First wave of Calls for proposals in advanced digital skills
On 17 November 2021, following the adoption of the Work Programmes, the European Commission announced the first set of calls for proposals under the Digital Europe Programme, among which three calls on Advanced Digital Skills. The calls are open to businesses, organisations, public administrations from the EU Member States, and entities from other countries associated to the Digital Europe Programme. The three calls are the following:
- Specialised Masters and education programmes in key capacity areas: to support the design and delivery of specialised Master programmes and traineeships for the future experts in key areas, like data and AI, cybersecurity, quantum and HPC
- Advanced digital skills analysis: to support the rollout of initiatives for advanced digital skills development and design relevant and high-quality learning opportunities
- Preparatory actions for the data space for skills: to set up a true European data space and facilitate safe access to and storage of large datasets, with an energy efficient cloud infrastructure.
Questions and answers about the 3 above mentioned calls can be found on the official Funding & Tender Portal. These pages will be regularly updated:
- Q&A for Specialised Masters and education programmes in key capacity areas (DIGITAL-2021-SKILLS-01-SPECIALISED)
- Q&A for Advanced digital skills analysis (DIGITAL-2021-SKILLS-01-ANALYSIS)
- Q&A for Preparatory actions for the data space for skills (DIGITAL-2021-PREPACTS-DS-01
Second wave of Calls for proposals in advanced digital skills
On 22 February 2022 the European Commission opened the 2nd set of calls for proposals of the Digital Europe Programme. The calls aimed at supporting concrete actions to help citizens and enterprises benefit from new technologies and thrive in the digital transformation.
In particular, a new call on Advanced Digital Skills Short term training courses was launched. The call aimed at increasing the offer of high-quality short term trainings for the workforce, allowing them to acquire the skills necessary to deploy key digital technologies in businesses, with a particular focus that enables to meet the needs of SMEs.
The submission of applications for this call closed on 17 May 2022. You will find more information on in the Funding & Tender Portal.
Questions and answers about the new Call are available in the official Funding & Tender Portal.
Third Call for education programmes in key digital technologies
On 15 September 2022 the European Commission announced a new call under DIGITAL. The new Call, 'Specialised education programmes or modules in key capacity areas', will support the development of Bachelor's and Master's courses, jointly designed by universities, research centres and businesses active in the digital domain.
This new action will boost cooperation between academic excellence, research and innovative industries, contributing to set a new dynamic digital ecosystem where all actors active in the digital domain work together to attract and retain the best talents around the world.
The applications closed on 24 January 2023. You will find more information on the European Commission's Funding and Tenders Portal.
Check out also the factsheet we prepared to know more about the Call. If you have more doubts, questions and answers about the 3rd Call are available on the official Funding & Tender Portal. This page will be regularly updated.
Partner for DIGITAL Skills 3rd Info Day and pitching event
On 20 October 2022 a new Info Day 'Partner for DIGITAL Skills' took place, where the Commission presented the call and answered live all the questions of the participants. Some potential applicants had also the opportunity to present their organisations, and exchange with potential partners for their proposal.
Have you missed the Info day and pitching event? You can now access the full recording of the event here.
If you want to find out more, check all the presentations of the Commission speakers of the event: Introduction to the call, Scope of the call, Administrative steps and Funding&Tender portal.
If you want to find partners for your proposal and build a consortium, visit our Partner for DIGITAL Skills Networking Group.
Fourth set of calls for proposals under DIGITAL to support Advanced Digital Skills
On 2 May 2023 the European Commission, following the adoption of the Work Programme 2023-2024, announced the fourth set of calls for proposals under the Digital Europe Programme, among which two calls on Advanced Digital Skills. The calls will be open for applications from 11 May 2023 until 26 September 2023.
These new calls will aim to tackle the shortage of sector specialists using advanced digital technologies and ICT specialists, and especially on girls and women and to reinforce the semiconductors skills. If you want to find out more about the new calls, check out the Funding and Tender Portal of the European Commission.
Questions and answers about the above mentioned calls can be found on the official Funding & Tender Portal. These pages will be regularly updated:
- Q&A for Reinforcing skills in semiconductors (DIGITAL-2023-SKILLS-04-SEMICONDUCTORS)
- Q&A for Boosting digital skills of young people (DIGITAL-2023-SKILLS-04-BOOSTINGDIGIT)
DIGITAL Info Day on the 4th Call for proposals
On 2 June 2023 a new Info day on the 4th Call for proposals was organised by the Digital Skills & Jobs Platform, where the Commission presented in details the content of the call and answered live all the questions of the participants.
Did you miss the Info day? Don't worry! The full recording of the event is now available .
If you want to find out more, check the full presentation of the Commission speakers of the event: 4th Info Day EC presentation
Are you looking for partners to build a consortium for your proposal? Don't forget to join our Partner for DIGITAL Skills Networking Group!
Fifth set of calls for proposals under DIGITAL to support Advanced Digital Skills
On 1 November 2023 the European Commission, following the adoption of the Work Programme 2023-2024, announced the fifth set of calls for proposals under the Digital Europe Programme, among which three calls on Advanced Digital Skills.
The calls are now open and they will close on 21 March 2024, 17.00 (Brussels time).
These new calls will aim to focus on education programmes in key capacity areas, a support action analysing the advance digital skills needs in Europe as well as on the implementation of new training programmes and support operations for the Cybersecurity Skills Academy. If you want to find out more about the new call, check out the Funding and Tender Portal of the European Commission for the DIGITAL-2023-SKILLS-05 topics.
DIGITAL Info Day on the 5th set of Calls for proposals
The Digital Skills and Jobs Platform organised a new Info Day on the 5th set of Calls for proposals on 12 December 2023. The Commission presented in details the content of the call and answered live all the questions of the participants.
Check out the presentations presented during the event and rewatch the recording now available on the DigitalEU Youtube channel!
All the questions and answers will be soon published on the Funding and Tender Portal.
DIGITAL Work Programme 2021-2022
On 10 November 2021 the European Commission adopted three work programmes for the Digital Europe Programme, outlining the objectives and specific topic areas that will receive a total of €1.98 billion in funding.
The document set out the programme for part of the actions to be implemented in the first two years of the Digital Europe Programme. These actions will focus on Advanced Digital Skills, Data, AI, Cloud, Quantum Communication Infrastructure, and deployment activities for the best use of these technologies.
For more details about all the actions on Advanced Digital Skills supported by the Programme, see this presentation.
Partner for DIGITAL Skills: 1st Info Day and Matchmaking event for DIGITAL Europe Programme
On 1 December 2021 more than 400 people joined the Info Day “Partner for DIGITAL Skills” to learn about the new calls on Advanced Digital Skills and find partners. The event presented the new three calls under the DIGITAL programme and included a pitching/workshop session and a matchmaking 1:1 "Speed Date" style session to help participants find the right partners for their project ideas.
You can find the agenda of the Plenary session below:
- Welcome and Intro, by Gerard de Graaf, Director, DG CNECT;
- Presentation of DIGITAL Work Programme 2021-2022, by Fabrizia Benini, Deputy Director, DG CNECT;
- Overview of DIGITAL Master’s call & CSA on Skills analysis, by Silvia Merisio, Policy Officer, DG CNECT;
- Overview of the Preparatory action for a data space on skills, by Rehana Schwinninger-Ladak, Head of Unit, DG CNECT;
- Funding & Tender portal, by Basak Koyuncu-King and Charmaine Kerr, European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA).
Check out all the presentations of the speakers of the session to find out more.
Afterwards, in the two Pitching sessions many universities, SMEs, research centres and other important stakholders had the opportunity to present their project ideas and their organisations.
The answers to the questions received during the event are available in the official pages of each Call, at the links above.
Examples of previous fundings
Digital Europe Programme does not address these challenges and goals alone, but builds upon successful past EU-funded initiatives, in particular from the Connecting Europe Facility – CEF Digital. With the support of CEF funding, consortia composed of university networks, SMEs and top AI researcher centres designed four new high-quality specialised Master programmes and courses in AI. The aim of these new high-quality training programmes is to bring AI advanced digital skills closer to non-technical people and other professionals.
Find more about the new Master programmes in our dedicated page.
Other key EU initiatives and actions in the field of digital skills and jobs complement the Digital Europe Programme, such as the Digital Education Action Plan, or national actions under the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility. To ensure that the digital transformation reflects European values and leaves no one behind, the Commission has proposed the Digital Decade strategy with ambitious targets. Actions from the Digital Europe Programme will contribute to reach the objective of having employed 20 million ICT specialists in Europe by 2030.
