With the support of the Commission, stakeholders from the healthcare sector, including pharma companies and universities, have established a large-scale skills partnership to increase training across Europe in that area that is crucial for EU industrial and social prosperity.

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The health industry is facing skills shortages, which are expected to intensify with the growing demand for health products, driven by an aging population in Europe.

The partnership’s ambition is to establish a shared model for skills development, especially in view of the green and digital transition, by pooling knowledge, experiences and resources. The goal is to engage in upskilling and reskilling initiatives as well as to promote learning opportunities and ‘on-the-job’ training. Concrete skills needs that will be addressed include:

• adaptation to technological advancements
• regulatory compliance
• quality assurance
• supply chain, stockpiling and distribution management

Furthermore, the partnership will focus on enhancing the sector’s skills intelligence and monitoring new training programmes aligned with the industry skills’ requirements. It will also help to draft a skills strategy for European health industry.  

Background

The Pact for Skills is one of the flagship initiatives under the European Skills Agenda. It aims to mobilise resources and incentivise all relevant partners to take concrete action to upskill and reskill the workforce in key industrial ecosystems.

The Pact has so far provided training to more than 2 million workers, with 15,500 training programmes either updated or developed, and €160 million invested by Pact members into training programmes. This also contributes to the European Year of Skills and to the EU headline target that by 2030, at least 60% of all adults should participate in training every year.

The large-scale skills partnership for the healthcare sector is the 19^th Large Scale Partnership of the Pact for Skills, the third in the health ecosystem of the EU Industrial Strategy.