Advanced manufacturing has a high priority on the political agenda of the European Union, as a key enabler that will lead European society towards a higher industrial competitiveness, sustainable growth and job creation, and improved societal well-being. The AMT domain, including robotics and other forms of automation and material processing devices and machines, is increasing in capability and widening its potential application to low volume, niche and SME-friendly manufacturing opportunities. The ongoing developments have direct implications for the skill requirements, and there is a clear need promote better policies, measures and initiatives at all levels by fostering transparency, increasing awareness and sharing good practices. Specifically, there is a need to reconsider the current approach towards the education and training of AMT professionals and to develop new/advanced models that would be better aligned with the needs of both employers and (future) employees. The current initiative aims to contribute to increasing the quality and relevance of existing curricula and to promote better cooperation between industry and education and training organisations in order to align AMT education and training with the 21st Century needs. It involves data collection and research, design of guidelines, testing and validation, taking into account industry and market needs and best practices, based on contributions from key stakeholder groups. The initiative focusses on Vocational Education and Training, Higher Education and on-the-job training for AMT. The outcome of this initiative will play a prominent role in forming the EU policy making regarding the upskilling of the AMT workforce. The initiative aims to extract suggestions for anticipatory work, and specifically with regard to the role of policy makers in reskilling/upskilling the workforce, with a particular attention to the questions of what needs to be done, who can/should do it and how to fund it. The aim is to help likeminded people to find/co-develop solutions and to provide guidance for implementation. There is also a need to develop a mechanism for updating the curriculum guidelines on a regular basis, as well as for recommendations on scaling up existing best practice efforts. The target groups of this initiative are, on the one hand, higher education students and teachers, and on the other hand, workers and managers who need to acquire continuously new specialised skills related to AMT. Stakeholder engagement is incorporated into all key stages of this initiative, through expert workshops, online surveys, in-depth interviews and individual expert consultations, as well as a dedicated LinkedIn discussion platform.
