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As Europe seeks to strengthen its competitiveness in a rapidly changing global landscape, this seminar explores how skills development and workplace learning can support both productivity and job quality. It brings together policymakers, social partners, researchers and EU-level stakeholders to discuss how skills and workplace learning can support competitiveness and job quality. 

Organised in cooperation with the rotating EU Council Presidencies, these research-driven seminars build on Cedefop’s research and address key issues in European debates on education, training and employment. 

Participants will explore how skills development, job design and workplace learning contribute to productivity and innovation. Sessions will present findings from Cedefop research, including new evidence from the European Training and Learning Survey (ETLS), highlighting the drivers of skills formation and the challenges linked to low skill demand. A high-level discussion will focus on how policy frameworks can support skills, competitiveness and quality employment.

The seminar aims to strengthen understanding of how human-centred approaches to technological change and skills development can enhance Europe’s competitiveness. It will support dialogue between research and policy and contribute to ongoing European debates on skills and VET. 

During the event, Cedefop will unveil the details of the 2026 European Skills and VET Week. Through a series of events and activities across Europe, the Week will invite the wider skills and VET community to share insights and discuss how different approaches to upskilling, reskilling, and VET can help the EU remain competitive, economically strong, and strategically independent. 

Save the date – registrations will open soon. Contact us if you are interested to attend. 

Speakers

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Jürgen Siebel
Executive Director, Cedefop

Jürgen Siebel joined Cedefop from the private sector in September 2019. As Executive Director, he is responsible for managing the Agency’s operations in accordance with the strategic direction of its tripartite Management Board.

With his management team and all staff, Jürgen has led Cedefop to strengthen its position as a go-to ally for the EU institutions, social partners, researchers and practitioners when it comes to analysing the impacts of megatrends on the labour market, on skills, and on training ecosystems – and on how vocational education and training enables a fair digital and green transition.

Jürgen has a background in human-resources management with particular emphasis on learning and education, earned his MSc in economics at the University of Hamburg, and his PhD in business administration from the University of Vienna. 

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Ralph Hippe
Expert in the Department for VET and Skills

Ralph Hippe is an expert in the Department for VET and Skills at the EU agency Cedefop (Greece). He works in the skills and workplaces team, focussing on skills, AI, digitalisation, vocational training, and labour markets. His current projects include Cedefop’s AI skills foresights, the European Skills and Jobs Surveys, the European Training and Learning Survey and the Regional Skills Ecosystem index (RESET). 

Before joining Cedefop in 2021, he worked at the London School of Economics (UK), Sciences Po Strasbourg (France) and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre in Ispra (Italy) and Seville (Spain). Ralph holds master degrees in Business Administration from the Ecole de Management Strasbourg (France) and the University of Tübingen (Germany) and earned a PhD in Economics from the University of Strasbourg, BETA/CNRS and the University of Tübingen (summa cum laude), for which he received 4 PhD thesis prizes. 

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Robert Plummer
Senior Adviser for Social Affairs, BusinessEurope

Robert is a senior adviser responsible for issues concerning migration and mobility, education and skills, social dialogue and the European Labour Authority.

Prior to joining BusinessEurope, Robert worked as a political adviser for the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) party.

 

He attended Keele University in the UK and holds a Ph.D in industrial relations and human resource management, focusing on a comparative study of the demand for EU migrant workers in Sweden and the UK. He also has an MA in European industrial relations and human resource management and a BA in human geography and human resource management. 

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Márcia Bizzotto
Communication expert at Cedefop

Márcia Bizzotto is a communication expert at the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop), where she leads the European Skills & VET Week 2026-2028 campaign. She managed the European Parliament’s State of the Union social media campaign in 2025 and contributed to the European elections campaigns in 2019 and 2024. With a Master’s degree in journalism from Rey Juan Carlos University (Madrid), she served as the BBC World News Brasil EU correspondent from 2006 to 2018.

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Giulia Santangelo
Expert in Skills and Workplaces at Cedefop

Giulia Santangelo has been an Expert in ‘Skills and Workplaces’ at the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop) since 2022. Working within the Department for ‘VET and Skills’ department, she contributes to major Cedefop surveys, including the European Skills and Jobs Survey (ESJS) and the European Training and Learning Survey (ETLS)."

Before joining Cedefop, since 2013, she worked as researcher at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission, in the Competence Centre on Microeconomic Evaluation (CC-ME), where she has been the coordinator of the Centre for Research on Impact Evaluation (CRIE).
She has been a visiting research fellow at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and a lecturer at the Doctoral School of Economics at Sapienza University of Rome. She obtained a M.Sc. in Statistical Sciences and a Ph.D. in Economic Sciences at Sapienza University of Rome. 
Her main research interests lie in the fields of labour economics, applied micro-econometrics, and policy evaluation

Downloads

Programme

EN

Concept Note

EN

Contacts

Contact
Ralph Hippe
Expert in skills and workplaces
Contact
Konstantinos Pouliakas
Expert on Skills and Labour Markets at Cedefop
Contact
Giovanni Russo
Expert in skills and workplaces, Cedefop
Contact
Giulia Santangelo
Expert in skills and workplaces
Contact
Ekaterina Tzolas
Assistant