The EU's Net Zero Industry Act has been adopted
The green transition is expected to generate 2.5mn additional jobs in the EU by 2030!
Specifically in the clean tech sectors, skills gaps need to be filled up quickly to speed up the manufacturing capacity of clean technologies and meet our ambitious climate targets. To attain this objective, the European Commission is launching under the Net-Zero Industry Act, the Net-zero Industry Academies, to up and reskill workers in key industrial green sectors.
The inspiration
The idea was inspired by the successful model of the European Battery Academy, launched in February 2022 as part of the EU Skills Agenda to coordinate re-skilling and up-skilling efforts at European level and to provide for the immediate roll out of high-quality training across Member States, in the battery value chain.
What are Net-zero Industry Academies?
In full respect of the competence of Member States in the field of education and training, the Net-zero Industry Academies are not EU education institutions, but rather organisations or consortia or projects of relevant stakeholders with three main functionalities:
- Develop learning programmes, content and learning and training materials for training and education. This content is co-designed with industry, education and training providers, social partners and relevant stakeholders.
- Promote the voluntary use of the learning programmes, content and materials by interested education and training providers in the Member States.
- Develop credentials for voluntary use by Member States and their education and training providers, in order to facilitate the transferability between jobs and the cross-border mobility of the workforce.
Each Net-zero Industry Academy will aim to train 100.000 learners within three years from their establishment. The European Commission will provide seed funding for their launch from existing EU funding programmes.
The Academies
The European Commission already proceeded to the announcement of two Net-zero Industry Academies in the past few months. The first Academy, in the Solar sector, was announced in December 2023. The second Academy was announced in the Hydrogen sector at the end of January 2024.
Two more Academies are in the pipeline in the Raw Materials and the Wind sectors. The door remains open for the launch of more academies depending on the specific needs that will emerge in key net-zero technology sectors in the coming years.
The path to success
Crucial for the success of the Net-zero Industry Academies, besides the work centrally done by the European Commission for their launch, will be the active participation of relevant stakeholders in the development of the learning content, and of local education and training providers in the Member States to reach the widest geographical spread.
Member States authorities also play an important role as they can use several EU funds, such as the ESF+, ERDF, Just Transition Fund and other sources to support the deployment of the Academies’ learning content on their territories.