Governments increasingly invest in skills anticipation to better understand labour market developments and emerging skills needs. While these efforts generate valuable evidence, their effective use in policy design remains limited.
Drawing on its long-standing work on skills demand analysis, the ETF observes that producing high-quality evidence does not automatically lead to evidence-informed policies. The key challenge lies in the disconnection between ‘science’ and ‘policy’, and the gap between evidence providers (researchers) and evidence users (policymakers). Creating a strong bridge demands continuous dialogue, strategic communication, interinstitutional cooperation, and shared capacities on both sides.
Addressing this challenge requires targeted efforts to improve communication, foster institutional cooperation, and build capacities for evidence use. Strengthening these dimensions can enhance the relevance and responsiveness of education, training and employment policies.
Within this context, the fourth edition of the ETF Skills Lab Network of Experts live event (25–26 March 2026, Florence) focused on how to strengthen the link between skills anticipation and policy action. Discussions highlighted that the main bottleneck is not the availability of data, but its translation into clear policy messages, supported by appropriate institutional coordination and communication mechanisms. Strengthening the interface between researchers and policymakers—through shared frameworks, capacity building and continuous dialogue—emerged as a key priority. A combination of technical, institutional and communication efforts is needed to pursue this objective, including improving data quality, fostering collaboration and enhancing the capacity of researchers to communicate their findings to the public and of policymakers to interpret and use evidence.
Building on the conversations at the live event, this webinar will further explore how evidence can be effectively translated into policymaking. After a ‘setting-the-scene’ session from the ETF, the webinar will feature a presentation from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) on evidence-informed policymaking, including practical tools and frameworks to strengthen the interaction between research and policy. In particular, it will introduce the Competence Framework “Science for Policy” for researchers and the Competence Framework for “Innovative Policymaking”, which aim to build shared capacities in communication, collaboration and evidence use across communities.
Contributions from two ETF partner countries’ speakers will follow, illustrating how evidence is used in practice to inform skills and employment policies. These cases will highlight key enabling factors, such as the importance of stakeholder engagement, iterative processes linking data and decision-making, and the need to adapt evidence to specific national and regional contexts, as well as challenges encountered in the process.
The agenda, presentations, webinar recording and a short summary will be available on this page soon.
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