EU countries. The PASS project, started in September 2022, aims to create an EU-wide skills framework with microcredentials for the assessment and support of key skills and competences within the automotive-mobility ecosystem. The FLAMENCO project will pilot forward-looking approaches and methods to enable sustainable collaboration on skills intelligence in the Automotive-Mobility Ecosystem. The project is starting in January 2023 to support collaborations in the ASA WG3 Skills Intelligence
- Four regional pilot projects are launched in three of the ASA´s regions with the partnership´s support. Regional implementation of the European funding for up- and reskilling projects helped to create a “Regional Pacts for Skills” based on the EU-wide cooperation within the ASA.
Looking towards 2023:
- As the 2023 has been deemed the European Year of Skills, the ASA will participate and organize various initiatives facilitating exchange on skills development at the European level
- We will make results from ongoing projects available through the ASA network and know results from two project proposals, with ASA partners on board, submitted in September 2022 (Centers of Vocational Excellence – Green Excellence Centers of the Automotive Ecosystem (ECoCAR) and TRIREME (Blueprint project – digiTal & gReen skIlls towaRds futurE of the Mobility Ecosystem))
- The team of the ASA is further working on growing the network of ASA partners to ensure all relevant regions and stakeholders will be able to benefit from the exchange of inspiration and best practices, to ensure the green and digital transition will work for all