This book analyzes the EU’s responses to the sovereign debt crisis that hit the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) in 2010. After reviewing the events that led to the crisis, it examines two case studies. The first assesses the short-term policy changes by drawing on a new mechanism, contingent learning. The second case study revolves around the long-term EMU reforms passed during the period 2010-2013. More specifically, it assesses these responses in relation to the institutional scientific publications of the European Central Bank and the DG ECFIN of the Commission. By analyzing both the short and long-term responses to the sovereign debt crisis, the book elucidates how policy learning can be an effective engine for deeper European integration. It will be of interest to scholars and students of EU integration, the EMU, policy learning, and supranational bureaucracies.
Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This comprehensive collection discusses topical issues essential to both scholarship and policy making in the realm of lifelong learning (LLL) policies and how far they succeed in supporting young people across their life courses, rather than one-sidedly fostering human capital for the economy. Examining specific yet diverse regional and local contexts across Europe, this book uses original research to evaluate differences in scope, approach, orientation, and objectives. It examines the embedding of LLL policies into the regional economy, the labour market, education and training systems and the individual life projects of young people, with a focus on those in situations of near social exclusion.
Mobility is considered to be important for the personal development and employability of young people, as well as for intercultural dialogue, participation and active citizenship. Learning mobility in the youth field focuses on non-formal learning as a relevant part of youth work, with links to informal learning as well as to formal education. Different stakeholders at European level, particularly the Council of Europe and the European Commission, but also individual member states, foster programmes and strategies to enhance the mobility of young people, and particularly the learning dimension in mobility schemes. This book on learning mobility is a joint Council of Europe and European Commission publication, and provides texts of an academic, scientific, political and practical nature for all stakeholders in the youth field - youth leaders and youth workers, policy makers, researchers and so on. It should contribute to dialogue and co-operation between relevant players and to discussion on the further development and purpose of youth mobility schemes and their outcomes for young people.
Bridging the gap between higher education research and policy making was always a challenge, but the recent calls for more evidence-based policies have opened a window of unprecedented opportunity for researchers to bring more contributions to shaping the future of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). Encouraged by the success of the 2011 first edition, Romania and Armenia have organised a 2nd edition of the Future of Higher Education – Bologna Process Researchers’ Conference (FOHE-BPRC) in November 2014, with the support of the Italian Presidency of the European Union and as part of the official EHEA agenda. Reuniting over 170 researchers from more than 30 countries, the event was a forum to debate the trends and challenges faced by higher education today and look at the future of European cooperation in higher education. The research volumes offer unique insights regarding the state of affairs of European higher education and research, as well as forward-looking policy proposals. More than 50 articles focus on essential themes in higher education: Internationalization of higher education; Financing and governance; Excellence and the diversification of missions; Teaching, learning and student engagement; Equity and the social dimension of higher education; Education, research and innovation; Quality assurance, The impacts of the Bologna Process on the EHEA and beyond and Evidence-based policies in higher education. "The Bologna process was launched at a time of great optimism about the future of the European project – to which, of course, the reform of higher education across the continent has made a major contribution. Today, for the present, that optimism has faded as economic troubles have accumulated in the Euro-zone, political tensions have been increased on issues such as immigration and armed conflict has broken out in Ukraine. There is clearly a risk that, against this troubled background, the Bologna process itself may falter. There are already signs that it has been downgraded in some countries with evidence of political withdrawal. All the more reason for the voice of higher education researchers to be heard. Since the first conference they have established themselves as powerful stakeholders in the development of the EHEA, who are helping to maintain the momentum of the Bologna process. Their pivotal role has been strengthened by the second Bucharest conference." Peter Scott, Institute of Education, London (General Rapporteur of the FOHE-BPRC first edition)
This book provides theories, experiences, reflections and future directions for social scientists who wish to engage with policy-oriented research in cities and regions. The ‘policy learning’ perspective is comprehensively discussed, focusing on actors promoting ‘policy knowledge’ and interaction among different stakeholders. The book also aims to provide practical insights for policy-makers and practitioners interested in research-based approaches to cities and regions.
This open access book analyses intercultural dialogue as a concept, policy and ideal in European education policy documentation. The core European transnational organizatons - the Council of Europe and the European Union - have actively promoted policies to engender inclusive societies and respond to challenges that diversification may entail. This book, in turn, offers suggestions for improving education policies in super-diversified Europe and beyond, where there is an increasing need for cultural understanding and constructive dialogue. The authors utilize concept analysis to reveal how these organizations seek to deal with dialogue between cultures, as well as weight given to cultural differences and intercultural encounters. This book will be of interest and value to scholars of intercultural dialogue and European education policies. .
Aimed at professional anthropologists, their students and academic policy-makers, the contributions to this volume provide an unprecedented array of insights into the current teaching and learning of social anthropology across Europe. With case-studies from eighteen different countries this volume presents a rich panorama of local histories, contexts and experiences, which are essential contributions to current debates on the role and significance of anthropology in an era of converging Higher Education policies. More practically,the volume offers teachers and students the possibility ofdeveloping international exchanges supported by a previously unobtainable knowledge of institutional historiesand differing local contexts.
This book offers a conceptualisation of unintended consequences and addresses a set of common research questions, highlighting the nature (what), the causes (why), and the modes of management (how) of unintended consequences of the European Union’s (EU) external action. The chapters in the book engage with conceptual and empirical dimensions of the topic, as well as scholarly and policy implications thereof. They do so by looking at EU external action across various policy domains (including trade, migration, development, state-building, democracy promotion, and rule of law reform) and geographic areas (including the USA, Russia, the Western Balkans, the southern and eastern European neighbourhood, and Africa). The book contributes to the study of the EU as an international actor by broadening the notion of its impact abroad to include the unintended consequences of its (in)actions and by shedding new light on the conceptual paradigms that explain EU external action. This book fills the gap in IR and EU scholarship concerning unintended consequences in an international context and will be of interest to anyone studying this important phenomenon. It was originally published as a special issue of The International Spectator (Italian Journal of International Affairs). Chapters 1, 3, 7, 8 and 9 are available Open Access at https://www.routledge.com/products/9780367346492.
Combining qualitative and quantitative methods in a wide-ranging international comparative study, the book explores how far the EUs lifelong learning agenda has been successful and what factors have limited its ability to reshape national adult and lifelong learning systems. The chapters also look at adults' participation in formal education, what they see as the obstacles to taking part, and the nature of their demand for learning opportunities.
The book represents several contributions that guide the readers in the comprehension of the paradigmatic shift from adult/lifelong education, to adult/lifelong learning. At the same time it presents the contexts where adults learn: the organized contexts, such as the institutions and services, and the informal contexts. The book is one of a series dedicated to adult learning and education developed under the auspices of ESRALE (European Studies and Research in Adult Learning and Education) an EU supported project. Its companion books are Maria Slowey (ed.) Comparative Adult Education and Learning. Authors and Texts and Vanna Boffo, Paolo Federighi, Ekkehard Nuissl, Empirical Research Methodology in Adult Learning and Education. Authors and Texts.
