Water and Competence Without Borders
The water sector in both Denmark and Sweden is facing a rapidly growing skills shortage. With this project, we aimed to build a stronger Danish–Swedish collaboration to ensure a sustainable skills supply for the water sector.
The water sector faces major skills challenges while requirements related to climate adaptation, digitalisation, security and investment are increasing. The project explored how Sweden and Denmark can strengthen the supply of skills through collaboration, knowledge exchange and cross-border mobility. For Sweden Water Research’s owner companies, access to the right skills is essential for developing and operating future water and wastewater services.
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 prioritised the two most feasible and effective solution areas for a larger main project.
Results and Benefits
The results provide a practical foundation for pilot activities and a possible future Swedish-Danish main project. The project has:
- Created a shared Swedish-Danish understanding of the water sector’s most important skills needs and challenges
- Identified critical skill areas, including operations and maintenance, electrical engineering and automation, digitalisation and cybersecurity
- Highlighted opportunities and barriers to increased cross-border mobility between Sweden and Denmark
- Strengthened collaboration among water organisations, education providers, research and industry
- Defined three priorities for continued work: education and workplace learning, practical vocational roles, and a joint initiative to increase the attractiveness of the water sector
