Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung (BIBB)

Areas of potential for innovation in European vocational training

As we reach the end of the European Year of Creativity and Innovation and prepare to cross the threshold into 2010, the papers included in the present issue investigate the question of where vocational education and training stands with regard to achieving the Lisbon objectives and which innovative approaches requiring sustainable support have emerged at a European level. In his commentary, BIBB Director of Research Professor Reinhold Weiß stresses that innovation competence is especially revealed in the ability to generate new knowledge in the wake of the problem-solving process, apply existing knowledge to the resolution of new problems and create links between the knowledge of various persons or organisations. A significant role is also accorded to cross-border knowledge transfer within these processes. This issue also includes a number of other papers, such as draft policy papers on the development and status of debate of the German Qualifications Framework (DQR) and on the situation of continuing training providers during these times of economic crisis and an appraisal of the adjudication handed down by the Federal Labour Court (BAG) on the extension of vocational training contracts.