Location: Ontario Investment and Trade Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Moderator: Dennis Alvord, Senior expert and former Chair of the OECD Regional Development Policy Committee
08:30-09:00 EST) Arrival & Welcome coffee
09:00-09:15 EST / 15:00-15:15 CET: Opening remarks
Speakers:
Rachel Simeon, Assistant Deputy Minister, Small Business and Innovation Division, Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade, Ontario, Canada
09:15-09:45 EST / 15:15-15:45 CET: Keynote presentation
This session will present academic and practitioner insights on leveraging skills and demographic transition in regions, featuring a dedicated issue paper. The presentation is followed by a Q&A.
Speaker:
09:45-10:45 EST / 15:45-16:45 CET: Roundtable A – Adapting Workforces and Skills Responses to Transition Realities
This roundtable will examine how demographic change – including population ageing, youth outmigration, labour-market shrinkage, seasonal employment patterns, and uneven territorial connectivity – interacts with industrial transition at the regional level. Taking a place-based perspective, the session will explore how regions can design more tailored skills development, workforce retention, and employment strategies that reflect the specific structural conditions, and integrate this aspect into broader regional development strategies to navigate industrial transition.
The roundtable will begin with brief kick-off reflections from the lead speaker, followed by insights and experience sharing from all participating regions.
Questions for discussion:
- How are demographic changes and labour-market challenges affecting your region’s industrial transition? (e.g. youth outmigration, ageing, seasonal jobs or labour shortages)
- What initiatives are helping attract and retain workers and address changing skills needs? (e.g. vocational training, reskilling programmes or partnerships with local employers)
- How are workforce policies linked to your region’s wider industrial transition and development strategy, and what challenges remain?
10:45-11:00 EST / 16:45-17:00 CET: Coffee break
11:00-12:00 EST / 17:00-18:00 CET: Roundtable B – Applied Learning Models for Regions in Industrial Transition
Industrial transition requires strong alignment between education systems and labour market needs. This session will explore how applied learning models including vocational training, apprenticeships, and dual learning models can help regions build talent pipelines that respond to evolving industrial and technological demand, while highlighting the role of education and training institutions, including universities and colleges, employers- small, medium and large enterprises and intermediary actors – such as chambers, cluster organisations, and labour-market agencies – in coordinating curricula, work-based learning, and recruitment pathways.
The roundtable will begin with brief kick-off reflections from the lead speaker(s), followed by insights and experience sharing from all participating regions.
Questions for discussion:
- Which industries in your region face the greatest skills gaps, and how are local training providers responding? (e.g. new courses for emerging industries or updated curricula for changing production processes)
- Can you share a concrete example of an apprenticeship, dual-learning or work-based training programme in your region? (e.g. who runs it, which employers participate and who it trains)
- What has helped - or hindered - employers and training providers in turning these programmes into local jobs? (e.g. SME involvement, funding, equipment or recruitment commitments)
12:00-12:15 EDT / 18:00-18:15 CET: Takeaways from participating regions and closing
Participants will be invited to share key takeaways from the discussion.
