Digital frontrunners: Designing inclusive skills policy for the digital age

Digital Frontrunners is an experimental programme from Nesta that aims to find solutions to the challenges of digital transformation. It does this by facilitating collaboration between senior policymakers and other stakeholders from six digitally advanced countries in northern Europe. These are Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden. This report: (1) explains how the Digital Frontrunners programme equips participants with new competencies for designing effective policy in the digital age; (2) highlights innovative methods that governments are using to solve four key challenges for the creation of skills policy to foster workforces that are fit for the future; and (3) presents a ‘policy blueprint’ that policymakers and other stakeholders can follow to make more inclusive and responsive skills policy. The key message is that to foster an inclusive and adaptable labour market for the digital age, governments should prioritise four key challenges: anticipate the skills that will be in demand; serve the diverse needs of workers across contexts; discover and promote services that drive people’s intrinsic motivation to learn; and build a resilient labour market system that can adapt to changes in demand.