Horizon Europe
Skills and needs data and analysis
D7.5 - Policy Brief 1
The iRead4Skills Intelligent Reading Improvement System for Fundamental and Transversal Skills
Development is a Research & Innovation Action funded by the European Commission, Grant
number: 1010094837, Topic HORIZON-CL2-2022-TRANSFORMATIONS-01-07 Conditions
for the successful development of skills matched to needs.
iRead4Skills D7.5 Policy Brief 1: Skills and needs data and analysis
Date: 23/07/2024
2
Document Control
Information:
Settings
Value
Deliverable No.
D7.5
Document Title:
Policy Brief 1: Skills and needs data and analysis
Author(s):
Raquel Amaro & Ana Leite
Policy Brief Leaflet - Mindshaker
Reviewer(s):
Angels Catena; Regina Duarte
Sensitivity:
Public
Date:
23/07/2024
Document Location: The latest version of this controlled document is stored in OneDrive-
fcsh.unl.pt/iRead4Skills/Project/Work Packages/WP7/Policy Briefs
TABLE OF CONTENTS
IREAD4SKILLS PROJECT SUMMARY ................................................................................................................ 3
1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................... 5
2. EVIDENCE AND ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................................ 7
2.1 DATA ON READING NEEDS AND SKILLS ........................................................................................................................... 7
2.2 COMPLEXITY FRAMEWORK .......................................................................................................................................... 10
2.3 DATA SETS: CORPORA AND LEXICONS ......................................................................................................................... 11
3. POLICY IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ........................................................................... 12
4. PROJECT IDENTITY ........................................................................................................................................ 14
5. REFERENCES .................................................................................................................................................... 15
6. POLICY BRIEF LEAFLET VERSION ............................................................................................................. 16
iRead4Skills D7.5 Policy Brief 1: Skills and needs data and analysis
Date: 23/07/2024
3
iRead4Skills Project Summary
Reading skills are fundamental to acquire technical and scientific knowledge, either in formal education and
training contexts, as Adult Learning (AL) and Vocational Educational Training (VET), or in practical and
empirical working contexts, as when companies provide written specific information and/or instructions to
their workers. People with low literacy skills are less able to acquire and sustain transversal and durable skills
needed to stay apace with the changing job market and to lead meaningful and complete lives.
Responding to the need to create the conditions for the successful development of skills matched to the
functional needs of adult population, and contributing directly to many of the issues established in the European
Skills Agenda for Sustainable Competitiveness, Social Fairness and Resilience (EU 2021), the project iRead4Skills -
Intelligent Reading Improvement System for Fundamental and Transversal Skills Development has as
main objectives:
1. To assess and reduce reading skills gaps in low literacy adults for the development of fundamental and
transversal skills by:
i) establishing and monitoring the relation between improvement in literacy skills and improvement in other
fundamental skills (such as numeracy or ICT) and transversal skills (such as technical skills, communication
skills, teamworking skills, foreign language skills, customer handling skills, problem solving skills, learning
skills and planning and organization skills) as well as motivation, citizenship, and well-being.
ii) providing an intelligent reading system that evaluates texts complexity and suggests appropriate readings
according to the user literacy level. The system would also be used to assist trainers and text producers
to create or adapt texts with the appropriate level of complexity for their target readers.
2. To support the adoption and diffusion of innovation in the way low literacy adults acquire and sustain
transversal and durable skills, matching the always evolving needs of the job market, by developing and putting
to work an open access system, available for both trainers and trainees, that allows for advanced digitally
enabled training and skills development.
Partners
No
Participant organisation name
Country
1
NOVA University Lisbon
Portugal
2
Catholic University of Louvain
Belgium
3
Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research
Luxembourg
4
Ministry of Education
Portugal
5
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Spain
6
Mindshaker Serviços Informáticos, Lda
Portugal
7
INESC ID - Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores: I&D em Lisboa
Portugal
8
University of Santiago de Compostela
Spain
Advisory Board
Anne Mességué, National Coordinator of ANLCI, in France
Cäcilia Märki, Head of Basic Skills Department from SVEB FSEA, in Switzerland
Luís Rothes, Coordinator of the PIAAC, OCDE, in Portugal
Zoltán Várkonyi, Secretary General of the European Basic Skills Network, in Hungary
iRead4Skills D7.5 Policy Brief 1: Skills and needs data and analysis
Date: 23/07/2024
4
Ethics Board
Dagmar Monett Díaz, Prof. in AI and Software Engineering, Head of Computer Science Dept. Berlin School
of Economics and Law, in Germany
João Queirós, Subcoordinator of PIAAC, OCDE, in Portugal
Ulises Cortés, Prof. in AI, scientific coordinator of High-Performance Artificial Intelligence group,
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya/Barcelona Supercomputing Center, in Spain
This document includes an Appendix with a leaflet version.
iRead4Skills D7.5 Policy Brief 1: Skills and needs data and analysis
Date: 23/07/2024
5
1. Introduction
Reading skills are essential to acquire technical and scientific knowledge. This is especially relevant in the
context of formal education and training contexts, as Adult Learning (AL) and Vocational Educational Training
(VET), and in practical and empirical work contexts, such as when companies provide information and/or
specific written instructions to their workers. However, promoting and motivating reading habits and skills in
adults is quite challenging due to the lack of dedicated and/or adequate reading materials.
Supporting the adoption and diffusion of innovation in adult training, the
iRead4Skills project aims to promote the development of reading skills
through an innovative intelligent system that evaluates texts complexity
and suggests reading materials adequate to the user reading level, which
can also be used by trainers in the creation or adaptation of texts with
the appropriate level of complexity for their individual students.
This means contributing:
- to upskilling and reskilling of people,
- to developing their flexibility and adapting abilities, including staying apace with new skills related to
technology, but also
- to new educational strategies related to formal education, responding to individual and social needs,
and boosting adults’ motivation and participation, and
- to innovative and inclusive education systems, using digital technologies to provide quality training.
The goals of this project focus on reading skills and are attuned with creating the conditions for the successful
development of skills matched to needs, responding directly to many
of the issues established in the European Skills Agenda for Sustainable
Competitiveness, Social Fairness and Resilience (EU 2021) and
contributing to several European Commission's policy priorities,
such as A Europe fit for the digital age, by empowering people and
educational systems with innovative and inclusive technologies, An
economy that works for people, by contributing to the European Skills
Agenda, or A new push for European democracy, by providing people
with skills that allow them to be more informed, to deal with
misinformation and to be more active and participating citizens.
By combining an interdisciplinarity team covering different fields of expertise such as ICT, Linguistics,
Economics and Education, the iRead4Skills project will provide groundbreaking research and innovation, going
beyond the current state of the art in several key areas:
Assessing the response to specific needs from the AL and VET communities involved and devising ways to
evaluate results to inform proposals for employers and policy makers.
The training difficulties of adult learners can range from basic reading skills to motivational factors. The
development of the iRead4Skills system goes beyond existing studies and tools due to its relational and
cooperative nature. Based on input from end-users and covering their real needs, the project will provide a
new way to assess the response of individuals, skill development institutions, and employers to issues on
reading skills and to gather data to inform policy makers on the conditions for the successful development of
skills. At this stage of the project, we have reach out and secured the involvement and cooperation of both
trainees and trainers in AL and VET and compile some interesting data on reading skills needs and preferences.
“Literacy and numeracy skills form a
Foundation for developing higher-order
cognitive skills such as analytic reasoning
and are essential for accessing and
understanding specific domains of
knowledge. In addition, they are relevant
across a range of life contexts, from
education and work to home, social life,
and interaction with public authorities.”
(OECD 2019:36)