Date: 19th & 20th March 2026  

Location: Alcalá de Henares, Spain  

Project: DIGITAL4Sustainability 

Members of the Cloud Competency Centre attended the in-person consortium meeting for DIGITAL4Sustainability in Alcalá de Henares, Spain, hosted by the Universidad de Alcalá. Ariadny Bittencourt, Prof. Dr. Dr. Dietmar Janetzko, and Prof. Dr. Horacio González-Vélez represented NCI at the two-day event, joining partners from 13 EU countries. 

As leader of Work Package 3 (WP3), NCI presented two major deliverables: D3.1 — Digital Sustainability Educational Profiles and Core Curricula, which defines five professional profiles and core curricula for the digital sustainability workforce and serves as the foundational framework for all subsequent project activities; and D3.3 — Digital Sustainability Certification and Micro-Credentialling Framework, which establishes the accreditation structures for formal recognition of digital sustainability competences across Europe. With WP3 now approaching completion, the Alcalá meeting marked a significant milestone for NCI's contribution to this Erasmus+-funded initiative.

Further information 

Visit the project website:  https://digital4sustainability.eu/ 

GreenShift launches to accelerate European digital skills for green mobility
 

Date: 09th & 10th October 2025
Location:  National College of Ireland (NCI)
 

Dublin, 27 November 2025 — GreenShift, an EU-co-funded initiative for Europe’s transport and mobility sector under the Digital Europe Programme, has formally launched following its Consortium meeting in Dublin on 9–10 October, hosted by the National College of Ireland (NCI). The project signals a commitment to further bolster Europe’s advanced digital expertise — particularly in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and High-Performance Computing (HPC) — with the aim of equipping the workforce and public sector to meet the strategic goals of the EU’s Path to the Digital Decade by 2030. 
A European effort to build critical digital capacity
The transition to sustainable, low-carbon mobility demands more than new vehicles: it requires robust computational infrastructure and talent capable of designing, simulating and deploying complex transport and energy-efficient systems. Yet across Europe many SMEs, startups and public authorities still lack the AI and HPC proficiency needed to implement data-driven solutions at scale.
GreenShift responds to this deficit by mobilising a pan-European network of higher education institutions, supercomputing centres, technology and innovation organisations, and training providers. The project represents a long-standing commitment to harness computational science for sustainable societal impact.
The Consortium’s mission is to strengthen the EU’s digital skills pipeline by generating experts ready to apply advanced computational methods to climate-relevant transport and mobility challenges.
This initiative aligns directly with the priorities of the Path to the Digital Decade, which sets clear EU-wide targets for increasing digital skills, expanding adoption of HPC/Cloud and AI in enterprises, and reinforcing digital infrastructure.
“Our mission is to convert advanced computation into practical climate action in the transport sector,” said Professor Horacio González-Vélez, Project Coordinator and Head of the Cloud Competency Centre at NCI. “GreenShift is a skills-first initiative that will produce the human capital Europe needs to make data-driven, energy-aware mobility a mainstream capability rather than a niche experiment.”
GreenShift seeks not only to skill up individuals, but to create a shared digital capacity across institutions, industry and public stakeholders, enabling collaborative development of low-carbon mobility systems, data-driven urban planning, and HPC-powered simulation for sustainable transport infrastructure.
Institutional strength and broad European collaboration
The Consortium brings together a diverse set of partners: from national supercomputing centres to higher education institutions, innovation hubs and industry organisations. This reflects a pan-European commitment to bridge the skills gap in computational science, support the digital transformation of businesses, and embed advanced AI and HPC capabilities into the green mobility sector.
As Dr Massimiliano Guarrasi (CINECA) observed, “by developing cutting-edge digital learning tools and industry-recognised certifications, we aim to foster collaboration across sectors and deliver tangible impact in green mobility.” 
Professor Mauro Castelli (NOVA IMS) added: “This initiative demonstrates how academic excellence and technological innovation can underpin Europe’s transition toward a climate-neutral, resilient and knowledge-based economy.”
Dr Gabriele Mencagli (Università di Pisa) emphasised the importance of aligning computational training with real-world demand: “We are building the next generation of AI and HPC experts capable of accelerating digital green innovation in transport.”
Jeff Sheridan (MATRIX Internet) commented: “We are proud to contribute to a skills platform to apply AI and HPC to accelerate Europe’s progress towards net-zero transport.”

Policy alignment and strategic relevance
GreenShift exemplifies the kind of multi-stakeholder, cross-border initiative envisioned by the Path to the Digital Decade: large-scale digital cooperation that advances both skills and industrial capacity, while contributing to broader EU goals for sustainable growth, digital sovereignty and regional competitiveness. 
By investing in human capital and computational capacity now, GreenShift helps ensure that Europe will not only meet its 2030 digital targets, but also maintain strategic autonomy in critical technologies, support the twin green-digital transition, and build a resilient knowledge-based economy.
Consortium partners
•    National College of Ireland (Ireland)
•  Universitatea Națională de Știință și Tehnologie POLITEHNICA București (Romania)
•    Università di Pisa (Italy)
•    NOVA Information Management School (Portugal)
•    HLRS Universität Stuttgart (Germany)
•    CINECA Consorzio Interuniversitario (Italy)
•    Hrvatski Telekom d.d. / Croatian Telecom Inc. (Croatia)
•    Digital Technology Skills Limited (Ireland)
•    Transition Technologies PSC SA (TTPSC) (Poland)
•    ScoutInScience (Netherlands)
•    Adecco Italia S.p.A. (Italy)
•    Fastrack into Information Technology (Ireland)
•    Matrix Internet Applications Limited (Ireland)
•    Unicorn Factory Lisboa (Portugal)

Associated partners
•    European Business and Innovation Centre Network (Belgium)
•    SURF (Netherlands)

Further information

Visit the project website:  www.thegreenshift.eu
Media contact: comms@thegreenshift.eu.

Date: June 12th 2025

Location: National College of Ireland

The DIGITAL4Business pan-European consortium reached a key milestone in Europe's digital skills strategy with the formal launch of its innovative Master's in Advanced Digital Technologies for Business in Ireland. The launch event, held by the National College of Ireland (NCI) - project coordinators of the DIGITAL4Business consortium - brought together senior representatives from academia, industry, and policy, to mark the opening of applications for this unique EU-funded Master's programme. 

The event served as a key opportunity to present the objectives and ambitions of DIGITAL4Business to an Irish audience, while also fostering dialogue with leading voices from the Irish digital skills ecosystem. 

Attendees heard from Professor Gina Quinn, President of National College of Ireland; Mark Jordan, CEO of Skillnet Ireland; Brian Cochrane of Schuman Associates; and Carmel Somers of Digital Technology Skills, who collectively outlined the programme's design, its strong alignment with industry needs, and its strategic role in addressing Europe's advanced digital skills gap. 

The agenda also included a panel discussion moderated by Carmel Somers, with contributions from leading consortium representatives, exploring how cross-sector collaboration is essential to equipping Europe’s workforce with critical skills in fields such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, data science, and cloud computing. 

The Digital4Business Master’s programme has been developed through the collective expertise of 15 consortium partners from 7 EU countries, combining academic excellence with industry insight to deliver advanced, work-ready digital skills for business transformation. The initiative forms part of a broader European commitment to accelerating digital leadership, funded under the European Commission’s flagship DIGITALEUROPE programme. 

Date: March 20th & 21st 2025
Location: Zagreb, Croatia
Project: DIGITAL4Sustainability
Info: Members of the Cloud Competency Centre recently attended the in-person consortium meeting for DIGITAL4Sustainability in Zagreb, Croatia. Horacio González-Vélez and Lorraine Gorimani travelled to Croatia to have important discussions with the project partners. It was here that Lorraine Gorimani presented her findings on our leading work package and highlighted the work NCI has done for this project to date. The two day event was an opportunity to meet the project partners in person and promote NCI at an international level showing how important our work is here.

Date: February 26th & 27th 2025 
Location: University of Bologna, Italy 
Project: DIGITAL4Business 
Info: Members of the Cloud Competency Centre travelled to Bologna in February to attend the in person consortium meeting for our DIGITAL4Business project. Getting the opportunity to meet our 15 international partners in person and discussing the future of our project was another step towards the success of our project. 

This was a two day event hosted by the University of Bologna where our team members got to view the university and bring back a more focused vision on the many different aspects to this project.

Date: January 23rd 2025
Location: National College of Ireland
Project: DIGITAL4Sustainability
Description: The Cloud Competency Centre were delighted to host our DIGITAL4Sustainability Webinar AI for Improved Sustainable Reporting. This webinar was open to all students and staff looking to upskill in this area. 

This event aimed to empower professionals with digital and sustainable skills for resilient long-term growth. With presenters like our very own Research Associate Lorraine Gorimani, and Loredana Bucsenanu, the event has sessions on Understanding the Role of AI in Sustainable Reporting, AI Skills Development in the European Market, and many more. The event took place in January on the 23rd and was a great success and was attended by many students.

Date: November 28th 2024 
Time: 10.30am - 1pm
Location: National College of Ireland 

Description:

In November 2024, the CCC collaborated with NCI to host an in-house, face-to-face Horizon Europe workshop for staff interested in learning about research proposal writing and targeting specific funding calls within Europe. All interested staff were invited to join us in the Spencer Dock Boardroom (S6.01) on Thursday, 28th November. 

The event included multiple sessions with the following timetable: 

• 10:30-11:30 – Informative session on Horizon Europe with Q&A. Room S6.01 Speaker: Stephen O'Reilly, National Contact Point for Horizon Europe Cluster 4. 
• 11:30-12:15 – One-to-one sessions for staff interested in preparing funding proposals. Room S3.04 
• 12:15-13:00 – Light lunch. 

This dedicated workshop highlighted funding opportunities within Horizon Europe and offered tailored proposal preparation sessions with Stephen O'Reilly, an experienced National Contact Point for Horizon Europe at Enterprise Ireland. Horizon Europe, the European Union's primary funding programme for research and innovation, supports transformative research across diverse fields, with an overall budget of €95.5 billion for 2021–2027. 

Date: October 24th 2024
Location: National College of Ireland

Description: On Thursday the 24th of October 2024, some of our team members from the NCI Cloud Competency Centre attended a meeting with the Irish Minister for Digital Transformation, Dara Calleary, to celebrate #EUCodeWeek2024.

In attendance was Jeff Sheridan from Matrix Internet; Brian Cochrane from Schuman Associates; Deborah Hayes, Dr. Kevin Marshall, Neeve Hyland, and Michael Barrett, all from Microsoft; and Dr. Adriana Chis, Dr Horacio Gonzaléz-Vélez, Meri Cvetkovska, and of course our President Gina Quin, all from the National College of Ireland. 

#EUCodeWeek2024 took place on the 24th to the 27th of October. It is an initiative that is a part of a larger project called Code4Europe, which aims to bring coding and digital literacy to everyone in a fun and engaging way, making programming more accessible for all. 

Minister Calleary said that the project “aligns perfectly with my department’s priorities to enhance Ireland’s digital infrastructure and literacy, ensuring that digital skills are a cornerstone of both our economic and social strategies.” 

It was a fantastic opportunity to meet with him and discuss the project which was turned out to be a great success across Europe.  

Date: 20th - 22nd March 2024
Location: National College of Ireland

Description: The 32nd Euromicro International Conference on Parallel, Distributed, and Network-Based Processing (PDP 2024), hosted by the Cloud Competency Centre at National College of Ireland.

For more information, please PDP Conference 2024.