European Commission Blueprints Offshore Skills Development Project

The European Commission has published a call for proposals to implement the first phase of the Blueprint for sectorial cooperation on skills throughout the maritime technology industries, including offshore wind.

The EUR 4 million project aims to create a Europe-wide strategy on developing the skills needed across this EUR 91 billion market over the next four years.

The deadline to submit applications is 2 May 2017. A video conference info day to provide information about the call for proposals will take place on 16 February 2017 from 14h30 CET.

The maritime sector is an innovation-driven and technologically advanced industry requiring more and more highly skilled technical people. Among the most research intensive in Europe, it provides the technologies to enable the sustainable and safe development of Blue Economy activities: offshore wind, marine energies, marine biotechnology, aquaculture, deep sea exploration, surveillance etc.

However, the scarcity of workforce able to apply the latest technologies represents one of the main obstacles to this development.

In order to bridge the gap, the New Skills Agenda for Europe has launched the Blueprint for sectorial cooperation on skills.

The Blueprint is a new framework for strategic cooperation between key stakeholders (e.g. businesses, trade unions, research, education and training institutions, public authorities) of a given sector.

It is expected to stimulate investment and encourage the strategic use of EU and national funding opportunities.

In its first phase, the Blueprint will produce a strategy at European level and an action plan for the national and regional levels. These will then be implemented in the second phase of the Blueprint, and financed by the European structural and investment funds.