Higher education scholarships as a soft power tool: an analysis of its role in the EU and Singapore. EU Centre Singapore Working Paper No. 23, March 2015

The European Union and Singapore are vastly different entities, each with its own regional and global priorities and policies. Both actors employ a range of tools and instruments to aid in their foreign policy objectives, including in the projection of their soft power. It is worth analysing and comparing the specific instruments of these two actors’ soft power strategies, including but not limited to their stated objectives and perceived effectiveness. This paper will compare the role of higher education and scholarships in diffusing soft power through a comparative case study of the Erasmus Mundus scholarship program and the Singapore Scholarship administered by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It will look at the ways in which these programs have shaped the standing of the actors in diffusing their norms and objectives in the regional and international arena. A comparative analysis of these programs will hopefully provide some insight into the proximity between foreign policy-making and higher education internationalisation. This paper will begin with an overview of the aforementioned programs and related schemes, before dissecting and comparing the intent and the policy-making processes behind these, and concludes with a discussion on the present and future role of higher education as a strategic soft power tool.

Disentangling the Reform Gridlock: Higher Education in Germany. CES Germany & Europe Working Papers, No. 02.7, 2002

For more than a decade, bemoaning the many roadblocks to reforming important aspect of German politics has become commonplace. Explanations emphasize formal and informal veto points, such as the role of political institutions and the lack of elite and societal support for reform initiatives. Against this background, I was interested in factors that place policy issues on the political agenda and follow up with concrete courses of action; i.e., in factors that lead to a disentangling of the reform gridlock. I emphasize the importance of agenda setting in the emergence of higher education reform in Germany. Globalization, European integration and domestic pressures combined to create new pressures for change. In response, an advocacy coalition of old and new political actors has introduced a drawn-out and ongoing process of value reorientation in the direction of competition, including international competition, and greater autonomy. The result has been a burst of activities, some moderate, some more far-reaching in their potential to restructure German higher education.

Special Education and the Risk of Becoming Less Educated in Germany and the United States. CES Germany & Europe Working Papers, No. 05.1, 13 December, 2004

Over the twentieth century, a growing group of students has been transferred into considerably expanded special education systems. These programs serve children with diagnosed impairments and disabilities and students with a variety of learning difficulties. Children and youth “with special educational needs” constitute a heterogeneous group with social, ethnic, linguistic, and physical disadvantages. An increasingly large percentage of those students at risk of leaving school without credentials participate in special education, a highly legitimated low status (and stigmatizing) school form. While most countries commit themselves to school integration or inclusive education to replace segregated schools and separate classes, cross-national and regional comparisons of special education’s diverse student bodies show considerable disparities in their (1) rates of classification, (2) provided learning opportunities, and (3) educational attainments. Analyzing special education demographics and organizational structures indicates which children and youth are most likely to grow up less educated and how educational systems distribute educational success and failure. Findings from a German-American comparison show that which students bear the greatest risk of becoming less educated depends largely on definitions of “special educational needs” and the institutionalization of special education systems.

Giovani e formazione nelle normative europee: l'apprendistato [Training of the Young in European apprenticeship]. WP C.S.D.L.E. “Massimo D’Antona”.INT – 90/2012

This contribution starts with the examination of the recent Italian Law on Apprenticeship (Decree n° 167 of 2011) in the light of the European regulation, namely that one coming from EU. Then, the European regulations of Apprenticeship - that is to say the regulations in some EU Member States - are analysed. Those rules shows some unexpected similarities among the different legal systems, which suggest the proposal of a new EU Directive that could regulate some issues of Apprenticeship.

Bologna Process Bucharest Ministerial Conference Takes Place amid Political Crisis in Romania. EUMA Papers Series Vol. 12, No. 5, May 2012

During the last week in April the Ministers responsible for higher education from 47 countries convened in Bucharest, Romania for the Ministerial Conference of the Bologna Process. On April 26 and 27, 2012 the venue for the meeting was the Palace of the Parliament, which was constructed by the dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu in 1984 and completed the year before his death by execution on Christmas Day 1989. One of the largest civilian buildings in the world was location for the first ministerial conference to take place since the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) became effective in 2010. Originally the creation of the EHEA was envisaged by the Bologna Process Declaration in 1999 which had representatives from 29 countries as signatories. This essay will describe the proceedings of the Ministerial Conference, report on the negotiations among delegates in parallel sessions and plenary sessions, discuss the thematic sessions with emphasis on “Global academic mobility: Incentives and barriers, balances and imbalances” and review the adoption of the Bucharest Communiqué and the Bologna Policy Forum Statement.

La disoccupazione giovanile in tempo di crisi: un monito all’Europa (continentale) per rifondare il diritto del lavoro? = Youth Unemployment in Recessionary Times: a Caveat to (Continental) Europe to Reconstruct its Labour Law. WP C.S.D.L.E. "Massimo D'Antona" .INT - 91/2012

The current debate taking place in continental Europe on the need to reform labour law to reduce the duality between labour market insiders and outsiders, thus giving new employment opportunities to young people seems to be, at its best, a consequence of the crisis, or at its worst, an excuse. The considerable emphasis placed on the power of legislation to reduce youth unemployment prevents real labour market problems from being clearly identified, thus reducing the scope to adopt more effective measures. Action is certainly required to help young people during the current crisis, yet interventions should not be exclusively directed towards increased flexibility and deregulation. This paper questions the “thaumaturgic power” wrongly attributed to legislative interventions and put forward a more holistic approach to solve the problem of youth employment, by focusing on the education systems, school-to-work transition and industrial relations. As a comparative analysis demonstrates, in order to effectively tackle the issue of youth employment, it is not enough to reform labour law. High quality education systems, apprenticeship schemes, efficient placement and employment services, cooperative industrial relations and flexible wage determination mechanisms are the key to success when it comes to youth employment, not only in times of recession.

Future of skills in Europe-Convergence or polarisation? CEPS Working Document No. 390, 27 February 2014

In this Working Paper, based on nearly 20 papers produced by the Centre for European Policy Studies, Slovak Governance Institute and the Conference Board Europe, we examine whether the current trends in the areas of education and skills are pushing the European Union, towards convergence or polarisation. We cover a wide range of questions related to this main issue. No easy answers, but several cross-cutting messages emerged from the research. We demonstrated that there is increasing complexity in what a ‘low-skilled’ person is and how well (or poorly) s/he fares in the labour market. There are undoubtedly powerful forces pushing for more polarisation, particularly in the labour market. Our research confirmed that early childhood education plays an important role, and it also appears to be increasingly uncontested as a policy prescription. However, the other frequently emphasised remedy to inequality – less selection in secondary education, particularly later division of children into separate tracks – is more problematic. Its effectiveness depends on the country in question and the target group, while education systems are extremely difficult to shift even on a long-term basis. A different, more-nuanced type of warning to policy-makers is delivered in our research on returns to higher education by field of study, which showed hidden rationality in how students choose their major.

How to keep a competitive edge in the talent game: Lessons for the EU from China and the US. CEPS Task Force Report, 13 June 2014

This report is based on discussions within the CEPS Task Force on “The Quantity and Quality of Human Capital in Higher Education: Comparing the EU, the US and China", chaired by Jan-Eric Sundgren, Senior Adviser to the CEO of Volvo, and former President of Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg. It aims to draw salient lessons from the successes and failures in higher education practices in the EU, the US and China by comparing key education indicators and policy trends. Against the background of the profound tectonic shifts affecting the talent distribution around the world, which is fundamentally changing the global ‘brain game’, the authors argue that it is important that the EU as a whole creates ‘virtuous circles’ of talent and innovation to sustain prosperity and growth, as well as to secure the long-term well-being and quality of life in Europe.

Society's level of literacy: A cross cultural study. ACES Working Papers No. 4, 2008

In this study, the relationship between the country's level of literacy and its national culture will be explored. Cultural differences effect the way that people think and react. Culture is "the value shared amongst distinctive social groups and classes" (Soley and Pandya 2003, 206). House, et al. (2004, 57) define culture as "shared motives, values, beliefs, identities, and interpretations or meanings of significant events that result from common experiences of members of collectives and are transmitted across age generations." Dutch anthropologist Geert Hofstede (1991) considers culture to be "the collective programming of the mind. Culture is a stem of collectively held values" (Hofstede 1981, p. 240).

Enriching the Case Study Approach: Expert Perspectives from European Hospitality Industry Managers. ACES Working Papers, August 2010

For my undergraduate and graduate hospitality industry management courses, I planned to supplement frequent case study discussions and role plays with video-recorded insights from successful international and domestic hospitality managers. In these courses, numerous business topics are reviewed utilizing active learning approaches, with specific application to the hospitality industry.

MBA International Residency: The Derbi Project - Spain. ACES Working Papers (course development), 2012

The objective of this course is to complement and give closure to the work developed during MBAD204. There are two main components to this course. The first one is to provide the students with a firsthand experience of what doing business in Spain is like. This is accomplished by visiting a number of companies and government institutions in Barcelona and interacting with managers from a variety of industries. The other major component of this trip consists in learning how to present a business proposal or market analysis before a real client.

Prepared for a Symposium on Country Development at the European Meeting on Cybernetics and Systems Research, Vienna, Austria, April 2012 (Untitled). ACES Working Papers, April 2012

In Kazakhstan doctoral students are not expected to make a contribution to knowledge, as is required at Western universities. Rather, their task is to become familiar with what is known and then make policy recommendations for Kazakhstan. For example, how can the human capital in Kazakhstan be improved? This is a very broad subject for a PhD dissertation. However, it does require a holistic perspective, and such dissertation topics may create an opportunity for systems scientists. When Russell Ackoff created the Social Systems Sciences PhD program at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, he had his students solve practical problems for business or government managers. That program graduated a large number of people who became consultants. A few became academics in several countries. The program created a philosophy and methods for holistic management. Large issues in developing countries may be a source of clients for systems scientists who want to further develop philosophy, theories and methods by working with large social systems.

Continuous Off-the-Job Training in East Germany After Unification: Preliminary Results of an Evaluation of the Effects for Individual Workers, CES Germany & Europe Working Papers, No. 05.9, 19 July, 1995

Retraining the labor force to match the demands of a modem economy is seen as an important task during the transition process from a centrally-planned to a market economy. This need was particularly pressing in East Germany, because the transition process has proceeded much faster than in the rest of Eastern Europe. Therefore, substantial resources have been devoted to this purpose. This paper analyzes the impact of continuous off-the-job training in East Germany from the point of view of individuals who were part of the labor force before German unification in 1990. It tries to answer questions about the average gains from participating in a specific type of training. Typical outcomes considered to measure those gains are income, employment status, job security, and expected future changes in job position. The methodology used for the evaluation is the potential outcome approach to causality. This approach has received considerable attention in the statistical literature over the last fifteen years and it has recently been rediscovered by the econometric literature as well. It is adapted to allow for important permanent and transitory shocks, such as unemployment, which influence the decision to participate in the training as well as future labor market outcomes. The empirical part is based on the first four waves of the Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP)-East (1990-1993). This panel data set has the advantage that the fourth wave contains a special survey on continuous training and that it allows keeping track of individual behavior on a monthly, respectively yearly, basis. The econometric analysis focuses on off-the-job training courses that began after unification and were completed not later than in early 1993. Although it is obviously too early to evaluate the long-term implications, the results suggest that there are no positive effects in the short run.

The Dilemmas of Diffusion: Institutional Transfer & the Remaking of Vocational Training Practices in Eastern Germany, CES Germany & Europe Working Papers, No. 05.10, 1996

Through a case study of the diffusion of the celebrated West Gennan "dual system" of vocational training to the territory of the fonner German Democratic Republic, we develop the argument that local sociopolitical relations matter crucially for the successful transfer and implementation of institutional arrangements. Notwithstanding massive levels of government funding, the presence of complementary supports, and the concerted efforts of Ger­many's social partners, the dual system is experiencing significant difficulties in the new federal states of the East. These difficulties are not due simply to the particular politics of unification (the wholesale transfer of West German institutions whether or not they were appropriate to Eastern Germany) nor even simply to the paucity of dynamic private firms capable of and willing to train new apprentices. The difficulties stem also from the under­ lying weaknesses of the East German sociopolitical infrastructure on which the entire dual system rests. This. hy­ pothesis is elaborated and substantiated through a range of data on training in the East and especially through the use of detailed case studies of Leipzig and Chemrutz.

Skill formation in Britain and Germany: Recent developments in the context of traditional differences. CES Germany & Europe Working Papers, No.06.1, 2006

This paper proposes a comparison of skill formation in Germany and Britain over the last decades. Taking historical trends into account, the two cases can be regarded as representing different types of skill production regimes. Institu-tional features include a relatively low degree of standardization of training and a larger amount of on-the-job training in Britain. In Germany, post-compulsory training has been conducted predominantly within the dual system of vocational training, underlining the vocational specificity of a large part of the labor market. As a consequence, international differences in individual skill investments, transitions from school to work and other life-course patterns can be observed. At least in Britain, however, the situation seems to have changed considerably during the 1990s. The paper argues that the divergence in more recent developments can still be understood as an expression of historical path-dependency given the traditional connections between the post-compulsory training system and the broader societal context in which it is embedded. These concern, in particular, links with the system of general and academic education as the basis for – and also a possible competitor with – vocational training; links with the labor market as they are indicated by specific skill requirements and returns to qualifications; and, links with the order of social stratification in the form of the selective acquisition and the social consequences of these qualifications. The links manifest themselves as typical individual-level consequences and decisions. Founded on the basis of these distinctions, the aim of this paper is to investigate the preceding conditions for recent developments in the qualification systems of Britain and Germany, which have adapted to specific challenges during the last decades.