This skills gap hampers the EU’s capacity to develop new technologies and defend our critical infrastructure. For government entities such as the ministries of defence and the military, the fierce competition for skills and the attractive salaries offered by the private sector further exacerbate the difficulties of attracting and retaining cyber talents. In the context of the 2023 European Year of Skills, the Commission will launch an initiative for a Cyber Skills Academy. It will act as an umbrella initiative with the objective of increasing the number of professionals trained in cybersecurity. It will bring together the many different initiatives on cyber skills, and ensure coordination, integration and a common communication around them. Organised around several pillars of action such as funding, community support, training and certification, stakeholder involvement and knowledge generation, the Cyber Skills Academy will also be able to benefit the cyber defence workforce. The European Security and Defence College (ESDC) will explore how to facilitate the exchange of best practices and further synergies between the military and civilian domains regarding training and the development of cyberspace-specific military skills. Based on a training requirement analysis of the EU as well as training needs, the ESDC, EDA, and Member States will further develop and organise cyber defence training activities and exercises for EU institutions, CSDP operations and missions as well as Members States’ officials. The further development of the ESDC Cyber Education, Training, Exercises and Evaluation (ETEE) Platform will also be explored to generate more training capacities. This should also include training courses for specific operational domain and multi-domain operations. Synergies should in particular be sought with the EU Cyber Academia and Innovation Hub (EU CAIH) PESCO project58. Member States are encouraged to develop specific education programmes in the field of cyber defence, bringing in higher education and academic institutions (civilian and military) to develop and create common cyber defence curricula, sharing best practices, creating partnerships and common projects, and facilitating exchanges of trainers and trainees. To ensure interoperability and a common culture across the EU, the ESDC will foster an exchange between Member States through the ETEE. Wider cooperation between training and education actors should be enhanced by the Member States, combining both civilian and military aspects in the technical, operational, strategic and legal domains, establishing the basis for creating common and standardised training programmes at different levels for the civilian, law enforcement, diplomatic and cyber defence communities. In addition, the Member States should engage with European private sector training providers, as well as academic institutions, to raise the levels of competencies and skills of personnel in military CSDP missions and operations. Furthermore, cooperation on cyber defence training standards and certification should be promoted between Member States, EUIBAs, international partners and other actors, including in the private sector and academia. The ESDC, building on existing civilian initiatives such as the European Cybersecurity Skills Framework (ECSF) developed by ENISA, will develop a cyber defence skills certification framework. The Commission would also consider approaches for certifying cyber skills, available on the market and from academia, while seeking to 58 https://www.pesco.europa.eu/project/eu-cyber-academia-and-innovation-hub-eu-caih/ 17