Industry matters – one in five jobs is in industry. New technologies bring rapid changes and are breaking down the barriers between supply chains, customers and business. Europe must continually innovate to remain competitive in a global market place. The EU must cultivate its talent base, just as it must defend its role as a global standard and rule setter. This publication provides an overview of the European Union’s wide-ranging activities that will boost industrial competitiveness for the benefit of all Europeans. The initiatives focus on building an economy that is circular, sustainable, inclusive – and ready for the future. Stakeholders are invited to use this publication as a point of reference to identify initiatives of use and interest to them, and to identify gaps that need to be addressed to shape the way ahead,

In 2013, Samsung launched a new global Corporate Citizenship strategy with a focus on Education, Employment, Health and the Environment. This brochure is full of stories drawn from Samsung’s most influential and inspiring educational projects, and contains quotes from educational partners, teachers and students across each of the 17 markets that hosted Samsung’s initiatives.

Samsung’s goal over the last three years has been simple: to use technology to transform the educational experience and empower young people to become the innovators of tomorrow. The results of these experiences, and the critical role Samsung has played in incorporating technology into education, are reflected in the observations of participating educators outlined in this brochure. 

Encouraging Student Interest in Science and Technology Studies examines overall trends in higher education enrolments and the evolution of S&T compared with other disciplines. The results suggest that although absolute numbers of S&T students have been rising as access to higher levels of education expands in OECD economies, the relative share of S&T students among the overall student population has been falling, The report shows that encouraging interest in S&T studies requires action to tackle a host of issues inside and outside the education system, ranging from teacher training and curriculum design to improving the image of S&T careers. Numerous examples of national initiatives are used to complement the analyses to derive a set of practical recommendations.

The OECD Skills Strategy provides a strategic approach to skills policies to promote better skills, better jobs and better lives. It aims to strengthen countries’ skills systems through the coherent development, activation and effective use of skills to promote economic prosperity and social cohesion, reflecting a strong focus on “lifetime employability”. The OECD works collaboratively with a range of countries in applying the OECD Skills Strategy framework to build more effective national skills strategies. Each national skills strategy country project offers a highly tailored approach to focus on the unique skills challenges, context and objectives of each country. Each project leverages OECD comparative data and policy analysis, fosters collaboration across ministerial portfolios and levels of government while engaging all relevant stakeholders – employers, trade unions, and civil society organisations.

Norway is currently facing a situation where the needs of the society and working life for expertise in mathematics and a number of natural science and technological fields are not being met. This means that the educational system is not providing sufficient MST competence. This is serious and will be a barrier to a positive trend for innovation and for working life and society in general.

We need a strategy for developing the necessary competence in the population that society, working life and trade and industry need in the natural science and technological areas. One of the most important policy instruments for succeeding in this is to strengthen the teaching of MST in education in Norway. Thus the government has in its inaugural declaration the following formulation: "especially strengthen the MST competency throughout the whole educational pathway and increase the efforts to recruit students to these subjects".

Increased competence in MST and better recruitment are the core elements in the strategy that is hereby being submitted: A joint promotion of MST.

On November 10th and 11th 2008 The Platform Bèta Techniek (Platform Science and Technology) organised an international summit on Math, Science and Technology: The Dutch Experience in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this summit three objectives were addressed: The Netherlands presented The Dutch Approach toward getting more young people interested and choosing MST in Holland; the summit provided opportunities to people working in that field from different countries to connect, and the basis was laid toward a new international political agenda. At the end of the day The Platform shared their intention to present a working paper as a follow-up of this summit.

This working paper is aimed at the participants and other interested parties. The Platform Bèta Techniek is described first: it’s goals and strategy are described, as are the programmes, activities and the results that were obtained up till now. The chapter closes with a paragraph on what The Platform considers to be the remaining challenges for the future. Next the Platform presents its international ambitions: what added value can the Platform Bèta Techniek give to the goals and challenges Europe is facing in terms of innovating the MST education and getting more young people interested in MST careers? And what goals has the Platform set towards creating an exchange of knowledge and experience between The Netherlands and other European countries. This paper closes with an invitation to collaborate and join in deliberation in the remaining challenges.

President Donald Trump unveiled a new program at the White House on Monday to boost education in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), with a particular focus on computer science and coding. "The workplace is changing, we need to create new pathways for our citizens to get the best jobs," Trump said. "Greater access to STEM and computer science programs will ensure our [children] have the skills they need to compete, and win, in the [workforce]."

Trump signed a presidential memorandum Monday afternoon directing the Department of Education to allocate at least $200 million per year in grant funds to the STEM and computer science fields, part of the administration’s effort to train workers for the jobs of the future.

AEDE-France, partner of the EU STEM Coalition, will offer a variety of training courses throughout the EU over the course of 2016 and 2017 as part of the ELICIT PLUS project. The main objective is to design and implement a number of training courses aimed at teachers, school-heads and all educational staff, to promote European Literacy and Citizenship. STEM education will also be  covered during the courses.  

The project consortium is composed of 23 partners including universities, education institutes, associations, INGOs and schools from 12 different European countries.

The ELICIT-PLUS course catalogue is available on www.aede-france.org or www.elicitplus.eu. For registration, please click here.