The European Skills Agenda is the EU’s five-year plan to help people and businesses develop the skills needed for the future.
It promotes sustainable growth, social fairness, and resilience in response to challenges like the green and digital transitions and the COVID-19 crisis.
💡 For job seekers, this means better access to upskilling, more inclusive learning pathways, and stronger support for lifelong learning.
DIAMOND supports all 12 ESA actions, with a special focus on these 5:
Action 2: Strengthening Skills Intelligence
➡️ Efforts to improve the collection, analysis, and use of data on skills needed in the labor market.
✅ DIAMOND’s ᴱGROW Index maps individuals’ capabilities to guide smarter upskilling.
Action 6: Skills to support the twin transitions
➡️ Preparing people for jobs in the green and digital economy with green & digital skills.
✅ DIAMOND offers tailored micro-credentials in digital and sustainability skills.
Action 8: Skills for Life
➡️ Supporting lifelong learning and personal development.
✅ MOVEᴱ provides flexible formats that build emotional, cognitive, and practical skills.
Action 9: Individual Learning Accounts
➡️ Empowering individuals to build skills throughout their lives by providing them with financial support and access to training opportunities.
✅ MOVEᴱ acts as a personalized learning account, with tools to choose and track skills.
Action 10: Micro-Credentials
➡️ Use of short, flexible, and often online courses to provide learners with specific knowledge and skills
✅ DIAMOND co-develops micro-credentials with grassroots and VET partners.
🎯 In short: DIAMOND doesn’t just align with the European Skills Agenda — it operationalizes it. DIAMOND aims to transform policy into action by offering real tools for inclusive, intelligent, and future-ready upskilling.
📎 Source: EC – European Skills Agenda: https://tinyurl.com/45xjcusx
🔗 Learn more https://diamond-empower.eu/about/
WP4 of the DIAMOND Project dives deep into the economic effectiveness of re- and upskilling programs. By combining meta-analysis, modeling, and real-world impact evaluation, WP4 aims to guide better policy design and ensure labor market inclusion that truly works.
What Happens in WP4?
1. Meta-Analysis of Re/-Upskilling Programs
We’ll map existing macroeconomic research on the impact of re- and upskilling programs to build a comprehensive knowledge base.
📌Leader: Università di Aarhus 🇩🇰
Partner: Freie Universität Berlin 🇩🇪, Università RWTH di Aquisgrana 🇩🇪
2. Stochastic Life-Cycle Modelling of Employment Paths
A dynamic life-cycle model will simulate how individuals experience risks (like job loss or mismatches) and how smart training solutions (like MOVEᴱ) can mitigate them.
📌Leader: Università RWTH di Aquisgrana 🇩🇪
Partner: Freie Universität Berlin 🇩🇪
3. Economic Cost-Benefit Analyses of DIAMOND Solutions
A randomized field experiment will compare traditional training with DIAMOND’s tailored upskilling pathways (ᴱGROW & MOVEᴱ), evaluating the impact on job applications, wages, and well-being.
📌 Lead: Freie Universität Berlin 🇩🇪
Partner: Università RWTH di Aquisgrana 🇩🇪, Università di Vienna 🇦🇹
4. Policy Redesign for Active Labour Market Policies (ALMP)
We will translate economic insights into actionable policy recommendations and host a policy roundtable to rethink how Europe designs future-proof skills programs.
📌 Lead: Centro europeo per l'analisi e gli affari di politica economica (ECEPAA) 🇧🇪
Partner: Freie Universität Berlin 🇩🇪, Università RWTH di Aquisgrana 🇩🇪, Consulenza sugli archetipi evolutivi SL 🇪🇸, FOB 🇵🇱, Youth Power Germany e.V.
With WP4, DIAMOND is making sure that upskilling isn’t just well-intentioned — it’s evidence-based, cost-effective, and life-changing.
Our Other Partners:
Università di Burgos 🇪🇸, CETICA 🇧🇪, Immersione 🇫🇷, Messaggio proporzionale 🇵🇹, EMiT Feltrinelli 🇮🇹, Deinde sp. z o. o. 🇵🇱, Fondazione Miradas 🇪🇸