synopsis january 2013
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Synopsis January 2013TRANSCRIPT
European Research, Innovation and Education January 2013 – 2013/01
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Contents
SEEN FROM BRUSSELS
Knowledge put on global agenda in Davos 2
RESEARCH
Human Brain Project and Graphene win 3
FOCUS: Implementing research infrastructures 4
> Publications 5
European Commission looks for expert advisors for Horizon 2020 5
26 ERC advanced grants for Swiss institutions 5
Science Europe highlights role of SSH in Horizon 2020 5
INNOVATION
Europe takes action to boost entrepreneurship 6
FOCUS: Achievements of JTIs 7
> Publications 9
Public Consultation on protection of Business know-how and research rises 9
Public Consultation on energy technologies and innovation 9
EDUCATION
DOSSIER: MOOCs conquering Europe 10
FOCUS: Quality assurance in VET 11
> Publications 12
Mid-term review Bruges Communiqué 12
A new Europass instrument: ‘European Skills Passport’ 12
Comparing education systems at a glance 12
INTRA MUROS
Research and Innovation Seminar 13
30 January 2013 SwissCore 2
SEEN FROM BRUSSELS
Knowledge put on global agenda in Davos
2012 again marked the long period of
economic uncertainty in the world.
The economic crisis persisted particular-
ly in the most advanced economies, but
with an economic slowdown in economic
growth also in China, India and other
emerging markets. But the World Eco-
nomic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting
2013 ‘Resilient Dynamism’ from 23 to 27
January 2013 in Davos (Switzerland)
brought a glimpse of hope. Knowledge
played a central role on the agenda of
the about 2’500 leaders from govern-
ments, business, civil society and aca-
demia from 100 countries: How to thrive
when global competitiveness is increas-
ingly driven by talent and innovation?
How to leverage rapid and far-reaching
advances in science, technology and
medicine?
The session ‘The Global Education Im-
perative’ on Friday 25 January chaired
by the former British Prime minister
Gordon Brown attempted to answer the
following question: “How can the inter-
national community work together to
educate the over 60 million children not
in school, build the needed four million
classrooms and train the necessary two
million teachers?” The challenges are
significant: 61 million children worldwide
are not in school, 15 million children are
working and 25’000 girls per day are
kept out of education. The key conclu-
sions were that governments must
take greater ownership of educa-
tion, that an increased level of fe-
male education is critical and that
private sector engagement is neces-
sary.
Putting science, technology and in-
novation on the global agenda was a
central idea for this years’ WEF edition.
For the first time, a delegation of the
European Research Council (ERC)
represented by its President Helga
Nowotny and some of the brightest sci-
entists linked to the ERC attended the
Annual Meeting. During a dedicated ses-
sion also on Friday 25 January Nowotny
said: “The health and wealth of future
societies greatly depend on maintaining
the long-term perspectives that science
offers.”
The 2013 Annual Meeting again was
preceded with the ‘The Global Competi-
tiveness Report 2012-2013’ published
on 6 September 2012. Switzerland (1)
and Singapore (2) again topped the
ranking, while Finland (3) switched
position with Sweden (4) compared
to the 2011-2012 edition. Europe domi-
nates the top 10 with the Netherlands
(5), Germany (6) and the United King-
dom (8). The report concluded that
competitiveness divides across and
within regions continue to hold back
the economic performance.
It is thus with great interest that we
look at the European leaders from gov-
ernments, business, civil society and
academia paving the way for the next
Multi-annual Financial Framework
from 2014 to 2020 for the European
Union, particularly during the European
Council from 7 to 8 February. The advice
from Nowotny in Davos is crystal-clear
in this respect: “Investment in re-
search, education and innovation is
even more important in times of
budgetary austerity, in Europe and
elsewhere.”
WEF Annual Meeting 2013
WEF The Global Competitiveness Report 2012-2013 (pdf)
30 January 2013 SwissCore 3
RESEARCH
Human Brain Project and Graphene win
Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the Eu-
ropean Commission (EC) in charge of
the Digital Agenda, on 28 January 2013
officially announced the two selected
Future and Emerging Technology Flag-
ships (FET-F): the Human Brain Pro-
ject (HBP) led by Henry Makram from
the École polytechnique fédérale de Lau-
sanne (EPFL) and Graphene led by Jari
Kinaret from Chalmers University of
Technology were selected. The projects
will be awarded €1 billion each over
the next 10 years, 50% of which
will come from the EC. The rest of the
money will stem from other sources, be
them national, regional, institutional or
from the private sector.
The selection took over two and a half
years, with the first call for proposals
issued back on 20 July 2010. After the
nomination of six finalists in January
2011, the consortia had to submit a full
research proposal, including an imple-
mentation plan, which was evaluated by
a panel of 25 experts from different ori-
gins, such as leading scientists, repre-
sentatives from industry as well as sci-
ence, economy and policy advisors. The
FET-F were selected based on a set of
criteria assessing their expected impact
on science, society, technology and
economy.
HBP aims at increasing our under-
standing of the human brain. Based
on models and simulations on super-
computers, HBP could result in new
treatments for brain diseases, new com-
puting technologies and advance the
state of knowledge in neurosciences.
HBP reassembles 87 organisations,
from 23 different countries, including
the United States and China. Besides the
EPFL and the Centre Hospitalier Univer-
sitaire Vaudois (CHUV), which have a
leading coordinating role, the other
Swiss partners are the Swiss National
Supercomputing Centre, IBM, the Paul
Scherrer Institute, the Swiss Institute of
Bioinformatics and the Universities of
Bern, Zurich and Lausanne.
Graphene will look at the physical
properties of graphene, a recently
discovered material with promising
applications. Among over 74 institu-
tions in its consortium, the Swiss part-
ners are the University of Basel, the
University of Zurich, the Swiss Federal
Laboratories for Materials Science and
Technology (EMPA), the University of
Geneva and Swiss Federal Institute for
Technology Zurich.
As a start, HBP and Graphene will re-
ceive €54 million each from the 2013
Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) Work Programme
of FP7. For the years 2014 and on-
wards, the financing will come from the
next Framework Programme for Re-
search and Innovation (Horizon 2020).
In the coming months, the consortia will
negotiate their grant agreement with the
EC and the ramp-up phase will start in
September 2013. Also, an ERA-NET will
be launched in Spring 2013 with the
purpose of identifying FEF-F topics for
joint calls between member states and
associated countries.
Kroes firmly repeated the commitment
of the EC in providing the FET-F with the
promised funding. However, the nego-
tiations on budget of the European Un-
ion from 2014 to 2020 are not finalised
and cuts might take place in the ‘Com-
petitiveness for growth and jobs’ head-
ing, under which Horizon 2020 is placed.
EC press release
30 January 2013 SwissCore 4
Focus: Implementing research infrastructures
The European Strategy Forum on
Research Infrastructures (ESFRI)
celebrated its 10th birthday on 27 Sep-
tember 2012 in Brussels. It is thus time
to have a look what ESFRI is doing right
now. Set up by the Competitiveness
Council in 2002, ESFRI brings together
representatives of the Ministers for Re-
search of the 27 member states, the 10
associated states and of the European
Commission (EC). Its mission is to:
support a coherent and strategy-led
approach to policy-making on new
and existing pan-European and global
Research Infrastructures (RI);
facilitate multilateral initiatives leading
to the better use and development of
RI, at E and international level.
The Competitiveness Council mandated
ESFRI (2004) to develop a strategic
roadmap in the field of RI for Eu-
rope. The first ESFRI roadmap was pub-
lished in 2006 with updates in 2008 and
2010. These roadmaps identify new
pan-European RI or major up-grades to
existing ones, corresponding to the
needs of European research communi-
ties in the next ten to twenty years, re-
gardless of possible location. The 2010
ESFRI Roadmap contains 48 RI requir-
ing major financial investment
(~€20 billion) and long term commit-
ment for their operation (~€2 bil-
lion/year).
The EU committed itself in the frame-
work of its flagship initiative ‘Innovation
Union’ to “By 2015 (…) have completed
or launched the construction of 60%
of the priority European RI currently
identified by the ESFRI (…)”. With this
commitment, the focus of ESFRI
somehow shifted from (scientific)
road mapping to implementing the
2010 ESFRI Roadmap.
ESFRI thus established a Working Group
on Implementation (IG) in order to:
identify and analyse the bottlenecks
for implementation of RI and propose
solutions;
support implementation regarding
governance, legal issues and access
and data policy;
stimulate communication between
scientific communities and funding
agencies;
summarise the lessons learned and
provide recommendations.
The first preliminary conclusions are that
the RI are at very different stages of
maturity, that governments are not
enough connected to the ESFRI projects,
that most projects start the preparatory
phase without (financial) commitment
and that the transition from preparatory
phase to implementation is problematic.
As the task to complete or launch
60% by 2015 is a heavy one, ESFRI
asked the Competitiveness Council to
have a closer look at its mandate. On 11
December 2012 the Competitiveness
Council emphasised “the need for re-
newing and adapting the mandate of
ESFRI to adequately address the exist-
ing challenges and also to ensure the
follow-up of implementation of already
on-going ESFRI projects after a compre-
hensive assessment, as well as the pri-
oritisation of the infrastructure projects
listed in the ESFRI roadmap.” Comple-
menting the work of the IG, the EC has
set up an Expert Group on Assess-
ment of the ESFRI projects consisting of
high level managers expert in setting up
and managing RI. This group will as-
sess the financial and managerial
maturity of the RI. The work of the IG
and the Expert Group will feed into the
report of ESFRI to the Competitiveness
Council on the ambitious 60% target.
ESFRI website
2010 ESFRI Roadmap (pdf)
> RESEARCH
30 January 2013 SwissCore 5
> Publications
European Commission looks for expert advisors for Horizon 2020
On 28 January 2013, the European Commission
(EC) published a call for expressions of interest for
the Advisory Groups for Horizon 2020. The adviso-
ry groups will provide expertise on the content of
the work programmes, identify gaps therein and
assess their overall coherence. The EC looks for
leading experts in all areas of Horizon 2020, from
research in the societal challenges and the Marie
Skłodowska-Curie Actions to innovation instru-
ments for small and medium enterprise. Each of
the Advisory Groups will be composed of 20 to 30
members. Gender and geographical balance will be
taken into consideration and the EC has an-
nounced that at least 40% of the group members
must be women. The EC sets as well the focus on
multi-disciplinarity. The experts will be appointed
for two years, with the possibility of a renewal of
their mandate for another two years. The call is
open to scientists as well as members from the
private sector and civil organisations. On the same
day, the Search Committee of the European Re-
search Council (ERC) in charge of identifying the
next ERC President (see Synopsis December 2012)
issued a call for applications. Potential applicants
must be citizen of a member state of the European
Union. The deadlines for application are 6 March
for the Advisory Groups and 22 March 2013 for the
next ERC President.
EC call for Advisory Groups
ERC call for application for next President
26 ERC advanced grants for Swiss institutions
On 22 January 2013, the European Research
Council (ERC) released the list of grantees for the
2012 Advanced Grants (AdG) call. The AdG offer
funding up to €2.5 million to leading senior re-
searchers. In this call, 302 researchers from 24
countries were awarded a total of €680 million and
the success rate was of 13%. Switzerland hosts 26
grantees and is fifth in number of AdG awarded
per country, behind the United Kingdom, France,
Germany and the Netherlands. The successful
Swiss candidates were particularly strong in the
fields of Life Sciences (13 AdG) and Physical Sci-
ence and Engineering (12 AdG). However, only
one AdG in the Social Sciences and the Humanities
was awarded to a researcher from a Swiss institu-
tion. The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of
Zurich (ETHZ) and the École polytechnique
fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) cumulate most of the
grants, with 12 principal investigators hosted by
ETHZ and 5 by EPFL.
ERC press release (pdf)
Science Europe highlights role of SSH in Horizon 2020
Science Europe - the umbrella organisation repre-
senting 51 European research funding and per-
forming organisations - released a position state-
ment highlighting the essential role of Social Sci-
ences and Humanities (SSH) in Horizon 2020 on
21 January 2013. The statement calls for a higher
involvement of the SSH research community in the
shaping of the Horizon 2020 work programmes. In
particular, it stresses the need for a stronger role
for Advisory Groups and SSH scholars therein. The
position paper welcomes the creation of a seventh
societal challenge dedicated to SSH and further
emphasises the need to embed research in SSH in
all other societal challenges. Finally, it asks for a
stronger budget for Horizon 2020 in general and
SSH in particular.
Science Europe position statement (pdf)
> RESEARCH
30 January 2013 SwissCore 6
INNOVATION
Europe takes action to boost entrepreneurship
The European Commission (EC) pub-
lished an action plan to reignite the
European entrepreneurial spirit by
removing barriers to self-employment
and to the creation of new businesses on
9 January 2013. According to research
fewer Europeans would see self-
employment as a first choice (37%,
down from 45% before the crisis) than
their counterparts in the United States
(51%) and emerging countries (56%).
Once new companies are founded, their
growth is slower in the European Union
(EU) and does not extend to the ranks
of the world’s largest companies. Still
new companies, especially SMEs,
represent an important source of
employment in the EU by creating
more than 4 million new jobs each year.
The action plan follows on the Small
Business Act (2011) and the communi-
cation on Industrial Policy (2012), which
already outlined the barriers to entre-
preneurship in the EU:
a lack of specific education preparing
for an entrepreneurial career;
difficult access to credits and markets;
legal and administrative barriers to
transferring businesses;
a fear of business failure and its con-
sequences;
general burdensome administrative
procedures in most member states.
The plan proposes actions to be taken at
European and member state level and is
based on three pillars. Firstly entrepre-
neurial education and training will be
developed on a practical level like in-
ternships and exchange programmes
with companies, also for higher educa-
tion students. The EC will cooperate with
the OECD to produce a guidance frame-
work for the development of entrepre-
neurial schools and Vocational Education
and Training (VET) institutions and en-
courage the recognition and validation of
theses trainings. The European Institute
for Innovation and Technology (EIT) will
promote entrepreneurship in higher ed-
ucation also by disseminating the entre-
preneurial university guidance in early
2013 as well as endorsing mechanisms
to support university driven business
creation (spin-offs). The EC invites the
member states to take part in these ac-
tions by adapting school and university
curricula. Second, the EC commits to
create a more favourable environ-
ment for new business founders by:
enabling better access to finance;
offering support for entrepreneurs in
crucial phases of the business lifecy-
cle;
supporting the uptake of business
opportunities offered by the digital
economy;
reducing administrative barriers to
business transfers;
harmonising and loosen bankruptcy
procedures and improve second
chances for honest entrepreneurs;
reducing regulatory and tax burden
for new businesses.
The EC’s action plan is finally based on a
third pillar, which aims at promoting
role models such as successful Europe-
an entrepreneurs, but also reaching out
to specific groups, who are underrepre-
sented amongst the entrepreneurial
population - such as women, seniors,
disabled, migrants, unemployed and
young people - offering tailor-made
support programmes and mechanisms.
An important phrase is the recognition
that Europe needs a radical cultural
change in order to reach its aim of
‘bringing about an entrepreneurial
revolution’.
EC Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan (pdf)
30 January 2013 SwissCore 7
Focus: Achievements of JTIs
In 2007 and 2008, five Joint Technol-
ogy Initiatives (JTIs) covering strate-
gic areas of aeronautics and air
transport (Clean Sky), public health (In-
novative Medicine Initiative = IMI), fuel
cell and hydrogen technologies (FCH),
embedded computing systems
(ARTEMIS) and nanoelectronics (ENIAC)
were set up under the FP7 ‘Cooperation’
Specific programme for the period to 31
December 2017. They were set up as
Public Private Partnerships (PPP) be-
tween the European Commission (EC)
and industry in the form of Joint Under-
takings (JU) following article 187 of the
Treaty on the Functioning of the EU
(TFEU). Based on the Council regulation
setting up the individual initiatives as
‘Community bodies’, they are required
to produce an annual progress report,
the latest of which has been published
on 8 January 2013. The report covers
2011, the first year in which all JTIs
operated independently after their
initial start-up phase led by the EC. JTIs
respond to the specific features of the
technological areas they operate in and
vary in their set-up and functioning.
Clean Sky aims at bringing together the
European aeronautics industry to accel-
erate the improvement of the environ-
mental impact of Air Transport Systems
(ATS) with new technological develop-
ments and demonstrators. It has a
budget of €1.6 billion, half of which is
funded by FP7 and the other half con-
sists of in-kind contributions of the con-
siderably involved industry. Clean Sky
works mainly on the basis of grants to
named beneficiaries, who receive
75% of the budget and identify specific
activities to complement their work
through targeted calls with the remain-
ing budget. The participation in each call
is high and 37% of all participants are
Small and Medium-sized Enterprises
(SME) receiving 38% of the available
funds. However public bodies and regu-
latory agencies are underrepresented.
Clean Sky funds more and shorter
projects than other JTIs. Due to the
option of single partner projects, it has
the lowest average number of partners.
The countries with a distinct aeronauti-
cal industry are the main receivers of
grants amongst the EU member states.
IMI is Europe’s largest Public Pri-
vate Partnership (PPP) with an over-
all budget of €2 billion, half of which are
in-kind contributions of large industry,
gathered under the European Federation
of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associ-
ations. IMI aims at facing the challenges
of insufficient Research and Develop-
ment (R&D) investments in a field with
high technological complexity and geo-
graphically fragmented research by
speeding up the development of more
effective and safer medicine and in-
creasing the competitiveness of Europe’s
pharmaceutical industry with more col-
laborative R&D. IMI uses a two-staged
selection and evaluation procedure,
in which potential participants are invit-
ed to submit a Full Project Proposal
(FPP) after their Expression of Interest
(EoI) has been ranked and selected. It
has the lowest success rate of all JTIs
with 23.2%, the lowest number of
member states participating (15),the
highest participation of academia,
the lowest percentage of participat-
ing SME (17.7%) and the second lowest
funds allocated to SME (13.6%).
The focus of FCH is to put Europe at the
global forefront of FCH technologies by
accelerating their development, deploy-
ment and consequent marketing. It has
managed to attract the widest range of
participants, which are evenly dis-
tributed and of which a quarter are
SME receiving 22.1% of the EU funding.
This particular structure is probably due
> INNOVATION
30 January 2013 SwissCore 8
to its two types of funding schemes,
for collaborative basic and demonstra-
tion R&D projects and for coordinating
and supportive actions respectively. The
latter is particularly interesting for public
bodies and Non Governmental Organisa-
tions (NGOs), which are very well pre-
sented in this JTI. With a budget of €940
million (50% EU and 50% industry in-
kind and cash contributions) it is the
smallest of the JTIs with the highest
number of countries amongst the par-
ticipants.
ARTEMIS and ENIAC have a similar
structure, which due to the very high
average project costs of €16 million
and €23 million, involves cash funding
from the member states. These have
to be at least 1.8 times the EU contribu-
tions and industry has to match them
with in-kind activity. Industries of em-
bedded computational systems and
nanoelectronics play a major global role
and it is the consolidation and rein-
forcement of their position that is the
main objective of both JTIs. ARTEMIS
and ENIAC have budgets of €420 million
and €450 million from the EU and € 756
and €810 million from the JTI member
states (and regions) in cash as well as a
minimum of the member states’ funding
as in kind contributions by the industry.
Both use a two-staged submission and
evaluation procedure with a Project Out-
line (PO) followed by a FPP. Whereas
ARTEMIS has a very balanced par-
ticipation of research organisations,
universities and industry, ENIAC has
no participants from universities.
Their SME participation rate is at
37.9%, but ARTEMIS funding for SME
was slightly higher with 19.2% of the
budget compared to 13.3% in ENIAC. A
call for EoI in setting up pilot lines in
2011 aims at preparing ENIAC to be-
coming the preferred instrument for
implementing the Key Enabling
Technology (KET) policy under Hori-
zon 2020 by allowing higher Technology
Readiness Levels (TRL), which are cru-
cial for bridging the gap between re-
search and market.
Altogether, the overall success rate of
35.8% of organisations aiming to par-
ticipate in JTIs is seen as very promising
and their communication and visibility,
which was considered as a challenge,
has been improved. The five JTIs involve
an average of 20 EU member states,
mainly among those with an advanced
industrial environment, surrounded
by dynamic systems of SME, re-
search institutions and universities.
The most active of the associated
countries has been Switzerland, fol-
lowed by Norway and Israel. The by far
most active international partner has
been the United States. Particularly the
high participation of SME, which with
21% exceeds the FP7 target of 15%,
has led to viewing PPPs as a successful
model to be continued under Horizon
2020.
The future challenges will be to reduce
administrative burden by merging
ARTEMIS and ENIAC under a joint
structure and allowing for more flexibil-
ity in all JTIs. Continuing the improved
communication strategy, the open-
ness and accessibility for potential
beneficiaries and appropriate interna-
tional strategies are amongst the ob-
jectives for the next years.
Annual Progress Report on the activities of the JTIs (pdf)
> INNOVATION
30 January 2013 SwissCore 9
> Publications
Public Consultation on protection of Business know-how and research rises
The European Commission (EC) launched a public
consultation open until 8 March 2013 in order to
collect information on the current situation and
existing views with regard to the protection of
business and research know-how in the European
Union. Despite the existence and the important
role of patents, they have their limitations, mainly
in what can actually be patented. The enforcement
of protection laws in different countries is also
considered to be insufficient. Business solutions,
marketing data and many other trade secrets are
not patentable, even though they are a major
building block of a company’s success or downfall.
Following the public consultation, a report will be
made publicly available on the EC’s website.
EC public consultation
Public Consultation on energy technologies and innovation
As part of the preparation for a communication of
the European Commission (EC) on energy technol-
ogies and innovation foreseen for the first half of
2013, a public consultation has been launched by
the EC and is open until 15 March 2013. It aims at
gathering opinions of all relevant stakeholders
from public authorities, via research institutions
and academia, industry, utilities to private citizens.
Its purpose is to consult on possible options for a
European energy technologies policy and to re-
ceive feedback and additional ideas on the Energy
Roadmap 2050 published in 2011. All interested
stakeholders are invited to express their views in
the preparation stage of the communication.
EC Energy Roadmap 2050 (pdf)
EC public consultation
> INNOVATION > INNOVATION
30 January 2013 SwissCore 10
EDUCATION
MOOCs conquering Europe
Massive Open Online Courses
(MOOCs) are the phenomenon of 2013
in European higher education. While
online courses and distant learning are
not new, MOOCs are. With these free
and open online courses aiming at
large-scale participation, the best
universities around the world are be-
coming virtually accessible to everyone.
How do MOOCs work? They are available
on different online platforms, where an-
yone having access to Internet can reg-
ister and sign-up. Following a MOOC is
almost like taking a traditional on-site
course, with a beginning and an end.
The main difference is that MOOCs only
offer a certificate of completion, but in
most cases no credits to students. At
the beginning of each week, lectures - in
the form of short and engaging videos
recorded for that purpose - are posted
on the web and students follow them at
their own pace. The lectures are fol-
lowed by interactive exercises and sug-
gested readings and discussion forums
allow for interactions and networking
among students.
Networking is an important aspect of
MOOCs, which take roots in today’s in-
formal, networked and technology-
enabled arena. The idea of connecting
to each other to construct knowledge is
one of the key dynamics deriving from
the ‘Connectivism’ theory, i.e. the
learning theory of the digital era
according to which learning and training
is successful only if we learn how to
connect and build relevant networks.
While the first MOOCs appeared in 2008,
the ‘MOOC breakthrough’ started in the
United States in early 2012, with a high
number of American institutions publish-
ing MOOCs on three platforms: Udacity
(a start-up of Stanford University), edX
(a start-up of the Massachusetts Insti-
tute of Technology and Harvard Univer-
sity) and Coursera (another start-up of
Stanford University). To date, only
eight non-American universities
publish MOOCs (on Coursera): the He-
brew University of Jerusalem, the Hong
Kong University of Science and Technol-
ogy, the University of British Columbia,
the University of Toronto, the University
of Melbourne, the University of London
International Programmes, the Universi-
ty of Edinburgh and the École polytech-
nique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).
Have we entered a true era of virtual
education? What do they mean for the
internationalisation of higher education?
What is the added value of teaching to
many thousands of students simultane-
ously? What do they mean for the stu-
dent-teacher interaction? How can the
knowledge acquired be assessed and
certified? What impact will they have on
the European university landscape?
The Swiss Education Briefing
‘MOOCs: toward a teaching revolu-
tion?’ organised by the Mission of Swit-
zerland to the European Union and
SwissCore on 21 March 2013 will ad-
dress these questions, both in the light
of the development of MOOCs at EPFL
and of the future initiative of the Euro-
pean Commission on open educational
resources.
edX Udacity Coursera
30 January 2013 SwissCore 11
Focus: Quality assurance in VET
For the six coming months, the Irish
Presidency of the Council of the Europe-
an Union (EU) will focus on quality and
equity in education. The ‘European Con-
ference on Quality in Vocational Educa-
tion and Training (VET)’ organised by
the European Commission (EC) from 17
to 18 January 2013 - perfectly fitting
into the presidency priorities - was the
occasion to engage in a discussion about
quality assurance in VET and to reflect
on the needs for the further develop-
ment of the European Quality Assur-
ance Reference Framework for VET
(EQAVET framework). This framework
was adopted by the EU member states
in 2009 and aims at promoting the qual-
ity in VET by providing authorities with
common tools for the management of
quality.
In 2010, the Executive Agency for Edu-
cation, Audiovisual and Culture (EACEA)
issued a special call for proposals under
the Leonardo da Vinci programme aimed
at developing approaches to quality
assurance by adopting the EQAVET
framework. Five projects - coordinated
by Austria, Germany, the Netherlands,
Malta and Romania - were selected and
their results were now presented at the
conference. Although constructed along
different perspectives, the five projects
have highlighted four common chal-
lenges:
How to create a culture for quality
improvement?
How to involve stakeholders in every
step?
How to ensure compliance with exist-
ing quality assurance system?
How to make sure implemented
measures are sustainable?
Looking into the different projects, it is
interesting to note that they are indeed
quite different. For example, the Austri-
an project has developed training pro-
grammes for school quality manag-
ers and principals, thereby only focus-
ing on VET schools and colleges de-
spite the important company-based
component of the Austrian VET system.
The German project on the contrary,
broken down into ten pilot projects,
concentrates above all on the company-
based part of their VET system.
Thanks to the involvement of the
EQAVET National Reference Points in the
projects, as well as the fact that the lat-
ter are strongly related to national quali-
ty development in VET, the projects
seem to enjoy a strong national en-
dorsement and support. Moreover,
since building up an EQAVET culture is
still only work in progress in all Europe-
an countries, all five projects repre-
sent good practices which can be built
on and if relevant adapted to another
national context.
To sum up, the conference definitely
raised awareness on the need to contin-
ue the work undertaken so far on quality
assurance in VET. The too little inter-
action with the European Standards and
Guidelines for Quality Assurance in
Higher Education was pointed out. This
issue will be, among others things, ad-
dressed from 12 to 13 March 2013 in
Dublin during the ‘Conference on Quality
Assurance in Qualifications Frameworks’,
organised by Quality and Qualifications
Ireland, an organisation merging both
VET and higher education approach-
es to quality assurance. Finally, the EC
should publish an evaluation of EQAVET
by mid-2013, especially looking into the
role of indicators.
EQAVET Secretariat
EQAVET projects
> EDUCATION
30 January 2013 SwissCore 12
> Publications
Mid-term review Bruges Communiqué
On 20 December 2012, the European Centre for
the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop)
published a mid-term review of progress towards
the 22 short-term deliverables defined in the
Bruges Communiqué (2010). The report ‘Trends in
VET policy in Europe 2010-12 – progress towards
the Bruges communiqué’ points out that progress
is visible in several areas, notably in implementing
National Qualification Frameworks (NQF), quality
assurance and work-based learning, as well as
reducing early school leaving. Areas where pro-
gress has been slower, like monitoring labour
market outcomes, using incentives and the profes-
sional development of teachers and trainers, re-
quire further attention. In 2014, Cedefop will con-
duct a final review of the short-term deliverables
with a general evaluation of the strategic objec-
tives towards the Bruges Communiqué.
Cedefop report (pdf)
A new Europass instrument: ‘European Skills Passport’
On 21 December 2012, the European Commission
launched the ‘European Skills Passport’. This new
tool complements the Europass CV, bringing to-
gether a compilation of certificates validating the
experience acquired referred to in the CV. The
European Skills Passport is available in 26 lan-
guages on the Europass portal.
EC European Skills Passport
Comparing education systems at a glance
In December 2012, the Eurydice Network pub-
lished schematic diagrams representing the struc-
ture of education from primary to tertiary level for
the 2012/13 academic year in the 27 member
states of the European Union, Iceland, Lichten-
stein, Norway, Switzerland, Croatia, Serbia and
Turkey. This publication represents a useful tool
for a glimpse comparison of different education
systems).
Eurydice diagrams (pdf)
> EDUCATION
30 January 2013 SwissCore 13
INTRA MUROS…
Research and Innovation Seminar
For the 16th time, we received our Swiss
funders and partners – many of whom
are avid readers of the Synopsis – to
Brussels from 23 to 25 January for two
days full of research and innovation poli-
cy and programmes.
Participants revived old ties and made
new friends during a welcome recep-
tion with the attendance of guests from
the European institutions at the Mission
of Switzerland to the European Union
(EU). Our Ambassador Balzaretti praised
the dedication of the Swiss research and
innovation stakeholders in contributing
to the Europe of knowledge.
In a first session on the following morn-
ing, participants received a first-hand
account of the latest developments in
the adoption of Horizon 2020. Peter
Fisch from the European Commission
(EC) provided details on the negotiations
as well as Horizon 2020’s conceptual
innovations. Catriona Ward from the
Brussels office of Enterprise Ireland pre-
sented the priorities of the Irish Presi-
dency of the Council of the EU. The Eu-
ropean Parliament (EP) was represented
by Maria Da Graça Carvalho, one of the
rapporteurs in the Committee on Indus-
try, Technology, Research and Energy
(ITRE). She outlined the EP’s main con-
tributions to Horizon 2020 and drew
inspiration from her personal career as a
scientist. Danièle Rod from the Mission
of Switzerland to the EU concluded with
an outline on the Swiss association to
Horizon 2020.
Two parallel sessions focusing on two
longstanding and successful bottom-up
programmes at European level followed.
A session on EUREKA explored the pro-
gramme’s current and future presidency
priorities, especially in light of the Swiss
presidency in 2014-2015. The Europe-
an Cooperation in Science and Tech-
nology (COST) programme was scruti-
nised regarding synergies in relation
with Horizon 2020 and a personal ac-
count by a Swiss researcher showcased
the pertinence of the programme.
After enjoying a dinner hosted by Eure-
search and us, the participants started
the last day with a choice of tracks fo-
cusing on either policy or programmes.
In a session on the European Re-
search Area (ERA), attendees followed
an elucidating account of the ERA’s
emergence by Michel André, a former
adviser for research policy at the EC.
The rationale and deliverables of the
current ERA were described by Jacques
Verraes from the EC, whereas Stephan
Kuster from Science Europe and Kurt
Deketelaere from the League of Europe-
an Research Universities (LERU) pre-
sented their organisations’ contribution
to the ERA. A second session on Marie
Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
and Public-Private Partnerships
(PPP) proved equally insightful to par-
ticipants.
In the wrap-up session, the solutions of
the traditional European Research and
Innovation Expert Quiz were revealed
and several lucky winners received their
well-earned prizes. We were delighted
to welcome so many participants
from the Swiss research and innovation
community this year and hope to wel-
come everyone back for the next semi-
nar.