A consortium led by Cambridge Econometrics has been commissioned to maintain and develop the existing system for regular medium-term forecasts of skill needs (demand and supply) developed for Cedefop on previous project lead by IER.

The work will be based on available comparative data at a pan-European level, and will include regular updates and dissemination of these new forecasts. IER will continue to be responsible for modelling and forecasting the demand for and supply of skills.

The overall aims of this 4-year project are to:

1. Update and extend the projections undertaken for Cedefop in previous projects;
2. Extend, improve and exploit more intensively these Core projections;
3. Investigate various ways of Adding Value, by exploring methodological issues related to forecasting the demand for and supply of skills, exploiting novel data-sets, and examining new ways of combining and interpreting the results;
4. Help to continue to broaden the expertise on pan-European Labour Market Forecasting, by involving additional research institutions in the research;
5. Strengthen the current network of researchers and experts (especially in Skillsnet), by advancing knowledge and giving more opportunities to contribute.

The project team involves a consortium, comprising 6 European research organisations and individual experts from across Europe. It has considerable experience in analysing skill demand and supply, including the data sources that need to be exploited. The consortium’s approach to this project focuses on building upon the well-established Conceptual Framework already developed for Cedefop, which has been subjected to detailed scrutiny and peer review by the Skillsnet network and others, and provides a sound foundation for such work. This will follow well established international best practice approaches to quantitative skills forecasting, requiring the use of a detailed multi-sectoral macro model, in combination with data on employment from the European Labour Force Survey (LFS).