SAM - Strategy in Additive Manufacturing

A new flagship project on Additive Manufacturing skills aims to maintain Europe leading position in industrial competitiveness

Skills Strategy in Additive Manufacturing Project (SAM) will tackle the current European need of developing an effective system to identify and anticipate the right skills for Additive Manufacturing (AM). This ambitious four-year project will run until 31 December 2022.

According to Ernst & Young, the demand for AM and related services has increased in recent years and market volume is expected to reach €10 thousand million in 2020. As Europe seeks to retain its leading position in industrial competitiveness, there is an urgent need to establish a platform for Additive Manufacturing skills at European, National and Regional levels.

To meet this challenge the project Sector Skills Strategy in Additive Manufacturing (SAM) started in January 2019. The initiative will tackle the current European need for developing an effective system to identify and anticipate the right skills for the Additive Manufacturing (AM) sector demands in response to the increasing labour market needs, thus, contributing for the smart, sustainable and inclusive growth of the AM sector.

To address the challenges described above the SAM project intends to:

• Build a sector skills strategy in AM;
• Assess and anticipate skills (gaps and shortages) in AM;
• Support with data the AM European Qualification System and foster wideness of its scope;
• (Re) design professional profiles according to the industry requirements;
• Develop specific relevant qualifications to be delivered for the AM Sector;
• Increase the attractiveness of the sector to young people, whilst promoting gender balance;
• Strengthen education-research-industry partnerships and encourage creativity “in companies and relevant educational and scientific institutions”;
• Track students, trainees and job seekers and promote match making between job offer and search.

Visit the website: http://www.skills4am.eu/index.html

The SAM consortium is composed of 16 partners, comprising industry representatives from the AM sector, organisations involved in vocational training and education and/or higher education, and umbrella organisations.  It is coordinated by EWF (European Federation for Welding, Joining and Cutting).