Cedefop newsletter

Jürgen has a background in human resources management with particular emphasis on learning and education, the strategic development and roll-out of work-based vocational education and training programmes, as well as related corporate social responsibility initiatives.

In this context he has also collaborated with institutional actors at national, European and global levels.

Before joining Cedefop in Thessaloniki, Jürgen served for 20 years in various leading operational and strategic HR roles in Siemens AG, mostly as senior manager with global governance or business partner responsibilities.

Jürgen earned his MSc in economics at the University of Hamburg, and a PhD in business administration from the University of Vienna.

He represents the OECD in High-Level fora and academic conferences; liaise with key senior stakeholders and provide effective communication with the media. As a member of the Senior Management team of the Organisation, he also contributes to support and advance the strategic orientations of the OECD.

Previously, he held several positions in the Economics Department and in his current Directorate. From 2002 to 2006 he also worked at the World Bank, where he took over the responsibility of labour market advisor and lead economist. He has published extensively in academic journals, edited several books.

Mr. Scarpetta holds a Ph.D. in Economics  from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales (EHESS), Département et Laboratoire d’Economie Théorique Appliquée (DELTA) in Paris and a Master of Science in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

As Head of Department from 2004 to 2014, she managed teams of European experts working in research and policy analysis to support the development and implementation of the Union policy in the field of VET, skills and qualifications.

She holds a university degree in Economics and a Master in Economics, politics and law of the European Union. Her mother tongue is Italian (born in Perugia) and she is fluent in English, French, Greek and Spanish.

He has also held several executive leadership roles in both the private and public sectors including the Department of Canadian Heritage (Director General & CEO), CGI consulting, Nortel, and Novartis (Switzerland). Mr. Anani’s experience extends to; strategic policy development and implementation, learning and capacity building, business transformation, national/international strategic alliances, economic and market research, and technology innovation.

He has also held numerous board positions, and is a frequent keynote speaker at national and international conferences on the digital economy. Namir holds a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Electrical Engineering from the University of Salford (UK) as well as a Professional Engineer designation in Ontario (P. Eng.).

In his doctoral project, Scherwin M. Bajka investigates how dual VET systems adapt to the Knowledge Economy from institutional, employers’ and apprentices’ perspectives. His broader research interests include education policy, social inclusion, and economic inequality. Overall, Scherwin M. Bajka is dedicated to combating societal prejudices with scientific facts for a more inclusive tomorrow.

As a Researcher at Visionary Analytics, Diana is involved in research and/or evaluation tasks. Her main role is focused on stages of data collection (surveys, interviews, document research) and data analysis (quantitative and qualitative). Diana also develops the final outputs, such as analytical reports and policy recommendations, as well as presents research findings to target groups. Her portfolio includes working with such organisations as the European Commission (DG EMPL, DG EACEA, DG CONNECT), the European Parliament, Cedefop, EIGE, and multiple others.

Carlos is responsible for International Affairs at the Spanish association FP Empresa formed by more than 400 public and private VET schools. He is the Director of the VET High School IES Pedro de Tolosa in Madrid and Academic Coordinator at the University Carlos III.

Several of his articles and publications describe the past and current situation of vocational education and training in Spain and Europe.

She earned her doctorate at the University of Paderborn, during which she conducted research at the Learning Sciences Research Institute in Chicago, focusing on questions of occupational competence diagnostics. Afterward, she worked as a research associate at the German Institute for Adult Education. Since 2016, she has been teaching and researching at the University of Mannheim. Her core academic interests lie in the area of vocational and professional education. She specializes in designing and implementing digital learning environments for various occupational fields, diagnosing and promoting professional competency, training quality and dropout in vocational education, and researching career choice and professional identity development.

Beca brings experience across business consulting, corporate social responsibility, the social sector and human resources. During her tenure at Accenture she has partnered with nonprofit, education and social service clients to develop new growth strategies and transform their organizations to deliver the highest impact with limited resources.

Beca started her career in the nonprofit sector focused on strategy, communications and field operations for international and US disaster response humanitarian aid nonprofit organizations. She holds an MBA from Duke University, and a Bachelor’s degree from Boston College.

Angeliki Filippidou has Degree in Sociology, bachelor in Education Studies and Msc studies in “Administration and Management of Educational Units”. She has more than 28 years’ experience in teaching in VET Apprenticeship Schools.

Alongside the educational duties and the duties as Principal, she is also Head of Career Office of the school.

She has participated in many projects on Vocational Education and Training, such as ERASMUS+ Mobility Program, Forums and Conferences in Greece and Europe.

Angeliki Filippidou has been selected for the European Alliance for Apprenticeships Excellence Award 2017, in the “Teachers” category. Award handed over by European Commissioner Marianne Thyssen on 24 November 2017, in Brussels. Also the team "Digital & Green Waves" of 2nd VET School Thessaloniki has been selected for the European Alliance for Apprenticeships Excellence Award 2020, in the “European Agencies Awards” category for the Cedefop Photo Award.

His main focus is to strengthen co-determination in the area of examinations and to further develop the final examinations at the end of vocational training with a view to the challenges of transformation.

During his dual vocational training, Daniel was elected chairman of the youth and trainee representation and later to the works council of a medium-sized automotive and mechanical engineering company in the Bavarian Rhön region.

After studying social economics at the University of Hamburg, he became a trade union officer for IG Metall. He was already responsible for the education, counselling and support of works councils, youth and trainee representatives, shop stewards, trainees and examiners as an education officer and later as an trade union manger at the IG Metall branch in Schweinfurt.

Her research interests are related to knowledge transfer from science to practice and knowledge sharing in organizational settings.

He carries out and coordinate socio-economic analysis of Education and Training evidence for policy making in Europe, of the digital transformation of learning and teaching and of 21st century competence frameworks.

His past experiences include positions in the Skills and Empoyability Branch of the ILO, in Switzerland at federal level at the State Secretariate for Education, Research and Innovation SERI as well as at cantonal level in Geneva office for orientation, vocational and continuing education and training.

In his various positions, he has gathered experience in policy and implementation of VET and Skills developpment in Switzerland as well as in partner countries. He has been active as an international consultant and project manager with specific expertise in the developpement of the dual model of vocational education and training (incl. policy reforms and implementation, public-private partnerships, curriculum development, teacher and instructor training). In January 2022, he has been selected as the Swiss member to CEDEFOP’s community of apprenticeship experts.

In addition to various coutinous trainings in Skills developpement, Mergim Jahiu holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations from the University of Geneva, Switzerland, as well as a Master’s degree in Public International Law from the University of Maastricht, the Netherlands.

He has also coordinated situation analysis of TVET systems in Asia and Africa. Before joining UNESCO Headquarters, he worked at the OECD in Paris on the assessment of PISA financial literacy. He also worked at the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) in Montreal, Canada, on the collection, analysis and dissemination of TVET data and statistics.

She is a certified adult trainer and an instructor in professional development courses for staff in education and training.

She has participated in research teams with various Universities and research centres. She has experience in work-based learning as a researcher and a practitioner. As a researcher, she has participated in various European projects, related to WBL and especially on the aspect of its quality assurance e.g. app.Mode, Bequal.app, SMARTEX, Eduwork.net, ECVET Permit, ECWORK As a practitioner, she is responsible for training of interns and induction training of new staff.  She speaks Greek, English, Spanish and French.

Dr. Kozanoglu served as the President and Board Advisor at the Turkish Higher Education Quality Council (THEQC) for four years. He was also an assistant professor in the Francophone Department of Political Science and International Relations at Yeditepe University for nearly six years.

Dr. Kozanoglu continues his career as an affiliated researcher at the GATE Lyon St Etienne Research Center (a joint research unit of CNRS, University of Lyon, and Jean Monnet Saint-Étienne University). He also holds the international expert position at the Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ARACIS). As a close stakeholder, he conducts joint events and scientific studies in higher education with international organizations and European institutions such as the United Nations Higher Education Sustainability Initiative (UN HESI) Green Learning Network, European University Association (EUA), and UNICA.

Dr. Kozanoglu has contributed to many national and international journals, books, scientific reports, and conferences in English, French, and Turkish languages.

Prior to joining Lightcast, Elena worked at the UK think-tank Centre for Cities where she led on research on employment and skills in UK cities. Elena also has experience in local government, having worked as a Senior Policy Manager for the West of England Combined Authority. Elena holds a BSc. in International Economics from Bocconi University and an MSc. in International Public Policy from University College London.

She mainly works with European projects (mostly Erasmus+), and she is also helping with the research part of other projects. She has been a member of Amnesty International's Gender Network since September 2021, actively participating in the signing of calls. In addition, from February to June 2022, she worked as a volunteer in the library of her university’s gender studies lab, documenting and updating the online library catalogue.

She speaks fluently 2 foreign languages (English and French), and she has 2 ECDL certificates, one that certifies a basic level of digital competences and another one that certifies an advanced level of the corresponding competences.

Christian holds a Bachelor's and Master's degree (2017 and 2020, respectively) in Business Education with a minor in Political Science from the University of Mannheim. During his studies, Christian volunteered at the initiative “Studenten-bilden-Schüler e.V.” as a tutor and in the Mannheim site management.

He worked as a student trainee in the vocational training department of the Rhine-Neckar Chamber of Industry and Commerce (IHK), as a tutor for the course " Design of business learning environments II " (Master Business Edu) and as a student assistant at the chair of Prof. Dr Andreas Rausch in the PSA-Sim project of the ASCOT+ initiative (LUCA Office Simulation).

Research interests:

Eye-Tracking in the problem-solving process in computer-based learning environments.

Teaching and learning with ERP systems.

Language processing with artificial intelligence (Natural Language Processing).

Whilst there he was one of a team of three who developed the Graduate Apprenticeship programme and led the University to become the first in Europe to join the European Alliance of Apprenticeships.  Stewart then joined NMIS as Head of Skills Programmes before taking on the role of Skills Director.

At SAFEE, Stewart selected the first female Chair and led the executive committee in reaching 50/50 gender balance.  He currently sits on the Steering Board of Equate Scotland, the Engineering Skills Leadership Group, and co-chairs the Skills Workstream in the Making Scotland’s Future Programme Board.  Stewart is in the Cedefop community of apprenticeship experts.

She is responsible for Accenture’s US Innovating for Society strategy which pilots, implements, and amplifies solutions to pressing workforce related challenges faced by people and organizations.

As the daughter of a single Mom, she witnessed the power of grit, selflessness and community support. She’s translated these learnings into her work by championing courageous collaboration, human-centered design and servant leadership. She received a degree from Saint Louis University in Business Administration, a Platform Fellow for Work, Wages and Job Creation at the World Economic Forum, and visiting scientist with the Next Level Lab based at Harvard Graduate School of Education.

She studied European Business Administration at ESB Reutlingen (Germany) as well as ESC Reims (France) and holds an MBA, International Management from the Monterey Institute of International Studies (USA). In September 2022, she defended her Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) at Business Science Institute (Luxembourg) / Université de Lyon (France). Her thesis explored how and why boundary spanning in Vocational Education and Training helps improve technical skills and methods of trainers.

Dr. Barbara Ofstad serves in various German vocational education boards (VDMA, VHU, BDA) and is a member of the board of trustees of the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics (ITWM Kaiserslautern).    

He currently works as Head of Global Data Science at Lightcast with the goal to develop innovative models, methods, and deployments of labour market data and other data to meet customer requirements and prototype new potential solutions.

His main tasks are related to advanced machine learning modelling, labour market analyses, and the design of big data pipelines to process large datasets of online job vacancies. In collaboration with the University of Milano-Bicocca, he took part in many research projects related to the labour market intelligence systems. He collaborates with the University of Milano-Bicocca as a Lecturer for the Masters of Business Intelligence and Big Data Analytics and with the University of Bergamo as a Lecturer in Computer Engineering.

Romain Pigeaud works for the Centre-Inffo: an association under the supervision of the Ministry for Vocational Training, with a public service remit in the field of employment, training and vocational guidance.

Centre Inffo's mission is also to develop, capitalise on and disseminate information and documentation, particularly for public authorities and social partners.

Romain Pigeaud studied labour law at universities in Grenoble and Strasbourg, and is also a member of the French Alpine Club.

He has been scientific advisor and author on skills anticipation and skill mismatch for the European Commission, the World Economic Forum, ILO and the Greek Ministry of Labour and is regular instructor for the ILO-ITC.

He is currently a core member of the scientific committee of Greece’s National Skills Commission.

Before joining Cedefop he held posts at the University of Aberdeen and the University of Cyprus and worked for the Bank of Greece and HM Treasury. He has been invited Professor at the Universita Degli Studi Roma TRE and Visiting Research Scholar at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He is Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Aberdeen Business School and IZA Research Fellow. He holds an M.Phil from the University of Oxford (St. Antony’s College) and a D.Phil from the Scottish Graduate Program in Economics.

He has published widely in peer-reviewed economics journals (e.g. Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Oxford Review of Education, Economica, Journal of Economic Surveys, Research in Labor Economics, Education Economics, International Labour Review).

Previously, he worked in DG EMPL’s geographical desk for Austria and Germany, in a Brussels-based public sector consultancy and in the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN). He holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and a master’s degree in International Relations.

Professional experience: Head of the Research Support Department and senior researcher in the Centre for VET Research and Innovation Management, previously 14 years in Nation-wide Polish Craft Association (as a deputy director for VET&Social Affairs Dept.) For 10 years (2010-2020) member of CEDEFOP’s Managing Board and Advisory Committee for Vocational Training (ACVT).

In the period 2018-2020 member of ministerial Programme Council on Competences. Nowadays (since 2018 – till now) member of CEDEFOP’s Experts Community on Apprenticeships (Thessaloniki) and OECD’s Group of National Experts on Vocational Education (Paris). Starting from IV.2021 expert of Foundation Platform of Future Industry (FPPP) in the fields of „Green economy” and „Competences of the future” .

Coordinator of around  15 EU funded projects (including LdV, Erasmus+) in the field of IVET, CVET and Green economy education. Half of projects with budget over 500.000 Euro.In the years 2015-2020 coordinator of the „New quality exams in crafts” responsible for development of on-line examination platform and since 2021 project and partner coordinator in four projects related with VR and AR, such as: Collaborative Virtual Reality

Platform for e-Learning:Teaching Communication (Erasmus+), PLC-Centered VR-Training for Industry 4.0 (VR-PLC) and its continuation VR-PLC Train the Trainer (European Institute for Innovation and Technology – EIT Manufacturing) and Mazovia EDIH (Digital Europe Programme).

Stefan’s responsibilities at the ETF include working with governments, social partners, international organisations and development agencies to improve work-based learning and apprenticeship systems. Centres of Vocational Excellence, including their role in the digital transition, is another focus of his work at the ETF.

She has been actively involved in the OECD’s Getting Skills Right project, analysing the match between skills demand and supply and the responsiveness of adult learning systems to changing skill needs. Her current projects focus on the future-readiness of VET systems, including analysis of VET and the green transition, flexibility of provision, higher-level VET programmes, technology use, and VET teachers and trainers. She is also co-leading the ongoing development of an International VET Assessment.   

Marieke holds a MSc in Business Engineering and a MSc in European Politics and Policies, as well as a PhD in Economics from the University of Leuven (Belgium).

She obtained a Master Degree of Science in Education at the University of Pennsylvania in 2012 and was a visiting scholar in 2017 specializing in Social Justice Education at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. She has many years of experience in educational research on social justice especially in developing countries such as India and China.