The online plenary meeting of the UIC Talent & Expertise Development Platform (TEDP) took place on 10 November. It is a new communication channel for TEDP which usually organises the TEDP twice a year (once a year when in the same year as the World Congress on Rail Training), each time in a different training facility. This allows for the tour of the facility, as well as the organisation of topical workshops, in close relationship with the fields of expertise of the hosting training centre.
The online plenary meeting Part 1 was successfully held with the participation of some 40 participants from 25 countries, representing Europe, Asia/Pacific, Africa, Latin America. Besides informing about the state of play of TEDP activities, the meeting was the occasion for the attendees to get an update of what’s going on in the railway community in general and in the workforce development activity of the participating companies in particular.
The meeting, which was opened by UIC Passenger Director and co-ordinator of the UIC Covid-19 task force, Marc Guigon, on behalf of the UIC Director General, set up the current context and the prospects under the “new normal” period for Railways and Mobility.
It was followed by presentations and exchanges on the following TEDP projects:
- ERTMS basic training course. The statistics of the two on-line training modules, which are already released reveal a very good record. A third module for Infrastructure Manager will be released, as scheduled, by the end of 2020.
- An additional module for Fleet Owner is scheduled for 2021. The working group, co-ordinated by Prorail, called for volunteers to help with working on the technical contents of the module.
First UIC TrainRail hackathon
A first TrainRail hackathon, co-ordinated by SWJTU, China, will be launched end of 2020-beginning of 2021, with final results to be delivered within the framework of the World Congress on Rail Training in September 2021 ( https://wcrt.uic.org)
The objectives of the hackathon on the topic “How can railways be resilient in the face of pandemics?” are the following:
- Raise awareness among younger generations of the correlation between the development of rail transit and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
- Improve their understanding of the spirit of innovation.
- Develop their skills by working with people from diverse backgrounds, which will thus prepare them to become world leaders and thinkers contributing to a sustainable world.
- Strengthen cultural exchanges between their countries, laying the foundations for the future development of international relations.
- Support the challenges of railway companies and education and training establishments with creativity
- Promote startups
- Mobilise the best internal and external talents
- Turn an idea into reality
Training of trainers will be organised in the first trimester of 2021.
The Hackathon working group is opened and is calling in particular for members to:
- Join the organising committee
- Join the international evaluation committee
Quality criteria for training programmes
The targets of setting the UIC non-technical quality criteria for training programs are the following:
- Common Quality criteria for training courses for UIC members
- Ensuring reliable and trusted competence development criteria
- Appropriate methods to ensure learning success
The coordinators of the project (DB Rail Academy and RUT) presented the different working groups set up for the purpose of the project: establishment of a competent body (investigation on standards), quality criteria and rulebook (development of criteria, rules & regulations), a business plan (planning costs & revenues) and expert pools.
Results will be disclosed at WCRT 2021.
Please note that the different working groups are open and you are welcome to attend!
Another interesting part of the meeting was dedicated to the situation in terms of training & workforce development in the participating countries. Our colleagues from Spain thus delivered an exhaustive presentation of the ADIF training Service (the next meeting in real life is scheduled in the ADIF technological centre in Valencia, when the situation is back to “normal”). The plenary meeting concluded with a round table with five companies on the “Current situation at training centres. COVID-19 and learning. What has it changed? Challenges and opportunities”
The plenary session Part 2 of the Talent & Expertise Development Platform is scheduled to be held on 10 December. It will be dedicated to other TEDP ongoing activities.
