Eurofound, the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, is a European Union Agency whose role it is to provide key actors in social and work-related policy making with findings, knowledge and advice drawn from comparative research.
Over the past 35 years Eurofound has developed its knowledge through a successful combination of internal research and communication capabilities – in living conditions and quality of life, working conditions, industrial relations and social dialogue, and structural change and restructuring - with the skills and experience of external experts through service contracts and networking.
A key task of the Agency involves monitoring developments in the Member States over time. To achieve this, Eurofound has created and continue to develop its Europe-wide surveys (European Working Conditions Survey, European Quality of Life Survey, European Company Survey) and observatories (European Industrial Relations Observatory, European Working Conditions Observatory, European Monitoring Centre on Change). Read more...

UIL Senior Programme Specialist Ulrike Hanemann will present the closing speech at a three-day conference on early-language development during this year's Leipzig Book Fair. The conference, entitled "Prepare for Life! Raising Awareness for Early Literacy Education", will bring together experts from over thirty countries from 12 to 14 March to discuss trends and experiences in early literacy.
The range of topics covered is very broad, from the scientific foundations for early childhood learning and socio-cultural considerations, to practical issues of financing and family literacy. One aim of the conference is to help establish a global network of literacy researchers, civil society practitioners and policymakers.
Ms Hanemann will hold her presentation on the role of literacy as a stepping stone to lifelong learning. Please check back on this website for a link to the presentation and an update after the conference.

By Ricarda Motschilnig. "Know Your Lifestyle" project brings sustainable consumption closer to young adults
The aim of "Know Your Lifestyle - Introducing Sustainable Consumption in 2nd-chance education" project is to offer young people the opportunity to look critically at their own consumption and to develop alternative courses of action.
The three-year-project targets young, often underprivileged, adults in second change education. In January the project partners discussed at the kick of meeting in Bonn the development of training modules in the framework of "Global Learning", which are tailored to the target group. Making learners aware of the challenges of and opportunities in globalisation is one aspect of "Global Learning".
Local consumption has a global impact
The aim of the modules is to make learners acknowledge the link between local personal consumption and the resulting global impact. This is done through introducing them to topics drawn from life, such as the value chain of textile products or computers and mobile phones. These modules will be made available for second-chance-training progammes Europe-wide.
In addition to the development of teaching materials and curriculums in cooperation with non-governmental organisations, there will be a number of teacher training opportunities.
The project is coordinated by EAEA´s German member, dvv-international. Project partners include EAEA, Estonian Adult Education Association, Slovenian Institute for Adult Education and Carinthian Folk High Schools.

EU Youth Conference highlights employment as critical to the inclusion of young people in society
Young people and Ministry officials from the 27 Member States have jointly defined a set of 21 priority conclusions. These will inform a Council Resolution on Social Inclusion at the end of the 18-month consultation cycle with young people. They will also inform Council Conclusions on the contribution of quality youth work to the development, well-being and social inclusion of young people to be proposed by the Irish Presidency to the Council of Youth Ministers in May 2013.
EU Youth Conference - Joint Conclusions.
EU Youth Conference highlights employment as critical to the inclusion of young people in society.

4-5 July 2013
The international conference “Skilling the Future – VET and Workplace Learning for Economic Success” co-organised by OECD and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) will take place in Leipzig, Germany, during the WorldSkills Leipzig 2013 event.
The Skills beyond School review of Switzerland was published on 7 January 2013 and is available on the country studies page. The first two country reviews in the Skills beyond School thematic review of postsecondary vocational education and training were published on 4 September 2012.  Please see the country studies rubric to download the review of Denmark and the review of Korea. The commentaries on Spain and Israel have also been published and are free to download on the country studies page. Read more...

The theme of the third annual International Summit on the Teaching Profession, to be held in Amsterdam on 13-14 March 2013, focuses on teacher evaluation and professional standards. During the Summit, delegates will have discussions guided by the following questions:
- How is teacher quality defined by policy makers, the teaching profession and society? What standards are set and by whom?
- How is teacher quality evaluated? What systems are in place and how are the evaluations carried out?
- How do evaluations contribute to school improvement and teacher self-efficacy? What impact can be expected on teaching and learning from teacher evaluation? Read more...

CALL FOR PAPERS (VOL 11, NO 1, JANUARY 2014)
Call for articles open for the next monographic Dossier on Mobile Learning Applications in Higher Education.
For many educators, mobile technology in the field of teaching and learning has recently become one of the most important areas of research. Mobile learning has become a strategic topic for many organisations concerned with education.
The evolution of wireless technologies and the development of applications on mobile devices have been spectacular. The advent of new types of devices is disruptive to education, no matter what educators and education institutions do. Therefore, a thorough analysis, from a pedagogical and technological perspective, is key to ensuring an appropriate usage and implementation of mobile learning.
In the past two decades, we have experienced a revolution in wireless communications that has facilitated a reduction in people's dependency on cable in order to communicate. Moreover, in the last decade, we have seen a huge evolution in the performance and features of mobile devices. In many cases and for many tasks, this has led to mobile devices being a possible replacement for laptop or desktop computers. While it is hard to say whether the new breed of devices will be an outright replacement, they certainly mean that there is a new layer of interaction.
Today, we are seeing an explosion of tools and programming languages to develop applications on mobile devices, as well as the creation of new ways to share and download/upload these applications from/to specific markets. This has enabled many programmers to develop mobile applications in a fast, cheap and readily marketable way. It has never been easier to create applications and make them globally available, and learning environments are no exception.
We live in a new age. This has been called the mobile age or the mobile technological revolution by several authors, and it has been likened to the first and second industrial revolutions. Without doubt, we have seen a significant increase in mobile learning experiences in higher education in the last five years. Read more...

CIR: possibilité nouvelle de saisir la déclaration 2069A-SD en ligne
Il est désormais possible de remplir en ligne le formulaire 2069 A-SD du CIR, sous certaines conditions. Sont notamment exclues  les entreprises bénéficiant du régime fiscal des groupes de sociétés (article 223-1 du Code général des impôts). La saisie de cette déclaration est facilitée par une aide interactive, une notice et des textes de référence.
La déclaration en ligne du CIR s'inscrit dans une démarche de simplification administrative.
Au titre de l'année 2011, près de 19 000 entreprises ont déposé une déclaration de Crédit d'impôt recherche.
Le montant des dépenses de R&D déclarées par les entreprises est de l'ordre de 18,2 milliards d'euros pour un montant de crédit d'impôt recherche de 5,05 milliards d'euros.
Il est devenu la première source de financement public des dépenses de R&D des entreprises. C'est le soutien à la R&D qui touche le plus grand nombre d'entreprises, notamment de petites et très petites entreprises.
Il est recommandé de lire les Règles générales de saisie de la déclaration en ligne 2069A-SD avant de commencer la déclaration en ligne. Aller à la Saisie du formulaire en ligne. Voir aussi CIR: procédures et formulairs de déclaration.
Télécharger le Guide Crédit impôt recherche 2012. Voir les Coordonnées et la liste des contacts CIR.

Sur le blog de Michel Abhervé pour Alternatives économiques.Lors de l’audition devant la mission parlementaire, consultable sur vidéo, le vice-président d’AGEFOS, représentant la CGPME, Philippe Rosay, a dans la présentation de son organisme affirmé qu’AGEFOS PME est le troisième OPCA de l’Economie Sociale (après UNIFORMATION et UNIFAF: voir Avec la réforme de la formation professionnelle que deviennent les OPCA de l’économie sociale? et OPCA: vers un renforcement d’UNIFORMATION).
Cette revendication est intéressante, même si le classement doit être vérifié, car l’AFDAS, l’OPCA Banques Assurances (même si les banques populaires et le Crédit Agricole  sont à OPCALIA, l’OPCA du MEDEF !), OPCALIM, qui couvre l’Industrie Alimentaire, la Coopération Agricole et  l’Alimentation en détail, ou le FAFSEA, qui couvre en particulier les CUMA, ont parmi leur champ de collecte des secteurs importants de l’économie sociale. Suite de l'article...

By M. Mitchell Waldrop. Massive open online courses are transforming higher education — and providing fodder for scientific research. When campus president Wallace Loh walked into Juan Uriagereka's office last August, he got right to the point. “We need courses for this thing — yesterday!”
Uriagereka, associate provost for faculty affairs at the University of Maryland in College Park, knew exactly what his boss meant. Campus administrators around the world had been buzzing for months about massive open online courses, or MOOCs: Internet-based teaching programmes designed to handle thousands of students simultaneously, in part using the tactics of social-networking websites. To supplement video lectures, much of the learning comes from online comments, questions and discussions. Participants even mark one another's tests. Read more...