Conference Committee
Prof. Ulrich Teichler, University of Kassel, Germany
Since 1978 Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Ulrich Teichler has been a full time professor at the International Centre for Higher Education Research and the Department for Social Sciences of the University of Kassel, Germany. For the last sixteen years he has been the Director of the International Centre for Higher Education Research, Kassel, where he has been involved in numerous national and international education research projects. The focus of his research centres on the changing relationships between education and employment systems and related policies, the interaction of structural and content relationships between education and employment, institutional patterns in higher education, educational policy and educational and organizational impacts of international cooperation and mobility programmes. Through his many years of work, Dr. Teichler has been awarded the Research Prize of the Council on International Educational Exchange, UNESCO’s Comenius-Preis and an honorary doctorate from the University of Turku, Finland.
Prof. Rolf van der Velden, ROA, Maastrcht University, Netherlands
Rolf van der Velden is head of the Division Education and Occupational Career at the Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA), Maastricht University, and a fellow of two research schools: the Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organisations (METEOR) and the Inter-university Centre for Educational Research (ICO). He has been the project leader of several (inter)national studies on the transition from school to work, including the ReFlex project. He has published many studies in the field of education, training and the labour market. His current research interests include international comparisons in the transition from school to work, competence development during education, the long term effects of education on occupational careers, over-education and skills mismatches and the effect of generic and specific competences on labour market outcomes.
Dr. Patrick Werquin, OECD
Patrick Werquin is currently a senior economist in the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) of the OECD, Directorate for Education, Paris. Before joining CERI, he was with the Education and Training Policy Division, OECD Directorate for Education. He has been working on national qualifications systems and frameworks for promoting lifelong learning, adult learning, adult literacy (IALS and ALL), new competencies and assessment of adult skills, school-to-work transition and recognition of non-formal and informal learning. He is currently working on statistical indicators for the education and the labour market (INES Networks) and is involved in the publication Education at a Glance.
Prof. Georg Spöttl, ITB, University of Bremen, Germany
Since 2005, Professor Georg Spöttl has been the Director of the Institute Technology and Education, University of Bremen. His main fields of research include international vocational education and training, vocational initial and further training, prospective vocational educational planning, qualification research adhering to the vocational scientific approach, didactics of metal technology, changes in the automotive service. He has been the manager of numerous national and international research projects and pilot projects on issues of initial and further training, the further development of vocational schools, the internationalisation of vocational education and changes in the automotive service sector.
Prof. Pavel Zgaga, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Since October 2000, Pavel Zgaga has been a Professor at the University of Ljubljana’s Faculty of Education and Director of CEPS - Centre for Educational Policy Studies. He is one of the foremost experts in the field of higher education in Slovenia. At the UNESCO and Council of Europe's diplomatic conference for the adoption of the Convention on the recognition of qualifications concerning higher education in the European region (Lisbon, 1996) he was appointed as one of its two Vice Presidents and he was the head of the working group "Education, Training and Youth" in the process of negotiations for Slovenian accession to the EU. He is also the former Deputy Minister/State Secretary at the Ministry of Education and Sport and the former Minister of Education and Sport of the Republic of Slovenia.
Dr. Ivan Svetlik, Minister of Labour, Family and Social Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia
Dr. Ivan Svetlik is a full professor for human resources and social area and he is the former Head of the Centre for Organization and Human Resource Research. He has investigated and lectured on the topics of work and employment, human resources management, education, quality of life and social policy. From 2005, he was the Vice-Rector for the areas of quality and students at the University of Ljubljana. Besides this, he has held several other functions: he was Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, President of Slovenian Society of Sociology, the first President of the Council for Higher Education since Slovenia’s independence, President of the National Commission for the Revision of School Programmes, President of the Expert Council for Vocational and Technical Education and President of the Association of Human Resource Societies of Slovenia.
On 21 November 2008, Dr. Svetlik was appointed Minister of Labour, Family and Social Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia.
