The Directorate General Enterprise and Industry of the European Commission has asked empirica to provide sound, unbiased empirical evidence how the supply and demand for different types of ICT-related skills is evolving in Europe under different socio-economic scenarios. This will allow the European Commission order to prepare for targeted policy initiatives and encourage and facilitate the dialogue and cooperation between policy makers and relevant stakeholders at the EU and national levels about the implications and required actions to be taken to address current as well as anticipated skills gaps and shortages and to help reducing innovation skills shortages, gaps and mismatches in Europe.

The study design requires a combination of different data collection techniques, the application of foresight scenario techniques, and statistical modeling of the data for the various scenarios. The work is addressed to the development of foresight scenarios and a forecasting of e-skills demand and supply until 2020 a vision report and the development of a policy roadmap for future action in this area.