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Stuttgart, Germany - WPLB meeting of the DRIVES project

 

The last Work Package Leaders Board meeting of the DRIVES project consortium was held in Stuttgart. It was hosted by the Stuttgart Region, an Association of local authorities that aims to promote the region's development, with an important connection to its local industrial base.

Stuttgart metropolitan region counts with about 2,7 million inhabitants, coming from 170 countries. With about 1,5 million economically active people, Stuttgart is a high-tech leading business location where R&D expenditure ranges the €7 billion and patent applications are near 400. Due to the high number of industries and services, Stuttgart region has a low employment rate and high social stability. The Region, referred by some as the cradle of the automobile, is home to highly specialised global industrial players, such as Daimler, Porsche, Bosch, IBM or Hewlett-Packard.

Representing a wide range of sectorial institutions, the area's economic and technological prowess makes the Stuttgart Region a very important partner in the DRIVES consortium, able to supply relevant information on skills demand and supply.

During the meeting work package leaders focused on the identification and characterisation of the occupational profiles to be adapted or developed, based on the future needs of the automotive sector.

These findings will be shared with DRIVES related stakeholder to allow for a continuous exchange of insights between the project and the individuals on the ground. Companies within the automotive value chain interested in providing their insights to the project can get in contact with DRIVES partners and register on the Stakeholders Database via the following link.

 

The project DRIVES objective is to deliver human capital solutions to supply chain SMEs through the establishment of an Automotive Sector Skills Alliance, covering all levels of the value chain (vehicle production, automotive suppliers and automotive sales and aftermarket services).

Through the network of the partners, DRIVES outcomes will be disseminated EU-wide to above 300 associations, bringing together more than 270,450 companies of all sizes, representing over 7 million workers.

The European Commission estimates that by 2025 it will be necessary to fill more than 900.000 jobs in the automotive sector, about half of which will require high-level qualifications. Targeting this market need, DRIVES ultimate goal is to implement the Blueprint objectives for the automotive sector.

 

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