Irene Psifidou is expert in the Qualifications and Learning outcomes team in the Area Enhanced Cooperation in Vocational Education and Training and Lifelong Learning at Cedefop.
Irene joined Cedefop in 2004, and since then, she actively contributed to the development of European Policy in vocational education and training in line with the EU 2020 strategy. She has managed various European projects with a focus on qualifications’ comparability and transparency, learning outcomes, curriculum policy and practice, teaching methods, learners’ assessment, cooperation between VET and the labour market for the design of VET provision, etc. She is member of the Thematic Working Groups of the European Commission on the “Assessment of Key Competences” and on “Early School Leaving”.
From 2004-2008, she was coordinating ReferNet, a reference and experience exchange network for vocational education established by Cedefop in 2002, managing the quality of national inputs on VET systems in Member States, Iceland and Norway.
Before Joining Cedefop, she was education consultant at the World Bank HQ; she worked on the preparation of World Bank’s strategy on secondary education and managed education development projects in transitional Balkan countries.
Irene has published in the fields of curriculum change, learning outcomes, key competences, teacher education and training, textbooks and learning materials. She has organised and contributed to numerous international conferences and workshops.
She holds a PhD in Comparative Education Policy from the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona (UAB) in Spain, and two M.Sc., one in International Studies and Developmental Cooperation for the Alleviation of Poverty (University of Barcelona) and a second, in Applied Linguistics (UAB).