On December 14 and 15 in Milan (IT), a European consortium composed of industry associations, social partners, Small-Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs), public authorities, training institutions and certification bodies, launched the “eCF Council”, the first EU skills alliance on ICT professionalism.

Members of the consortium, which will be financially supported by the European Commission until 2018, are organizations that represent ICT professionalism stakeholders in four EU Member States: Italy, Spain, Bulgaria and The Netherlands. Additionally, the eCF Council features recognized EU umbrella associations such as PIN-SME, representative of European digital SMEs, Digital Europe, the trade federation of the ICT sector and CIONET, the EU network of CIOs.

The coordination of the eCF Council consortium has been assigned to Fondazione Politecnico di Milano. An accredited employment service agency and vocational training centre, Fondazione is an operational structure of the polytechnic university of Milan, which acts as a bridge between the academia and the industry.

The e-CF Council is a platform to foster ICT professionalism at European and international level. It aims at increasing employability in order to reduce the e-skills gap in Europe. With the financial support of the EC during the next three years, the e-CF Council will work at developing unified ICT VET programmes and certifications.

Read more about the work of the eCF Council here.