Ready for the European Business Forum on VET, Workshop 4: VET Research – Strengthening the Evidence Base, taking place on December 8, and to present a short keynote on ‘VET and companies. Demands and contributions. Case: The Netherlands’ as input for a discussion on informing the European Commission on setting a European VET Research Agenda.
I will propose four research questions which are based on recent or ongoing research:
- Which are relevant key competencies for the unknown future? (based on Mulder, M. (2016). Competence for life. A review of developments and perspective for the future. Wageningen: Wageningen University);
- How can competence development of temporary agency workers be stimulated? (based on the ongoing PhD project of Nienke Woldman);
- How can opportunity identification be assessed and stimulated? (based on the Dissertation of Yvette Baggen, titled Opportunity Identification Competence. Explaining Individual and Exploring Team Opportunity Identification by Employees, Wageningen: Wageningen University, to be defended in January 2017);
- How can regional challenges be exploited for regional learning processes? (based on the Dissertation of Carla Oonk, titled Learning and teaching in the Regional Learning Environment. Enabling students and teachers to cross boundaries in multi-stakeholder practices, Wageningen: Wageningen University, defended on December 7, 2016).
These questions are contributing to the Medium-Term Deliverables in the Field of VET, as defined by the 2015 Riga Conclusions, and the 2016 New Skills Agenda for Europe as set by the European Commission.