Assessing evolving skills needs, in Brussels with SkillsPULSE
As coordinator of the Horizon-Europe funded project SkillsPULSE: Skills - Predicting, Understanding, and Locating Shortages in Europe, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini represented the project at two major EU events held in Brussels on 13 and 14 October 2025.
On 13 October 2025, Fondazione Brodolini took part in the Horizon Europe Feedback to Policy Event, organised by the European Commission. The event brought together researchers and policymakers to discuss how Horizon-Europe projects can inform EU education, skills, and labour market policies.
Representing the project, Liga Baltina, Head of FGB's Labour Market & Skills Research Unit, and Terence Hogarth, Professor at the Institute for Employment Research, University of Warwick, and member of FGB's scientific committee, joined a panel discussion on addressing skills and labour shortages and mismatches, alongside other Horizon Europe initiatives – including TRAILS, SKILLAB, and MEGASKILLS. Their contribution highlighted how SkillsPULSE is generating innovative, evidence-based insights into evolving skill needs and supporting more effective, intelligence-driven policy responses at European level.
On 14 October 2025, the SkillsPULSE consortium participated in the interactive session From insight to impact: leveraging data-driven approaches for smarter regional policy, during the 23rd European Week of Regions and Cities in Brussels, together with three other Horizon Europe projects (MOBI-TWIN, Re-Place EU and PREMIUM_EU). The session explored how a variety of methods and data tools can enhance regional resilience, mitigate talent loss, and reinforce the "right to stay", while identifying what is required for effective policy uptake.
Later on the same day, FGB Brussels team hosted the SkillsPULSE policy roundtable on measuring and matching Europe’s skills, bringing together representatives from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (DG EMPL), industriAll Europe, World Employment Confederation, and EfVET, to discuss SkillsPULSE initial research results. The roundtable focused on what to measure in skills and skills matching and why – from indicators that capture shortages and mismatches to metrics that can inform targeted interventions.
The day concluded with the 15th FGB Knowledge Apéro, held at FGB's Brussels premises as part of the European Regions Week 2025 – Close to You initiative. Speakers from SKILLSPulse and the other Horizon Europe projects involved in the earlier session shared practical approaches to assessing skills needs: from mapping workforce mobility and regional attractiveness, to assessing quality of life, to modelling policy impacts and measuring skills shortages.
