Mapping and Skills Forecast Report

Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB) and the  Institute for Research in Environment, Civil Engineering and Energy (IECE), supported by all CATALYST partners (North Macedonia, Greece, Portugal, Austria and Germany), performed desk and field research aiming to tackle personal and organisational development, embrace transformation in SMEs, enable and inspire them to re-think and re-design their business models, co-create and share among educational and business organisations.

The desk work aimed to map the dominant European and national policies, sectoral trends and best practices in each country, while the field work was comprised of an online survey and interviews translated and conducted in local languages in the autumn of 2022. 504 professionals and SME representatives filled in the survey, while 64 of them participated in 1:1 interviews. The goal of the field study was to learn more about their actions and needs in terms of sustainability and governance, and to understand what skills are missing from the market.

The desk work summarizes the major international and national policies on innovation, entrepreneurship, and sustainability, while it also provides insights on the strongest sectors per country. Out of the five countries, only north Macedonia does not have a circular economy strategy yet, but all of them have developed National Smart Specialisation Strategies, National Energy and Climate Plans and some form of Sustainable Development Strategy. When it comes to the sectorial analysis and RIS priorities, we see that manufacturing together with food and agriculture, circular economy, energy, and digitalisation are dominating within those countries.

Read the full report here: Mapping and skills forecasting report