Skills Development for the Twin Transition: Building Transnational Skills Ecosystems Through Experimentalist Governance

The twin transition to a green and digital economy is linked to the need for new skills in the workforce. However, given the scaleand speed of change, it is challenging for policymakers, employers, and educational institutions to predict what skills will be indemand and how to create them. In addition to strategic uncertainty, European policymakers are confronted with a diversityof national and regional skills systems and a multi-polar power distribution. Based on our governance framework combiningthe concept of skills ecosystems with experimentalist governance, we find that policymakers rely on experiments to create andsustain transnational skills ecosystems. These enable local actors to cooperate in a bottom-up way and to develop novel skillssolutions. We draw on the iterative policy cycle of experimentalist governance to conceptualize the components necessary forgoverning transnational skills ecosystems. The expanding European Centers of Vocational Excellence are analyzed to illustrateour argument.