Learning in a Pandemic: Closing the digital skills gap during COVID-19

This new report presents the preliminary findings from our FutureFit programme - a major training and research project upskilling 1,000 workers at risk of job displacement. The findings draw from the training programmes delivered in Sweden, Denmark and Finland where the training has finished or is soon to be completed.  The pandemic has exposed digital divides, with 42% of the EU population now at risk of digital exclusion. At the same time, recent data shows that the response to the pandemic has brought digital adoption forward by five years. This is a crucial time to equip people with digital skills and harness new forms of learning to prevent social exclusion. This is the fifth publication from the FutureFit programme, a major training and research project led by Nesta and supported by Google.org, focused on creating an effective adult learning system to help tackle inequality and social exclusion. This report follows four previous publications - Going Green: Preparing the UK workforce for the transition to a net-zero economy, Make it FutureFit: Four ways to design better adult learning experiences, Becoming FutureFit: What we know about adult learning across Europe and Education for All: Making the case for a fairer adult learning system.