Government Digital Academy

The Danish Government Digital Academy was established to provide civil servants with the skills and tools necessary to manage in a public administration that is increasingly digital.

The Agency for Digital Government develops and runs the Government Digital Academy, focusing on digital training for top managers and employees in ministries and government agencies. The academy offers a variety of courses tailored to the needs of employees in the public sector with little or no formal education in IT or digital administration. Examples of courses include ‘Government Officials within the Digital Public Sector’ and ‘Cyber and Information Security’.

The Government Digital Academy is run by a team which manages, develops, and administers courses and other activities offered by the Government Digital Academy.

The choice of courses offered by the Government Digital Academy is motivated by the Model of Digital Skills (see the figure below), which specifies the digital skills needed in government agencies. The purpose of the model is to create a universal framework for good digital government, enhancing coordination and comprehension across ministries and government agencies.

The model identifies four main areas of digital skills considered vital for digital administration in the Danish public sector:

  1. Strategy and business development,
  2. Projects and further development,
  3. Data and security, and
  4. Management and cooperation.

These four main areas are divided into 12 subcategories containing 32 unique digital skills in total.

The Strategy and business development area is divided into strategy formulation, legislation and technology and Identification of potential need. Projects and further development is divided into specification of requirements, development and optimization and organizational implementation. Further, the area Data and security is divided into cyber and information security, use of data and data ethics and administration. Lastly, Governance and corporation is divided into supplier cooperation and management, fincancial management and governance and portfolio management.

Figure 3 - The model of digital skills