eCult Skills

eSkills for Future Cultural Jobs

eCultSkills

Culture, is one of Europe’s most promising growth enablers: strategic investments in this sector has delivered spectacular results “including important economic benefits, with sometimes more than ten times leverage for each euro invested” (EU COM (2012) 537). The final report of the European Statistical System Network on Culture (Oct 2012) indicates that cultural jobs amount to approximately 2,5% to 3,1% of the employed EU population, over a period of 10 years.
As reported by the Draft Joint Employment Report (EU COM(2012) 750 final), the labor markets that are emerging from the crisis are changing and many Member States are looking at creating high value added jobs and sustainable economies. A skilled workforce or young entrepreneurs offering high quality services is an essential asset to develop a competitive, sustainable and innovative economy in line with Europe 2020 goals and Greece's short and long term goals.
Culture professionals or young entrepreneurs have to acquire skills and attitudes such as the abilities to be creative, versatile, able to manage digital knowledge, quality and excellence, technical and humanistic training. As the industry changes there are also requirements for the creation of new Culture-related professional skills such as the management of digital knowledge, reaching to new customers (e.g. on-line communities), a National need.
Setting up core profiles identifying knowledge, skills and competence needs is a formal step to support transparency and increase the availability of professionals at European level. Mapping those with established frameworks such as EQF and e-CF will represent an important step towards reaching the policy goals at European level. With a complementary approach, the EQFCode project used those tools to define market needs in accordance with EQF/e-CF. The objective of the eCult Skills project is to transfer the results of those key projects and to adapt the methodology to eCultural IT Jobs to set up a reference profile model. The results of the project, will be a common reference material to adapt in each country the necessary trainings for Culture jobs. By reaching those aims eCult Skills project will allow a better learning and mobility nationally and across Europe, improve the quality and efficiency of training. Furthermore, it will facilitate professional insertion, and employability for people which will fulfill market needs in a field where lack of well trained professionals is obvious.

Recent EU reports recognize the endurance of the Cultural sector during these first years of hard economic pressures to the European Economy. Furthermore, they report a higher percentage of youth employment than other economic sectors, recognizing the untapped potential of the Culture sector and call for action (EU COM (2012) 537).
The use of ICT for access to cultural heritage is a societal demand supported by European policy makers (e.g. Promoting cultural diversity and creative content, chapter 2.7.3 Digital Agenda). European Training systems have to adapt and to anticipate actual and future employment opportunities in Cultural Jobs as they will represent an important and growing number of jobs over the coming years. As expressed by the final report of the European Statistical System Network on Culture (Oct 2012): “[..] it is very important to observe developments in the labor market and provide necessary support to the entrepreneurs in order to raise their competitiveness and position in the market. We also need to know relations between the educational systems and expectations of employers in the cultural sector“.
Thus, new challenges in Culture sector professions call for new initiatives, flexibility and adaptability. Culture Industry development policies need to place strategic goals of a broader context, seeking enhanced quality of service that will enforce the existing workforce and eventually attract young people to the profession. Existing professional and new recruits need to acquire ICT skills and attitudes of the ideal eCulture professional such as the abilities to be creative, versatile, able to manage digital knowledge, quality and excellence, technical and humanistic training. Culture Jobs need to be enhanced with eSkills to become eCulture Jobs.
eCult Skills will investigate new and emerging jobs in this area in 6 countries (UK, SL, DE, FR, EL, PT), compare them and create national profiles, following the methodology developed in former LLP projects and apply them to the cultural sector. The project aims at transferring research carried out by the project partners (key stakeholders in Culture, Education and Training and ICT industry) from other projects: from EQFCode, the project tools and processes allowing the mapping of European Qualification Framework/e-Competence Framework (EQF/eCF) to market needs; from EQF iServe the qualifications/guidelines for ICT training.
As a result, the project will develop European eCultural specialist profiles that are in compliance with the principles of the European meta-frameworks EQF/e-CF and ECVET as well as guidelines for developing/setting-up further vocational training measures for eCulture Jobs. The expected impact will allow for comparable skills sets for these professions of the future, which supports the European labor market and thus, the employability of professionals while at the same time contributing to one of the major challenges of Europe 2020.

The eCult Skills Project will address the shortage of skilled professionals with ICT qualifications in the Cultural sector, a shortage that is due to its recent emergence. It will analyze the market needs, the existing trainings available for the different components and competences (objective 1), and define a professional standard in the participating European countries (objective 2). To make qualifications and profiles more transparent, it will refer the identified skills and competences - EQF and e-Competences Framework- e-CF. This approach leads to a better transparency and recognition of learning outcomes and qualifications through a transparent and adapted to market needs professional model (objective 3). As a consequence, employment of Culture professionals and their mobility across Europe will be reinforced. Training organizations will be advised on the content and skills that should be trained in the field of Culture through targeted dissemination activities that facilitate awareness and cooperation between stakeholders and the market (objective 4).
Coherence between market needs analyzed during WP1 and WP 3, the active participation of sectorial stakeholders in the development of the training profile model (that is furthermore evaluated by key stakeholders in WP4) is the fact that ensures the encouragement of cooperation between VET and the world of work, as requested by the LLP priority.

Impact of the project (by target groups):
1.VET organizations:

Improved training offers for Culture jobs adapted to European market needs
Reduced mismatch between trained competencies and competencies needed on the labor market
Increased attractiveness of qualifications in the Culture sector
More students, since modular training approach (with ECVET) makes further vocational training and lifelong learning in general more attractive to professionals on the labor market.

2. Employers/organizations/companies operating in the Culture sector:

More transparency of qualifications at European level
Easier recruiting of appropriate staff
Lower inhibitions to employ qualified professionals of other European member states
Increased availability of skilled young professionals.

3. Workers in the Culture sector

Increased employability through not yet wide-spread competences
Increased mobility opportunities through a European approach.
Motivation for improvement of own competences and participation in further vocational trainings.

PARTNERS
Euproma (DE)
KULTURNO IZOBRAŽEVALNO DRUSTVO KIBLA (SI)
EMF - The Forum of e-Excellence (EU)
MPS - Maison de la Promotion Sociale (FR)
Mapa das Ideias, Edições de Publicações, Lda (PT)

eCult Skills is a project co-funded by the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP) of the European Union.
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