European IT Professionalism Framework launched in Brussels
14 December 2016
On 6 December 2016, the European IT Professionalism Framework was launched during the IT Professionalism conference in Brussels. There is broad consensus about the crucial importance of e-skills for Europe given the e-skills shortages, gaps and mismatches that have a continuing negative effect on achieving further growth, competitiveness, innovation and employment in Europe.
This Framework will be an important step to encourage further growth of the knowledge, skills and competences of the European IT workforce and people.
This framework is the outcome of a project by a consortium of Capgemini Consulting, EY and IDC that started in September 2015 and was commissioned by DG Growth and EASME.
Four building blocks of IT Professionalism
The European IT Professionalism Framework includes concrete standards (like the e-CF) and tools and guidelines that contribute to a common understanding of IT professionalism.
The aim of the framework is to help strengthen the IT profession using four building blocks: competences; body of knowledge; education and training and certification; and professional ethics. It contributes to the continuous development of knowledge, competences and skills of professionals, and offers e.g. employees and educational institutions means to support those activities.
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Value for all stakeholders
The adoption of the IT Professionalism Framework holds the promise of a universal language. It can offer to practitioners an international recognition of IT competences and knowledge, enhancing their mobility and credibility. It also brings improved clarity over career paths and competence requirements. Employers could benefit from reduced cost, effort, and time to recruit, deploy, train and develop suitable IT resources, as well as an increasingly competent professional IT workforce. For education providers that see improved demand due to life-long learning requirements, the Framework could also bring increased market size opportunities resulting from improved transparency and comparability of educational offerings. Professional Associations play an important role in promoting the Framework and the concept of professionalism. It is their chance to mature the IT profession and boost Membership and take up a stronger role. Of course, with an increasingly IT enabled economy and society, this could also reduce risks stemming from this uptake as well as improved employment prospects.
Highlights of the conference in Brussels
During the conference, 25 expert speakers from industry, academia, professional associations, government and other stakeholders shared their view on IT professionalism from various angles. Besides presentations on European policy initiatives, it was particularly interesting to hear from experts from Canada, Japan and the US how these countries initiate actions towards closing the skills gap and increasing the digital talent pool.
The conference also saw the presentation of a first version of European Ethics Guidelines and various initiatives that have been launched in Spain, Italy and Ireland to implement the IT Professionalism Framework. The agenda, speakers and accompanying presentations are available on the website.
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Get involved and provide feedback
For more information or suggestions and recommendations please contact Niels van der Linden, project lead of the European IT Professionalism Framework project, via niels.vander.linden@capgemini.com.
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