CELAN final meeting and results

The CELAN final project meeting took place on 18 March 2013 in Berlin. The core partners discussed exploitation plans and the future of CELAN and its community. Amongst the results are:

• Corporate language needs in Europe  - the report covering three sectors Europe-wide
• a benchmarking tool for all: Language needs analysis tool
• a concise language industry catalogue

A "Vademecum" for language policies for companies is currently in print.
Visit www.celan-platform.eu for more information. 

The Grand Coalition for digital jobs was launched. And now what?

Photo by: Yuri Arcurs

At the launch of a new partnership to address a lack of ICT skills and the hundreds of thousands of unfilled ICT-related jobs, President Barroso stressed the job potential of the ICT sector for Europe. He reiterated that tackling high unemployment is the Commission's top priority.

A Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs was launched on Monday, 4 March 2013, following identification by the Commission's Digital Agenda for Europe of the lack of e-skills to pursue today's rapid technological changes. This new multi-stakeholder partnership has a mandate until 2015.

"Studies have also shown that ICT-related occupations are much more resistant to crisis than most other jobs. This clearly means that e-skills are definitely key in reducing the risk of unemployment including for senior workers. More and better qualified ICT practitioners, researchers, entrepreneurs, managers and users are needed and will increasingly be needed," said President Barroso in his speech at the launch and noted that the latest study shows that Europe faces up to 900,000 unfilled ICT jobs.

"In a nutshell, a multi-stakeholder partnership approach is the right way to develop a skills agenda in a targeted, innovative and sustainable way," said President Barroso.

Initial commitments from stakeholders have been endorsed with over 15 companies and organisations signing up to the Grand Coalition. Among the first pledges to come to life is a new online learning platform for young people called the Academy Cube and a new training module for energy smart grid installers.

The Commission has sought pledges in the following key areas:

• Training and matching for digital jobs – to help ensure the skills people are getting are the skills business needs;
• Mobility – helping those with skills get to the place where they're needed, to avoid shortages and surpluses in different towns and cities;
• Certification – making it easier to prove to an employer what skills one has, regardless of the country;
• Awareness raising – so that people know the digital sector offers rewarding and enjoyable careers to both women and men;
• Innovative learning and teaching – so our education and training systems expand and improve to give more people the skills for success.

More information about the launch of the Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs.

Click here to watch the speech of President Barroso.

EUCA Message in a Bottle Contest

The Message in a Bottle Contest was launched in 2011 to celebrate European citizenship and in 2011 continued to celebrate the European Year of Volunteering and the UN International Year of Youth: Dialogue and Mutual Understanding. Students from EUCA Colleges were invited to take up the theme of volunteering and youth by creating an innovative work, able to bring people closer to these themes. 

In 2012, Message in a Bottle was re-launched in the college halls of residence of the EUCA network on the theme of ‘Multilingualism’. University students were asked to write an essay, a poem or a story, to shoot a video or to make a photograph about the importance of multilingualism in today’s world. 

On January the 18th 2013, the winners of the 2012 edition were announced and they were invited to take part at the next EUCA event to receive the prize for their work, an iPad 3.

To see the winning works please see the News feed on the EUCA website

CELAN partner meeting in Brussels

The CELAN partners met in Brussels to discuss exploitation opportunities for the CELAN network and results, in view of the soon ending LLP project. 

From left to right: Wolfgang Trenn, FUB, Christian Galinsk, Infoterm, Margareha Mazura, EMF, Mike Hammersley, FAV, Wolfgang Mackiewicz, ELC/CEL, Gustavo Gonzalo-Quijano, COTANCE, Claire Goyer, OEP, Mirela Mazalu, EUCA, Blanca Stella Giraldo, Infoterm, Dieter Jirmann-Heidl.

Call for papers: the European Symposium on Languages for Special Purposes (LSP) 2013

The European Symposium on Languages for Special Purposes (LSP) 2013 is going to take place in Vienna, Austria, from 8 to 10 July 2013. The following topics, among others, are going to be dealt with:

• Languages for Special Purposes in different languages, countries and regions of the world
• Theoretical and methodological issues of LSP research
• Multilingualism, language policies and socio-cultural issues of LSPs

The deadline for the submission of oral presentations is February 12th, 2013.

For further information, please download this document.

Season's Greetings!

eSkills Panorama Launch

At the conference “Anticipating skills needs at EU level” held on 7 December 2012 in Brussels, DG Education and Culture  and DG Employment,  unveiled the joint effort: eSkills Panorama (www.eskillspanorama.ec.europa.eu), a platform that provides European and national information about skills, competences and jobs. In her welcome address, Commissioner A. Vassiliou underlined the necessity to rethink education: skills needs are changing; to combat youth unemployment (up to 50% in some Member States)  re-skilling and up-skilling is necessary. Member States need to carry out reforms towards open learning and to deepen the understanding of the labour market. 

The eSkills Panorama is not an isolated initiative but part of the eSkill Strategy. Amongst the tools available are: 

• ESCO – the European multilingual classification of skills and competences
• EURES – the European Job Mobility Portal
• PLOTEUS – the Portal on Learning Opportunities throughout the European Space)
• EUROPASS – where you can create your “Five documents to make your skills and qualifications clearly and easily understood in Europe”

The European Commission’s Communication “Rethinking Education”

European education and training systems continue to fall short in providing the right skills for employability, and are not working adequately with business or employers to bring the learning experience closer to the reality of the working environment. These skills mismatches are a growing concern for European industry's competitiveness, says the most recent Communication of the European Commission, appealing to EU Member States to set actions. 

The Communication underlines the importance of tapping on the potential of ICT for education and teaching and highlights the need to develop transversal skills (such as problem solving, team work etc. often also referred to as soft skills) and entrepreneurial skills as they not only contribute to new business creation but also to the employability of young people. 

In this respect, the Communication emphasises at several instances the importance of languages. In a world of international exchanges, the ability to speak foreign languages is a factor for competitiveness. Languages are more and more important to increase levels of employability and mobility of young people.

Further education in STEM – science, technology, engineering and mathematics – is needed if Europe wants to compete with countries like Brazil, China and India that spend more on high skilled STEM education than the USA, Japan and UK together. 

More information about the full document.

Multilingualism is key for business, growth and the Europe2020 strategy

The Final Workshop of CELAN – Language strategies for competitiveness and employability took place on 15 November 2012 in Brussels and was attended by key stakeholders such as business associations, Higher Education representatives, decision-makers but also companies that implemented language strategies successfully and language technology providers. 

"Multilingualism is key for business, growth and the Europe2020 strategy" emphasised Sonia Peressini, DG EAC, Multilingualism Unit, in her welcome address. And Wolfgang Mackiewicz, Freie Universität Berlin and CELAN coordinator evoked again the two main tenets CELAN came to: "multilingualism needs to be business-driven, and "no size fits all", in particular for SMEs". 

Workshop presentations :

• CELAN Final Workshop Wolfgang Mackiewicz
• CELAN Final Workshop Gustavo Gonzales
• CELAN Final Workshop Christian Galinski
• CELAN Final Workshop Mike Hammersley
• CELAN Final Workshop Margaretha Mazura
• CELAN Final Workshop Gerald Lobermeier

The beta version of a needs assessment tool is available now. Any feed-back is highly appreciated to letter-box@emfs.eu.

NEW VENUE for CELAN Final Workshop

The CELAN Final Workshop on "Language Strategies for competitiveness and employability" will take place at the Hotel Leopold, rue du Luxembourg 35, 1050 Brussels, Belgium.

The workshop starts at 13.00 hrs until 17.00 and is followed by a networking cocktail.

Final Programme.