New high-tech enabled services have been disrupting the business, work and skills landscape during the last decades. They represent a move to advanced services enabled by new technologies and have been taking shape in the form of new innovative efforts in practice, research, education, training and policy. This initiative launched by the European Commission aims to collect, analyse and benchmark initiatives in the realm of service innovation skills, building on the experience of the work on service science, and to develop a vision toward 2030 of how to foster and scale the creation of these skills in Europe. It aims to mobilise a large number of leading experts and policy makers to facilitate the uptake of new technologies by European enterprises, especially SMEs and start-ups, in developing new and smart services, which create new jobs and require up-and reskilling of the European workforce. The results will inform policy-makers, business leaders and social partners regarding effective policies, partnerships and supporting programmes to increase Europe's talent pool and employment. The current disruptions caused by COVID-19 challenge us to view high-tech services from a new perspective. Major changes for economy and daily life open new possibilities to enhance services, skills and rethink stiff business structures. At the same time, the EU has embarked on a green deal for Europe while emphasizing the need for a just transition to an economy that is more carbon neutral and climate friendly. The impact of these current challenges will underpin this work and require new perspectives. It is believed that new services based on new technologies can play a decisive role in making Europe and the world greener. This report presents the interim research and study results and the steps ahead of us to help policy makers and stakeholders foster service innovation and the respective skills needed to achieve this. The report starts by presenting and discussing best practice in service design, science, management and engineering (SSME+D) related initiatives in education, research and policy. This status quo then leads us to discussing the next steps and the way forward towards a vision for 2030. This vision will be the main output of the contract work. It is envisioned to be built on - Evidence concerning emerging practices of high tech application and its related skills formation; - Human-centric view, including stakeholders and their concerns, barriers and motivations towards large-scale reskilling and upskilling of the European workforce; - Consideration of systemic effects, from possible multiplier to veto effects, looking at the interplay of different "systems" (education, employers large and small, labour market, regulation etc.); and - Stakeholders and experts consultations (interviews, surveys, workshops and social media exchange). This report ends with a list of open questions to be taken into account for the next phase of our work. We will attempt to let these questions, and their discussion with experts, inform the vision 2030.
