Portuguese National Initiative on Digital Skills

The Iniciativa Nacional Competências Digitais e.2030, Portugal CoDigital 2030 is a comprehensive program aimed at enhancing digital competencies in Portugal by 2030. The initiative is structured around four key programmatic axes and addresses four major societal challenges. Here’s a detailed breakdown:

Programmatic Axes:

1. Citizenship and Inclusion:
   • Aim: Ensure digital inclusion for all citizens, enabling full participation in society.
   • Activities: Promoting digital literacy across all educational levels, recognising informal competencies, and improving interactions with public administration.
2. Employability:
   • Aim: Enhance employability by meeting the growing demand for digital skills.
   • Activities: Facilitating conditions for employment in sectors with increasing digital skill requirements and continuous transformation.
3. Specialisation:
   • Aim: Stimulate specialisation in digital technologies and applications to improve job quality and economic value.
   • Activities: Encouraging advanced training in specific digital technologies and applications for better job qualifications.
4. New Knowledge:
   • Aim: Foster the production of new knowledge in international interactions.
   • Activities: Promoting research and development in advanced scientific computing and data science.

Societal Challenges:

1. Digital Inclusion:
   • Ensuring that all citizens have the digital literacy necessary for full citizenship.
2. Employment Opportunities:
   • Promoting conditions for employment in a context of increasing demand for digital skills.
3. Economic and Cultural Value:
   • Encouraging specialisation in digital technologies to create added value in the economy.
4. International Knowledge Production:
   • Generating new knowledge at the intersection of science and digital technologies through international cooperation.

Strategic Objectives:

The initiative is designed to position Portugal among the leading European countries in digital competencies by 2030. This involves:

• Developing a comprehensive framework for digital skills.
• Promoting intensive training and utilisation of the internet.
• Preparing for future scenarios involving advanced technologies such as robotics, autonomous transport, IoT, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing.
• Ensuring the effective reinforcement of the social state and the capacity to attract and retain qualified human resources.

Governance and Implementation:

The initiative will be overseen and coordinated through various levels of governance:

1. Permanent Forum for Digital Skills:
   • Mobilises a wide range of social actors and ensures broad participation in the initiative.
2. Technical-Scientific Council for Digital Skills:
   • Provides scientific and strategic guidance.
3. Technical Secretariat for Digital Skills:
   • Coordinates the implementation of activities based on recommendations from the councils.
4. Political Coordination:
   • Managed at the government level and within the Education and Science Commission of the Assembly of the Republic.

Indicators and Evaluation:

The progress of the initiative will be monitored through selected indicators compared internationally over the coming years. The establishment of the “Observatório para as Competências Digitais” (Observatory for Digital Skills) within the Directorate-General for Statistics of Education and Science (DGEEC) and in collaboration with the National Institute of Statistics (INE) will facilitate systematic evaluation.

Conclusion:

The Iniciativa Nacional Competências Digitais e.2030, Portugal CoDigital 2030, aims to create a resilient society by equipping citizens with necessary digital skills, fostering employability, encouraging specialisation in digital fields, and producing new knowledge through international cooperation. The initiative is a strategic response to the rapid evolution of digital technologies and their pervasive impact on society and the economy.