Webinar: How to train more Cybersecurity experts?

The rapid digitalization of the global economy brings uncountable opportunities, but they do not come without threats. The cybersecurity landscape has grown in terms of sophistication of attacks, complexity, and their impact, with a critical mass of businesses, organizations, governments transitioning from traditional infrastructures to online and cloud-based solutions, leveraging on advanced interconnectivity, and uptaking emerging technologies for the first time.   

Consequently, the demand of cybersecurity experts is increasing at fast speed, but the offer is struggling to keep up the pace of the requests. The cybersecurity skills shortage and gap are well-documented issues that are currently having an impact on national labour markets worldwide. While various initiatives related to cybersecurity skills have been proposed and multiple actions have been launched to address the problems, the shortage and gap persist.   

A recent report published by ENISA, the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity, on Addressing Skills Shortage and Gap Through Higher Education, focused on the role that the Higher Education sector can play in addressing such skills shortages thanks to up-to-date programmes and lectures, and provides general recommendations to tackle the skills gap at European level. Firstly, the report provides an overview of the current supply of cybersecurity skills in Europe through an analysis of data gathered and generated by the recently established Cybersecurity Higher Education Database (CyberHEAD). Secondly, it describes the policy approaches adopted by EU Member States in their quest to increase and sustain their national cybersecurity workforces.  

This upcoming webinar, taking place on 21 March 2022 (11:00 - 12:00 CET), aims at raising awareness on the cybersecurity skills shortage in Europe and the future trends. Professor Jason R.C. Nurse from Kent University will present the key results of his study for the ENISA report Addressing Skills Shortage and Gap Through Higher Education, and outline the recommendations to tackle the cybersecurity skills gap. A panel will follow with speakers from different key domains - Policymaking, Member States, SMEs -  who will present concrete European and National initiatives addressing the skills gap. 
 

Agenda 

• 11:00 – 11.05 Opening and welcome  
  Jakub Kajtman, European Commission - DG CNECT: Digital Economy, Recovery Plan and Skills 
• 11.05 - 11-15 Keynote presentation: Addressing Skills Shortage and Gap Through Higher Education: main findings and recommendations from the study 
  Professor Jason R.C. Nurse, University of Kent, Author of the report 
• 11-15- 11.50 Discussion panel 
  Panelists:   

  • Miguel Gonzalez-Sancho, Head of the Cybersecurity Technology and Capacity Building Unit in the European Commission, DG CNECT – tackling the cybersecurity skills gap through policies 

  • Valentin Negoita, President of APDETIC, Romania National Coalition – Concrete initiatives at the Member State level to tackle security issues and skills shortage 

  • Gordon Kirstein, Movetech-IT solutions – bridging the cybersecurity gap in businesses

• 11.50 – 12.00 Conclusions & closing  
  Justina Bieliauskaite, Project Director at European DIGITAL SME Alliance

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