In the current context of growing territorial disparities and a widening urban-rural divide, several EU regions are severely affected by the decline in the working-age population. In this field, the EU already lost 3.5 million people between 2015 and 2020 and another 35 million people expected by 2050. Some of these regions also face a low share of university and higher-education graduates and a negative mobility of their population aged 15-39, finding themselves in the so-called ‘talent development trap’.

This call for interest is a concrete follow-up of the Communication on Harnessing talent in Europe's Regions, where causes and effects of regional disparities stemming from demographic challenges were presented. The call falls under the first pillar of the Talent Booster Mechanism presented in the same occasion, in January this year.

The Talent Booster Mechanism and its calls

It is an initiative aiming to support regions in training, retaining, and attracting people with the necessary skills and competences to mitigate the impact of demographic transition. It has been designed on 8 pillars, four of which respectively have open calls that will close shortly.

1. The new pilot project will help regions facing the ‘talent development trap' through the implementation of comprehensive and tailored strategic thinking and actionable framework. The goal is also to identify relevant projects, to train, attract and retain skilled workers. Specifically, 46 are the regions across the 11 Member States (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal and Romania) that will have the opportunity to submit applications for this call for interest and benefit from the support of the Mechanism. The deadline for applications is 20 October 2023.
2. A new initiative ‘Smart adaptation of regions to demographic transition’ supports regions tackling demographic transition locally.
3. The Technical Support Instrument (TSI) will support Member States with reforms at national and regional level, necessary to address the shrinking of the working-age population, the lack of skills and respond to local market needs. By 31 October 2023 Member States have the possibility to submit a request for technical support in designing reform projects in 2024, within a broad range of policy areas such as green and digital transition, diversity, public and private finance, migration, business environment, health, skills and education.
4. Cohesion Policy programmes and the Interregional Innovation Investments will stimulate innovation and opportunities for high-skill jobs, and thus contribute to improving possibilities to retain and attract talents in these regions. Regional Innovation Valleys calls for proposals (Strand 1 and Strand 2a) will be open until 17 October 2023.
5. The second call for proposals under the European Urban Initiative is seeking to identify placed-based and integrated pilot projects, in a way that could inspire the use of Cohesion policy programmes in these urban areas. The call will fund projects covering the topic “Harnessing talent in shrinking cities” topic among the others. EUI-IA Call 2 will be closed on 5 October 2023.
6. Signposting EU initiatives to inform interested regions about EU policies in the areas of research and innovation, education, and youth mobility.
7. Regions will have the possibility to set up thematic and regional working groups to exchange experiences and good practices.
8. Improving analytical knowledge to support evidence-based policies on regional development and migration.

More information and online application for the interested regions are available on the Harnessing Talent Platform.