SKYLA: Our journey from learning to lasting impact
06/10/2026
How can regions prepare people and skills systems for the green and digital transitions?
This was the challenge at the heart of SKYLA – Smart Specialisation Skills Ecosystems for the Twin Transition. Over the course of the project, partners from across Europe worked together to explore how regional skills ecosystems can become more responsive to changing economic, technological and societal needs.
The new SKYLA final video brings this journey together — from the challenges that brought partners together, through interregional learning and exchange, to the concrete actions and policy improvements that emerged from the project.
From learning to action
SKYLA was built around a simple idea: learning from other regions is most valuable when it can lead to action at home.
Through policy needs analysis, peer exchange, study visits and the transfer of Good Practices, partners explored approaches that could be adapted to their own regional contexts.
The video highlights how this learning translated into concrete examples of cooperation and policy development.
For example, Fingal and Sofia explored participatory feedback approaches, while partners from Poland and Lithuania exchanged experience around VET and apprenticeships. Learning from several SKYLA regions also contributed to work on apprenticeship promotion in Tuscany and the development of Fingal’s new Skills Strategy.
These examples show that interregional cooperation can go beyond sharing experiences. It can help regions adapt ideas, strengthen policies and put new approaches into practice.
Building stronger regional skills ecosystems
Policy improvements do not happen in isolation.
Throughout the project, SKYLA brought together different actors within regional ecosystems — including public authorities, education and training providers, businesses and young people.
By creating opportunities to learn from one another and work across institutional and geographical boundaries, the project helped partners develop a broader understanding of the skills challenges linked to the green and digital transitions.
The result is not one single solution, but a stronger capacity to identify needs, learn from others and adapt solutions to regional realities.
One project. Many regions. Shared learning.
The final SKYLA video also celebrates the people behind the project.
Behind every policy discussion, study visit, workshop and Good Practice exchange are people willing to share their experience, ask questions and look at familiar challenges from a different perspective.
This spirit of cooperation is at the heart of SKYLA.
The project demonstrates the value of interregional learning as a pathway to policy improvement — connecting regional experiences and turning them into knowledge that can be adapted and used elsewhere.
Looking ahead: the SKYLA legacy continues
As SKYLA comes to an end, its impact does not stop with the project. The relationships built, practices explored, lessons learned and policy improvements initiated provide a foundation for continued cooperation and the further development of regional skills ecosystems.
The next step in this journey will be the final SKYLA event, “Future Skills for the Twin Transition”, which will bring together the main results and lessons from the SKYLA policy learning process and explore what they mean for the future of skills ecosystems supporting Europe’s green and digital transformation.
The SKYLA journey may be coming to an end, but the conversation about future skills continues.