#2 International Advisory Board
The Partners involved in the strategic implementation of EDDIE project and the external experts, participated and actively contributed at the 2nd International Advisory Board (IAB) of EDDIE Project hosted Online. This relevant meeting was organized by the project coordinator COMILLAS, on Thursday 10th of June 2021. The role of Education in the Digital Era for Digitalization will create the framework for EDDIE Project to take part in the decision making process of Digitalization of the European Energy Sector (DEES).
EDDIE – „EDucation for Digitalization of Energy”, funded by the European Commission (EC) under the ERASMUS+ Program aims at creating a Sector Skills Alliance (SSA) by bringing together all the relevant stakeholders in the Energy value chain such as industry, education and training providers, European organizations, recruiters, social partners, and public authorities. The main objective of this SSA is to develop a long-driven Blueprint for the DEES to enable the matching between the current and future demand of skills necessary for the DEES and the supply of improved Vocational Education and Training (VET) systems and beyond.
The International Advisory Board plays a key role as an independent external quality consultant in the project, and it is providing requirements and inputs on goals and issues, monitoring project milestones and supporting with final feedback on results and future expectations in other sectors and other blueprints. Quality assessments are performed throughout the entire implementation period together with project progress reports. Members of the IAB are important stakeholders from the European Energy sector as follows: EUROGAS; DERlab – European Distributed Energy Resources Laboratories; FSR – Florence School of Regulation; T&D Europe; CESI – European Confederation of Independent Trade Unions; The City of Aachen; DAFNI Network; City of Herne; ENTSO.E – European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity and ItalGas.
The 2nd International Advisory Board highlighted important and relevant topics for the current state of the project, best practices in education, blueprint strategy, stakeholder database, and dissemination activities tailored for EDDIE stakeholders. In addition, the focus was also on the assessment of the First Technical Progress Report which received positive reaction from the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Moreover, the path and strategies towards a new context of Education for Digitalization of Energy Sector, exploitation of the results, website, and social media interactions, were also topics on the 2nd IAB meeting agenda.
The interaction with the external experts was very active and productive, giving EDDIE the opportunity to update its activities and developments. As a result, new plans will include areas of digitalization of energy transmission and distribution grids including smart grids and smart metering infrastructures, information, and communication systems for the energy sector like data management and cyber-security, new energy services and transition and digitalization of energy supply and generation. Moreover, it has been decided that the future SSA will not only be based on focus countries, but also will consider particularities of regions in transition when it comes to upskilling and reskilling needs as those regions are moving to cleaner forms of energy, pathways to a climate neutral society and economy. Based on such examples, EDDIE shall be in the position to elaborate and disseminate “best practices” and “success stories”. The identification of skill gaps will be assessed for a broader geographical coverage, including other fields of energy with the aim of improving the relevance of the activities and innovation in the holistic approach.
Since the relevant stakeholder groups have been identified, strong attention will be allocated for convincing those selected companies, associations, institutions to become an EDDIE member and, consequently, part of the main Stakeholder Database.
Regarding the project dissemination and exploitation strategy, new actions will include personalized proactive engagement and marketing, tailored policy briefs for specific areas inside energy sectors, new activities in line with the Green Deal and Digital Europe Programme. A new framework for involvement within the Pact for Skills initiative it is taken into consideration for creating a sustainable development of the project.
Until the 3rd IAB meeting, the project team will work on the aspects previously presented and will try to maximize the opportunities by bringing added value for EDDIE project.
EDDIE Consortium
