Skills Certification and the New Skills Fund: Insights and Perspectives from the EFI Symposium

A concrete look at tools that have yet to find their balance

🧭 Overview - What you'll find in this article

• The value of comparing system and operations
• Skills Certification: State of the Art
• New Skills Fund: critical issues and potential
• The key point: simplify without losing value
• A shared direction

There are times when the exchange between those who work "on the ground" every day and those who draft the rules becomes particularly useful. The EFI Symposium on March 25, 2026, was one of those times.

Not so much for the expected confirmations as for the quality of the questions that emerged:
How can we make existing tools truly usable? How can we make them work better for businesses and individuals?

The initiative, organized by EFI and masterfully led by Studio Galvan with Giovanni Galvan and Giulia Cecchini, brought together experts, organizations, institutions, interprofessional funds, and universities for an in-depth discussion on the challenges and opportunities of funded training.

When comparison becomes useful

The day, opened by the Director General of the Ministry of Labor and Social Policies Massimo Temussi, set the tone for an intense and productive day

Skills Certification: A Tool Still "Under Construction"

Piazza Copernico took part in the roundtable discussion on skills certification, moderated with great professionalism by Professor Emanuela Proietti of the University of Rome Tre.

Participants shared experiences on a tool still being defined, in a fragmented context where harmonization between regions remains a goal to be achieved.

Critical issues such as excessive bureaucratic procedures and a lack of uniform standards emerged, but everyone recognized the potential: once optimized, it could revolutionize skills validation, promoting mobility and employability.

Certification only makes sense if it becomes accessible to the labor market. Today, the risk is that it will remain a formal process; the challenge is to transform it into a truly useful tool for individuals and businesses.
Sestilia Cherubini

New Skills Fund: high potential, still patchy experience

In the afternoon, the discussion extended to four thematic tables:

• collaboration between Regions and Funds
• technologies for financial management
• New Skills Fund
• economic sector

Our participation at the table on New Skills Fund it was essential.

The analysis highlighted critical issues such as:

• delays in deliveries,
• management and reporting complexity,

and the difficulty for operators to navigate the mass of formalities so that the instrument can fully unfold its benefits.

Among the potentialities emerge:

• rapid upskilling,
• support for innovation
• the measurability of results, transforming it into a growth tool not only for employees but also for the entire corporate ecosystem.

"The Fund works when it manages to fit within the timeframes and needs of companies. The closer the gap between planning and operations is, the more effective it becomes."
Sestilia Cherubini

It's a delicate balance: between control and agility, between structure and accessibility.
And this is precisely where much of its real impact lies.

A fruitful debate, especially among those involved in the practical implementation of the instrument, strengthened the awareness that, in the next edition, the Fund will be even more effective and accessible.

The key point: simplify without losing value

One of the most interesting aspects is the convergence on a common need:
simplify, without trivializing.

Why:

• complexity discourages
• but excessive simplification risks emptying the tools

What is therefore needed is a "translation" effort between systems, rules, and the real needs of businesses.
A job that requires continuous collaboration between all the actors involved.

A workspace

Events like this work when they don't remain isolated moments, but become part of an ongoing exchange.

For those who work in funded training, it also means constantly questioning their approach:

• how to make the courses more relevant to the company contexts
• how to make access to tools easier
• how to give concrete value to the skills developed

There aren't always immediate answers. But direct dialogue with those who use these tools every day is probably the most useful starting point.