During May and June, ASA participated in multiple events and meetings organized in alignment with the Year of Skills commitment. The ASA partnership showed once again its strong will in building a professional environment and a strong framework that will support upskilling and reskilling of the workforce in order to embrace in confidence the changes outlined by the green and digital transition requirements. Europe is ready to join forces to identify the learning needs and find ways to respond to them with methods and tools that will support a professional and safe transition. ASA, through its actions, is supporting this European trend.
Below you can find a roundup of actions taken and events in which ASA has recently participated.
Batteries Teachers and Trainers Forum in SKODA Auto
In the European Year of Skills, the attention drops on the educational framework from European countries, on skills needs analysis but also on how those needs are approached and what are the priority actions to cope with all the transition milestones.
In this context, the BaTT Forum was organized and hosted between 16-18 May 2023 by Skoda Auto, in Mlada Boleslav, Czech Republic.
More than 30 professionals in education and training from 9 European countries shared best practices, discussed, and had an insight into how Skoda Auto is training students and staff on e-mobility in the VET School.
The live discussions involved all participants and offered an inspirational background for Trainers and Teachers who are directly involved in the up-/re-skilling initiatives to prepare the workforce for the green and digital transition.
ASA President is meeting Commissioners Thierry Breton and Nicolas Schmit
The European Year of Skills is creating opportunities for European level discussions that positively impact the automotive ecosystem. It is clear that the green and digital transitions are affecting the skills needs and the structure of the workforce in the automotive already and in the coming years.
Attentive to how to better approach this trend at the European level, the European Commission initiated an open dialogue on the future of the automotive domain with automotive sector representatives.
The ASA President and Vice-President were glad to meet with Commissioners Nicolas Schmit and Thierry Breton on Jun 5, 2023.
Together with other automotive sector representatives, they discussed how to facilitate the social aspects of the transitions as well as the challenges faced by the ecosystem in this fast-moving transformational trend. Skills development through educational programs and training remain crucial in addressing the anticipated skills needs and preparing the future workforce for the common purpose of “not leaving anyone behind in this transition” as mentioned multiple times by the Commission.
EU support remains essential during this journey and the involvement of main automotive stakeholders is crucial in adapting to new and finding the right solutions to upskill/re-skill professionals in the field to respond to the new needs as well as in preparing society in general for the new automotive-mobility ecosystem trends.
ASA is grateful for these discussions and is committed to continuing the various palette of initiatives and projects regarding upskilling and reskilling in the automotive-mobility ecosystem to support the European mission.
Skills needs and Training offer in the Battery Sector
The Battery sector is an important part of the electromobility, domain toward which the Automotive sector is heading as well.
To see the European battery sector get stronger and develop quickly, there is a need for skilled people that are able to support all the value-chain steps – from the raw materials process, through cell and modules manufacturing, batteries integration, to batteries recycling or second use.
In this context, the 2nd plenary session of Batteries Europe – an event dedicated to the Battery sector and, in particular, to the education and trainings needed to develop it – took place in Brussels, on June 7th, 2023.
The panel discussion topics were built around skills changes as a permanent long-term approach– influencing education and training providers at all levels – VET, HE, LLL, as well as challenging this rising battery industry.
Jakub Stolfa, the President of ASA, was part of the panel discussion and addressed these topics, especially from the Automotive perspective. He was accompanied in the event by ALBATTS project coordinator & ASA vice president, Anders Norberg. They highlighted also existing descriptions of the battery job roles, created by ALBATTS project – (Albatts Project Results), as well as the training offer available on the Learning Platform. This wide battery-relevant training offer includes a wide range of courses in the form of MOOCs such as mechatronic, cybersecurity, SW development, etc which are freely accessible (ASA Learning Platform (skills-framework.eu). The courses were developed based on the collaboration between the ALBATTS project, EBAA (InnoEnergy Skills Institute), and Automotive Skills Alliance. This initiative started more than 7 months ago when Automotive Skills Alliance and EIT InnoEnergy‘s European Battery Alliance Academy signed, in Brussels, a Memorandum of Understanding to bridge the growing skills gap across the mobility and battery supply chain (more info about the Memorandum of Understanding HERE)
Making Skills Counts, the flagship event of the #YearOfSkills
The Making Skills Count conference was organized by the European Commission on Jun 8-9, in Brussels as the flagship event of the #YearOfSkills.
The conference brought together key stakeholders to discuss well-timed topics, share ideas and initiatives in order to address skills-related challenges, to support up-/re-skilling activities and European lifelong learning culture.
Jakub Stolfa, President of Automotive Skills Alliance, participated in the meeting of #PactForSkills Large-scale Partnership (PfS LSP) Coordinators organized during the conference, and shared best practices among PfS from different industrial ecosystems.
aLIFEca Webinar – LCA panel conducted by aLIFEca project and supported by associated partners ASA and ACEA
The environmental effects of transportation systems are a topic of current life. Those effects on the environment can only be truly analyzed and compared based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) that includes the production, operation, and end-of-life treatment of the various facilities.
On June 13th, 2023, ASA Partners had the opportunity to participate and discuss multiple aspects of the topics via an online event organized within the project aLIFEca: – Virtual Open Course on Automotive Live Cycle Assessment – which is supported by the Erasmus+ program.
During the Webinar, participants talked about the project results, about LCA in particular, as well as about the MOOC aLIFEca, – a specific open online course on automotive LCA developed within the project.
A discussion on green automotive and life cycle assessment was opened by representatives of the Automotive Skills Alliance and ACEA, as project-associated partners. Leaders of ASA Work Package 3.7 “LCA and Environmental Footprint” held a panel fully dedicated to automotive LCA and what science is asking us regarding environmental sustainability, LCA, and responsibility in the automotive industry.
Expert lectures: Dorota Burchart, Associate Professor at the Silesian University of Technology, and Aleksandar Damyanov, Green NCAP, brought their contribution and commitment through the LCA analysis in the Massive Open Online Course MOOC aLIFEca aiming to optimize consumer choices for cars. Interesting remarks on the pro-ecological behavior of travelers and biofuels for passenger cars.
were brought into the discussion by Gregor Sierpinski, Silesian University of Technology, and Stefano Puricelli, Politecnico di Milano,
Greennovation meets skills anticipation
Cedefop’s 14th Brussels seminar was held on Monday, 19 June , online. It addressed one of the European topics of interest: the skills necessary to boost innovation, the role of vocational education and training (VET) and skills anticipation approaches to meet the goals of the European Green Deal (EGD) and of the Green Deal Industrial Plan.
Together with Stelina Chatzichristou, Cedefop Expert and Simone Schirru, RREUSE, Anders Norberg and Jakub Stolfa, ERASMUS+ ALBATTS and Automotive Skills Alliance were part of the panel “Skills for boosting ‘greenovation’”. They presented battery related topic and results of the ALBATTS project, as well as Automotive Skills Alliance. The topics covered referred to the battery sector and its influence of automotive, challenges of education and training system in Europe. The Automotive Skills Alliance, as the large-scale partnership in the mobility-transport-automotive ecosystem (Pact for skills) is aiming to ensure further sustainability of the ALBATTS project – collaborations in the battery sector after ALBATTS project duration is over, through the Automotive Skills Alliance – Working Group- WG3.2. The ALBATTS project already pilot its training courses that can be easily accessed via the learning platform: ASA Learning Platform.
Supercharging the workforce: how to prepare for a battery-powered future
Within the European Sustainable Energy Week, an event was organized online on June 20th and was dedicated to the educational needs in the battery industry.
The main speakers – Linda Arnold Silvia Bodoardo, Philippe JACQUES, Christian Masquelier, Oana Penu, Jakub Stolfa – President of ASA, held a fruitful discussion around the topic, shared points of view and discussed potential solutions for the near future and also to the long run.
Among the discussions raised, there were battery/automotive topics, relevant in the automotive-mobility ecosystem, as well as discussion about the challenges of the overall education and training system (need for flexibility/modular – sprint and long run changes of the educational system, skills intelligence updates, collaboration at all levels, #greentalent and ways to equip a global workforce to support a more #sustainable economy!
