Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS

Skill development and firm upgrading to sustain the competitiveness of the EU manufacturing sector

Objective

In the last decades, European manufacturing has been the object of an intense reorganisation driven crucially by multinational firms’ offshoring strategies that have led to the emergence of global production networks. European companies have mainly devoted their efforts to presiding over high value-added upstream and downstream activities whilst offshoring low value-added operations to low labour cost economies. The hollowing out of manufacturing activities is impacting on the EU labour market: it affects the demand of jobs in the EU, and the local and regional stock of competences, raising concerns over a mismatch between firms’ skill needs and persistent skill shortages. The aim of SkillUp is to explore routes that combine firms’ upgrading strategies with workforce skill development in order to enhance the competitiveness of EU manufacturing industries. SkillUp focuses on: 1) which skills are needed for the jobs of today and tomorrow: in which industries? in which regions? 2) are these skills available and where can they be found? and 3) how should such skills be created and what training/education needs to be put in place for this be achieved? Long term European socio-economic growth rests of maintaining a competitive manufacturing sector necessarily in high value added industries, and SkillUp will identify the appropriate sets of skills needed to meet firms’ demand and enhance EU manufacturing competitiveness. The study will use a mixed method research: 1) inferential statistics (t-test) on the EU labour participation using EU Labour Force Survey; 2) a multiple case-study approach by collecting primary through firm-based interviews and secondary data from company reports as well as industry and regional aggregate data from Eurostat and the Labour Force Survey; 3) Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis - Boolean algebra and set theory - will be applied to detect interaction effects amongst firms’ upgrading strategies and workforce skill development.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

MSCA-IF-EF-ST - Standard EF

See all projects funded under this funding scheme

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2014

See all projects funded under this call

Coordinator

THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 183 454,80
Address
Edgbaston
B15 2TT Birmingham
United Kingdom

See on map

Region
West Midlands (England) West Midlands Birmingham
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 183 454,80
My booklet 0 0