Water and Competence Without Borders
The water sector in both Denmark and Sweden is facing a rapidly growing skills shortage. With this project, we aim to build a stronger Danish–Swedish collaboration to ensure a sustainable skills supply for the water sector.
The water sector in both Denmark and Sweden is facing a rapidly growing skills shortage. At the same time, major investments are expected in climate adaptation, new infrastructure, and technologies linked to green energy, pharmaceuticals, and bio solutions – all areas that require a qualified workforce and secure access to water.
Despite the clear benefits of working together, there are currently no effective structures for cross border skills matching. Differences in systems, lack of overview, and weak links between education and working life limit both mobility and joint competence development.
This pre project will lay the foundation for long term Danish–Swedish cooperation on competence provision in the water sector. By bringing together key stakeholders in a committed partnership, we prepare a future main project that will put the pre project’s recommendations into practice.
The Project’s Three Components
- Mapping and Joint Knowledge Base
We identify competence needs, recruitment challenges, and barriers to mobility within the Danish–Swedish water sector. We also collect good examples and existing structures that can be further developed. - Testing and Analysis of Four Solution Areas
– Mobility and inclusion
– Joint learning pathways
– Shared talent narrative
– Shared test environments and data - Prioritisation and Partnership
Together with stakeholders from both countries, we prioritise the two most feasible and effective solution areas for a larger main project.
Results and Benefits
In the short term, the project will create value by connecting the labour markets of Denmark and Sweden and using resources more efficiently, enabling the sharing of training, test environments, and digital tools; establishing a joint platform for competence supply and attractiveness; and building structures and collaborations that will endure beyond the project period.
In the short term, the project will:
- connect the Danish–Swedish labour markets
- use resources more efficiently
- enable the sharing of training, test environments, and digital tools
- build sustainable structures and collaborations that continue after the project
In the long term, the project will:
- ensure the competence supply needed for the green transition
- strengthen the attractiveness, inclusiveness, and innovation capacity of the water sector
- increase the integration of international talents and cross‑border commuters
- strengthen the Øresund region as a cohesive labour market for sustainable water management
