Expected Outcome:
Deliverables:
- Well defined, up to date and relevant challenges that will serve as the challenges for the European Advanced Digital Skills Competitions
- Competitions rule book for participants and jury
- Competitions implementation roadmap
- Implementation and roll-out of the six competitions
- Sustainability plans for the proposed competitions after the end of the project
Objective:
The European Advanced Digital Skills Competitions will serve as catalysts for engaging young European people in cutting edge digital technologies. They will support their creativity, exposing them to project-based research and training, and connect them to the wider community of research organisations and industry players. Each competition will centre around a challenge addressing a highly relevant societal or industrial challenge that has been developed by a consortium of Europe’s most prestigious research institutes and industry partners. The consortia will work in close cooperation with the respective Sectoral digital skills academies and Initiatives to ensure buy in and support from the relevant stakeholders in the ecosystem.
The competitions will take place in the EU. To launch the competitions, teams of students will compete in six digital areas, represented by the newly established Sectoral digital skills academies, the Destination Earth initiative and an additional area to be chosen by the consortium. Furthermore, it is expected that the competitions will lead to greater innovation, which will allow to measure and compare progress towards the ambitious goals set under each challenge.
Scope:
The scope of this topic is to develop six challenges for the European Digital Skills Competitions in the four digital areas corresponding to the Sectoral digital skills academies (Quantum, GenAI, Chips, Virtual Worlds), the Destination Earth Initiative (see topic 4.2 of the DEP Work Programme 2025-2027) and one additional area to be developed by the consortium.
The challenges will be designed to target three clear objectives: each will address a European societal-, technological or industrial-relevant challenge, attract a large participation of students and help them develop their skills, and raise their awareness and understanding of team and project-based work as well as applied research and innovation in the respective digital technologies. Special attention will also be given to design local and major tournaments. The consortium will also design attractive prize schemes and award for the best challenges from the six areas.
The selected project will cooperate closely with the Sectoral digital skills academies, the Destination Earth sectoral Initiative and the respective industrial communities for the design of the competitions. It will as well collaborate with the European League of Advanced Digital Skills Academies (see section 4.3 of the DEP Work Programme 2025-2027) for dissemination, communication and public relations purposes concerning these competitions. Synergies should also be sought with other relevant initiatives, e.g. the Digital Education Hackathon.
News flashes
2026-10-08
The evaluation for this call is finalised. The number of proposals received under this call is:
DIGITAL-2026-SKILLS-09
Number of proposals submitted: 31
Number of inadmissible proposals: 4
Number of ineligible proposals: 0
Number of above-threshold proposals: 20
Total budget requested for above-threshold proposals: EUR 74,521,348.69
2026-10-08
Call DIGITAL-2026-SKILLS-09 has closed on 03.03.2026.
31 proposals have been submitted.
The breakdown per topic is:
- DIGITAL-2026-SKILLS-09-COMPETITIONS: 15
- DIGITAL-2026-SKILLS-09-LEAGUE-OF-ACADEMIES: 16
2026-10-08
The submission session is now available for: DIGITAL-2026-SKILLS-09-LEAGUE-OF-ACADEMIES, DIGITAL-2026-SKILLS-09-COMPETITIONS
