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Employment - Qualification - Innovation Centre - Austria
Source: Employment - Qualification - Innovation
equi: Employment - Qualification - Innovation, is an scientific centre and part of the Department of Sociology at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) in Vienna/Austria.
equi's work is focused chiefly on the interfaces between employment, education and training, and innovation. equi does both commissioned research as well as basic academic research; the results of both are part of post-graduate courses at the IHS.
Characteristic features of equi's research profile are:
equi's research activities particularly benefit from the multi-disciplinary structure of the IHS (economists and finance scientists, political scientists, sociologists) as well as from regular stays by renowned visiting professors.
equi is an independent academic unit under the direction of Lorenz Lassnigg with a present staff of nine permanent employees. equi's staff is structured with a view to promote equal opportunities for men and women. The team as a whole strives for a balanced gender distribution in equis' research areas and management.
Up until now research has traditionally treated the areas of employment, qualification, and innovation as separate entities requiring specific analytical approaches. Society and economy, however, have undergone essential changes in the recent past which have made these areas increasingly interdependent. Their respective interfaces necessitate a conceptually revised understanding, along with new forms of organisation and coordination as well as a thorough political reassessment.
This is where equi comes in with a research programme that focuses on the interfaces between the systems of employment, qualification, and innovation.
With particular emphasis on social and gender disparities equi mainly utilizes the methods of evaluation, policy analysis, and forecasting while applying and combining both qualitative and quantitative techniques.
Social science provides the framework for equi's approach to the topic of employment. This implies a contextual view of paid work as it relates to education, vocational training, and innovation processes, rather than reducing it to aspects of labour market policy. Furthermore, this approach allows for both economic and political points of reference and covers both structural and individual aspects of employment, which are:
The areas of job qualification and innovation hinge on the following questions:
The education system is presently faced with significant challenges and major changes; this calls for scientific analysis. At the same time an individual's education level is in general highly rated by society and becomes even more crucial in the light of current economic developments.
Here equi takes a deeper look at:
Significant aspects of the interfaces between the education system and the systems of employment and innovation are:
The present transition to a knowledge-based society presents a crucial
challenge to the ability of actors and organisations to adapt to innovations.
Being a critical aspect of competitiveness and job protection, innovation stands
for a vague and haphazard search for new products, new technologies, and new
forms of organisation. Therefore institutional and social changes are as much
part of the innovation process as is knowledge, experience, and every-day
activities of all working individuals.
The structures of R&D and the extent to which employees are integrated, the
support of learning and access to knowledge - all these aspects become
increasingly important for the innovation activities of enterprises. On the one
hand these activities continue along an enterprise's unique path of development,
on the other hand they are part of regional, national, and supranational
innovation systems. Actors within innovation systems and their strategies
consequently play an important part in the innovation paths of enterprises.
Here equi's research aims at the conditions, circumstances, and realization of innovation processes:
a) at enterprise level:
b) at innovation system level:
Long years of experience and a distinctive combination of survey and evaluation methods distinguish equi's work in the field of evaluation so far. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are combined (target and context analysis, implementation and impact analysis) and result in three types of evaluation to be applied and combined according to the specific demands of a research project:
Process-attending evaluations, combinations of the analysis of implementation and impact as well as cost-benefit analyses assume special importance here.
In order to react in time to future developments in the spheres of employment, qualification, and innovation, it is crucial to anticipate future trends by means of forecast methods. Forecasting covers the assessment of possible scenarios in the areas of employment and vocational training as well as the prediction and projection of developments with the objective to:
Quantitative methods are predominant here, nevertheless qualitative techniques increasingly come into use. Quantitative methods are based on primary statistical surveys (polls) as well as on secondary statistical data (census, national survey, university statistics, etc.). Expert interviews form the basis of qualitative forecasting of qualification and employment trends.
In order to visualize the interaction between the participants and institutions as regards the fields of innovation, qualification, and employment, and in order to provide relevant information for decision makers, equi utilizes the method of policy analysis. The analysis of the policy process is conducted on five methodological levels:
The main purpose of policy analysis as applied by equi is to identify alternative options of decision-making and to estimate their respective effects. Comparing policies, their results, and their institutional setting on an international and trans-regional level constitutes a central methodical approach here. The multitude of options is then resolved into best-practice examples, leading to a discussion of potential ways of "policy learning" considering the contextual uniqueness of each option.
A highly comprehensive assessment basis is imperative for the realization of evaluations, policy analyses, and projections. Literature on theory and applied research comprises qualitative and quantitative methods of survey and analysis - here equi attaches great importance to the combination of both qualitative and quantitative methods in order to benefit from their respective strong points and to compensate for existing shortcomings.
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qualitative methods: methods of survey:
methods of analysis:
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quantitative methods: methods of survey:
methods of analysis:
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The data basis of qualitative methods consists of primary surveys put down in transcriptions and observation records, and of secondary material in the form of documents and files of any kind.
Quantitative methods are based on both primary statistical surveys and secondary statistical data, such as censuses, national surveys, university statistics, and data provided by the Main Association of Austrian Social Security Institutions .
A selection of equi's most important clients:
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