First International Advisory Board
EDDIE - #1 International Advasory Boad (IAB)
The International Advisory Board (IAB) will play a key role as an independent external quality consultant in the project, and providing requirements and inputs on goals and issues, monitoring project milestones and providing final feedback on results and future expectations in other sectors and other blueprints.
IAB will implement and expert review process. At least three quality assessments will be performed at the beginning, the mid-term and at the end of the project, to be submitted together with the project progress reports 1, 2 and 4. Members of the IAB can be identified in the following picture
The first meeting with IAB experts was carried out in November 2020 and an EDDIE project executive summary was presented, together with main achievements and planned activities summary.
During this meeting several topics were raised and we can include here:
- The European Commission “Pact for Skills”, which includes green and digital skills
https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1517&langId=en/ https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_2059
https://europe-on.org/skills-4-climate/ - “Open Source Communities” within EDDIE project as they could be integrated in the project future work.
- Cybersecurity as the power system is developing so fast in terms of needs of security
- Skill gaps and how they can be tackled (causes, available or not training courses, industry coverage). EDDIE is currently investigating different curricula both in University studies and VET and in different countries, to see if that matters are covered in the curricula. The current status of young professionals and graduate students about skills is under study as well.
- Geographical dimension of EDDIE and how could the skills requirements and gaps are analyzed by country.
- Exploitation of the results as the main purpose of the project is to get the maximum sustainability of its blueprint strategy.
- Involvement of more countries in EDDIE investigations and assessments
- Website and social media interactions.
Also, a survey was launched to the participants on early December 2020 to get specific external evaluation from IAB members to get on external evaluation outcome. Survey was prepared and launched by COMILLAS and DNV GL.
Suggestions for improving or extending Eddie’s current strategy and objectives are also collected throughout the survey. The importance of involving the associations of universities, the institutions that provide technical education and extend the current survey to other countries behind the consortium is pointed out on the survey.
The most expected relevant result of a project focused on the digitization of the energy sector is strengthening of the training and educational system with more communication between all the partners involved that will allow for a new era in energy which improves sustainability without negative impacts on occupational levels. Improve safety, productivity, accessibility and sustainability of energy systems. Breaking down the traditional boundaries between key sectors of the economy (energy, transport, buildings), opening the door to a new era of flexibility and supporting the achievement of a carbon neutral economy is stressed.
Actions suggested to achieve those relevant results includes mainly social media campaigns in order to rise public awareness and reach out to all the partners involved; streamline the interaction with the main representatives of the industry and the relevant associations of education providers is also pointed out.