Updates from Italy: SIPRO – Ferrara Development Agency

Building bridges between education and the world of work is not a new challenge for SIPRO. Over the years, Ferrara Development Agency has regularly opened the doors of its incubators to students from local schools and Higher Technical Institutes (ITS), offering them a first-hand look at the daily life of startups and the ecosystems that support their growth.

 

These visits have given young people the chance to see how an idea can become a concrete project step by step, with the right network of skills and relationships around it. Experiences like these, developed in collaboration with partners such as the University of Ferrara, ART-ER’s Territorial Working Group, the Scuola di Sviluppo Territoriale, and the Municipality of Ferrara within the Ferrara Talent Playground initiative, have helped strengthen the connection between the educational world and local businesses.

 

Within the INNOSKILLS-CE project, SIPRO is now building on these foundations: conversations are underway with local referents for public schools and ITS to map the institutions best suited to be involved in the project’s upcoming activities.

 

This work is essential. Only when educational programmes are more closely aligned with the actual needs of the labour market – which the selected SME’s will help us define in the coming months – will it be possible to create that meaningful match between skills supply and demand that INNOSKILLS-CE is designed to activate.