Portugal takes over EU Council Presidency
During the first half of 2021, Portugal will hold the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union. This presidency’s emphasis will lie on the Commission’s dual digital and green transitions, as well as the recovery from the Covid-19 crisis. Digital education, distance learning and hybrid and innovative teaching methods, as well as the …
EU Commission and High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy release new EU Cybersecurity Strategy
The Commission and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy have presented a new EU Cybersecurity Strategy. The strategy is meant to strengthen Europe’s collective resilience against cyber threats and help ensure that all citizens and businesses can fully benefit from trustworthy and reliable services and digital tools. Find more …
VDE releases position paper on digital sovereignty
VDE has released a new position paper entitled ‘Technological Sovereignty: Methodology and Recommendations. The aim of the paper is to discuss the concept of technological sovereignty and analyse how Europe can recover technological sovereignty, and to define specific recommendations. The paper argues that fostering training and boosting research are key for warranting technological sovereignty in …
I-DESI: EU-27 both outperform and lag behind in the digital economy
EU countries both outperform and lag behind in the I-DESI digital economy comparison report, recently released. In basic Internet User Skills, the EU-27 outperform their global counterparts, while in Advanced Skills Development the EU’s performance is more mixed. EU Member States had on average 4.3 percent of graduates in ICT in 2018, while the average …
JRC launches a DigComp Self-reflection tool
The report ‘DigCompSAT. A Self-reflection Tool for the European Digital Competence Framework for Citizens’ has been published by the Joint Research Centre (JRC). DigCompSAT is meant for testing empirically the set of DigComp 2.1 competences corresponding to levels 1 to 6 (foundation, intermediate and advanced), through a set of prepared questions covering all 21 competences …
New Erasmus+ project by Austrian Computer Society and German Informatics Society
The CEPIS member societies, the Austrian Computer Society and the German Informatics Society, together with academic and public authority partners from Austria, Germany and Lithuania have been selected to conduct a policy experimentation project starting in early spring 2021. Competences in computational thinking, data and technology have become a deciding factor for every citizen when …
ENISA releases report on AI cybersecurity challenges
A recent report presents ENISA’s mapping of the AI cybersecurity ecosystem and its ‘Threat Landscape’. The ENISA AI Cybersecurity Challenges report not only lays the foundation for upcoming cybersecurity policy initiatives and technical guidelines, but also stresses relevant challenges for AI cybersecurity. Read the full report on ENISA’s website.
Background papers on sustainable digitisation published by youth experts
In the second half of 2020, the German Informatics Society set out to explore environmental, social, structural, and economic aspects of digital sustainability in the international project Youth4DigitalSustainability. The 50 experts, who are all under 30 years of age, brought with them perspectives from all world regions. A set of 12 policy recommendations were presented …
Digital skills gap threatens UK economic recovery
The UK’s digital skills gap poses a risk to economic recovery, research from Microsoft shows. Over three-quarters of UK leaders (78%) believe a large digital talent pool is essential to driving UK competitiveness. The majority of UK employees (59%) think developing their digital skills will be important to future employability, while 49% felt it was …
ITPE’s Professional Ethics Expert Group Meeting held on 9 December
ITPE’s Professional Ethics Expert Group Meeting was held virtually on 9 December. Discussions centered on the various definitions of ethics and how best to go from theory to practice and that this may vary from country to country.
