Excellence in VET
Status Quo, Opportunities and Challenges
12.01.2026
Excellence in VET is a concept which most European countries as well as the European commission deal with in their policy agendas. On 16th and 17th December, the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) invited experts from different European countries and institutions to discuss the understanding as well as different ways of addressing and researching excellence in VET.
The international expert seminar gathered colleagues from BIBB network of national VET institutes in Europe (among others Austria, France, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Ukraine) and universities in France (Aix-Marseille, Dijon) and Germany (Hannover/Sofia, Bulgaria) as well as from European agencies for VET – the European Centre for Vocational Education and Training (Cedefop) and the European Training Foundation (ETF).
What is excellence in VET?
BIBB’s Director of Research, Prof. Dr. Hubert Ertl, and the Head of the Department “VET International”, Birgit Thomann, opened the seminar by underlining the relevance of excellence in VET as a catalyst for innovation and policy framing as well as its relevance for comparative research and analysis. Exploring the concept of excellence in VET implies getting knowledge on single national policies and initiatives. Introduced by a short overview on the development of the concept on European level (Isabelle Le Mouillour), colleagues from Italy (Sandra D’Agostini), France (Claire Bonnard) and Germany (Marthe Geiben) presented their national approach. This led to highlighting the rationales for the policy agenda settings, the relevance of taking the characteristics of VET systems into consideration as well as their path dependency. Next, the discussion zoomed specifically into the models of centres of vocational excellence (CoVEs). Colleagues from ETF (Jolien van Uden), Cedefop (Anastasia Pouliou) and France (Matteo Sgarzi) explored how to monitor, evaluate and signal excellence based on their analysis of CoVEs.
How to address research on excellence and in comparative VET research?
Excellence is a multi-facetted concept, core to recent VET policies as well as relevant for the development of VET systems. During the second day of the seminar, the participants focused on theoretical and methodological approaches to excellence in VET. Colleagues form France (Noémie Olympio) and Germany / Bulgaria (Christian Imdorf) presented their current research activities using the convention theory in international comparisons of VET.
Network of researchers and VET institutions on the topic of excellence
The seminar finalises with a commitment to jointly further develop comparative VET research, to continue exchanging on theoretical approaches in comparative research and to strengthen cooperation with partner institutes and universities in Europe to deepen the knowledge on excellence in the countries.