Skills4Retail - Accelerating the Triple Transition in European Retail through skills. Vision The Skills4Retail project will focus on fast-tracking the ‘Triple Transition’ of Green, Digital and Resilience in the Retail sector, helping retailers to embrace ecommerce and ensuring their new business models are sustainable from the start. The project's goal is to design a new Retail Skills Strategy and VET Training Programme that will address the urgent and emerging skills needs of retailers in the key areas of Digital, Green and Resilience. It will focus on training fresh new talent for the sector through training programmes in VET Schools and Higher Education Institutions, and the reskilling of the existing workforce via work based learning and short-term modular courses. Mission The current and future demand for specialized digital and green skills within the retail sector will not be met by existing education and training programmes. There will not be enough skilled workers to fill the jobs, and they will be competing with digital and other sectors for the best talent. Europe needs an innovative new Retail Skills Strategy that can fast-track the upskilling and reskilling of existing retail employees and managers, students, workers from other sectors, and the unemployed to address the skills gap. The Alliance will work together to design, develop, implement, and disseminate a new Retail Skills Strategy and VET Training Programme that will tackle the immediate and future skills shortages across the sector. Outcomes The Skills Strategy & VET Training Programme will focus on the practical application of Digital, Green and Resilience Skills within the retail sector. The programme will be market and industry demand-led at its core, continuously adapting and evolving to address current and future industry needs and supporting European Retailers to achieve long term growth, competitiveness and sustainability through digital and green transformation.

BackgroundHydrogen is a key pillar of the EU’s strategy to achieve its 2050 decarbonisation goals, with an estimated 24% of hydrogen contributing to the total energy demand by 2050, 560Mt CO2 abatement per year, 820 bn euro annual revenue generation, and a 15% reduction in local emissions. The rapid development of the European Hydrogen Value Chain over the coming years is expected to generate approximately 1 million highly skilled jobs by 2030, and up to 5.4 million by 2050. This growth presents a significant economic and environmental opportunity for Europe, but it also creates considerable labour market challenges. ObjectivesThe primary objective of this project is to design and implement a highly innovative, effective, and sustainable Hydrogen Skills Strategy for Europe that will ensure the skills needs of the rapidly expanding and evolving Hydrogen Value Chain can be met in the short, medium, and long term. This blueprint will address the skills need of workers in Declining Sectors and Transition Regions to provide them with upskilling and reskilling opportunities that will enable them to access new employment opportunities within the Hydrogen sector. Participants GreenSkills4H2 is an Alliance of Hydrogen sector partners led by Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), Hydrogen Europe and Hydrogen Europe Research, bringing together key Industry and Education stakeholders from across the sector. ActivitiesThe project includes the establishment of a long-term partnership between Industry and Education; the design of an innovative and sustainable Hydrogen Skills Strategy; the development, testing and roll-out of VET curricula and training programmes in line with latest market needs and consistently linked with EU instruments and tools; continuous skills and career development that empowers technical professionalism in both green and digital competences; and the widespread dissemination and rollout of the VET training to maximise European impact.