Commitment to skills
The ‘Skills for the Future' symposium was hosted by ASC in Leeds in November 2006. This unique international forum promoted increased understanding of the concept of sustainable communities and addressed the skills and knowledge barriers facing those involved in creating them.
The agreement to hold the symposium was a key outcome of the EU Ministerial Meeting in Bristol in December 2005, where ministers agreed on the importance of developing skills for successful place making and the value of cooperative activity across member states.
The symposium provided an opportunity for around 200 delegates - practitioners, policy-makers, researchers and experts nominated by member states and candidate countries - to focus on the crucial role of generic skills such as governance, leadership and partnership working in the creation and maintenance of sustainable communities.
Knowledge exchange
The event was run in conjunction with the European Urban Knowledge Network and the URBACT programme. There were 42 speakers drawn from across Europe, with a ministerial address and a keynote speech from a leading US expert setting the tone for an interactive event that focused on exchanging knowledge and experience. The event's plenary sessions and workshops covered:
- The extent and nature of skills requirements and gaps across Europe.
- Sharing good practices that are already in place across Europe.
- Building a network of supportive organisations and ministries that will take the agenda forwards.
- Defining priorities and opportunities for future action and collaboration.
- Shaping a new Skills Commitment for Europe.
View the presentations from the symposium
» Plenary sessions - day 1
» Plenary sessions - day 2
» Workshops
» Speaker Biographies
An evaluation of the symposium and its associated work programme was undertaken and is available to download on the links below:
» download the report (English)
» download the report (French)
» download the report (German)
The key findings from the evaluation were:
- That the agenda addressed by the symposium is a vital one.
- The importance of a shared understanding of the aims of skills for sustainable communities and a common terminology to assist dialogue.
- The value of a common agenda and commitment across the EU.
- There are concerns that the skills for sustainable communities agenda has ‘gone too far too fast’ for some.
- The importance of ensuring all stakeholders in place-making have good access to decision-making processes.
- A desire to build on and better exploit existing knowledge and learning about skills for sustainable communities.
- Place-making skills include building sensitivities to the nostalgic/fear of the future impulse of local communities.
- There are concerns about the availability of resources to undertake widespread delivery of play-making skills.
Future agenda
The symposium programme focused on a draft framework for future activity - the Skills Commitment - to support the development of generic skills for place-making. The text of this new commitment was developed by the symposium's URBACT Skills Working Group and was presented as a draft at the symposium for initial endorsement and development by delegates.
The Skills Commitment was endorsed at the Ministerial Informal meeting in Leipzig under the German Presidency in May 2007. View the Leipzig Charter.
The URBACT Skills Working Group, with representatives from 12 member states, continue to take a leading role in exploring options for embedding skills into key European networks and supporting future Presidencies to maintain the momentum for skills created at the symposium.
ASC has been invited to host a workshop on the transfer of knowledge and best practice at the International Conference on Integrated Urban Development in Copenhagen in October 2007. Further details of this conference can be found here: www.bdp.dk/iur.htm
