Advancing AI-Driven, Skills-Based Career Transitions: TRAILS Workshops in Tuscany and Sweden
03/09/2025
In mid-2025, the Horizon Europe-funded TRAILS project reached key milestones in its Experiment phase — spearheading the next wave of its AI-powered skills-matching tools. Underpinning both regional pilot preparations in Tuscany and Sweden is the crucial coordination and facilitation led by EARLALL, ensuring the smooth design and planning of these experimental implementations.
Strategic Workshop in Tuscany — Setting the Technical Framework
On 3 July 2025 in Siena, the Region of Tuscany hosted a full-day strategic workshop at ITS Vita, gathering a wide array of stakeholders from the region’s employment and education ecosystem. The session, led by SkillLab, sought to define the operational and technical parameters for the Tuscan pilot, drawing on personalized skill assessments to better match individuals with relevant training opportunities. This marks a significant step in TRAILS’ broader experimental study to empower informed career decisions through skills intelligence.
Workshop in Borås, Sweden — Advancing Pilot Planning on the Ground
Building on the momentum from Tuscany, the TRAILS team met again on 29 August 2025 in Borås (Region Västra Götaland), hosted by Higher Vocational Education. Organised by EARLALL and led by SkillLab’s Christoph Bretgeld, the workshop convened professionals including employment advisors, counsellors, labour market administrators, and IT coordinators. The group focused on understanding user journeys, identifying existing systems, avoiding redundancies, sketching a prototype of the local pilot (including user groups and timelines), and exploring possible tools from SkillLab.
EARLALL ensures the TRAILS project is shaped by on-the-ground realities and stakeholder expertise across regional and local contexts.
The TRAILS project (January 2024–January 2027) is a three-year initiative led by the Democritus University of Thrace, working alongside partners including SkillLab, EARLALL, and others. Its ambition is to harness AI and big data to address the persistent challenge of skills mismatches in Europe.
The Experiment phase — with pilots in Tuscany, Sweden and one more in Baden-Württemberg, and others — seeks to validate the effectiveness of AI-generated training recommendations. Beginning in summer 2025, these pilots activate personalized skill assessments to guide unemployed participants toward tailored learning paths, all while involving local training providers to map courses to relevant skill sets.
Caption: Borås Workshop, Region Västra Götaland, Sweden (1 and 2) and Tuscany Workshop (3).
