14/05/2025
Skills and careers in 2040
Skills and Careers: A Successful Seminar
On May 13, 2025, Foncsi held a seminar to present the findings of its strategic analysis on “Safety, skills and careers by 2040.” Around thirty sponsors and partners attended the event to learn about the results and engage in discussion.
35 representatives from our sponsors and partners — including Airbus, ASNR, DGAC-DSAC, EDF, Enedis, Equans, Natran, NGE, Razel-Bec, RTE, SNCF, Suez, TotalEnergies, and UIC — took part in this half-day seminar, which marked the culmination of 18 months of work on “Safety, skills and careers by 2040”.
Why is Foncsi working on this topic?
In a rapidly changing world, safety issues related to skills are central to the future of high-risk industries. How can we address the current and future challenges of skill shortages?
A Seminar Rich in Findings and Discussions
The members of the strategic analysis scientific group — Caroline Kamaté, Hervé Laroche, and Corinne Bieder from Foncsi, along with Stéphanie Tillement from IMT Atlantique — began by explaining how the work had been carried out, through a cross-sectoral analysis and two dedicated sub-groups (referred to as “clusters”) focused on the construction sector and energy services.
They then presented the insights provided by international researchers who were consulted and invited to an international academic seminar held in November 2024 at the Royaumont Abbey (Val d’Oise, France).
The results of the analysis were then shared, identifying three possible paths that industry stakeholders might take to respond to the long-term shortage of personnel and skills :
- An “Adjustment” approach: The company may choose to do little or nothing;
A “Restoration” strategy: The company may seek to maintain or recover human resource levels by doubling down on relatively traditional actions;
- A “Compensation” strategy: The company explicitly acknowledges the short- and medium-term shortage. It aims to “do just as well with less” by implementing a strategy based on change and innovation compared to current practices.
It was this third path that participants then explored further during a workshop, seeking to identify concrete solutions (Which stakeholders? What tools? etc.).
Next Steps
To provide a detailed account of all these findings, Foncsi will publish two works in the coming months:
- An academic book, available in open access from Springer
- A Cahier de la sécurité industrielle (Industrial Safety Notebook), freely downloadable from Foncsi’s website
