International Conference on Skills for the Future

Training, employment, occupations and employability in turbulent times

Toulouse, 18-19 September 2014

Toulouse Business School
20 Boulevard Lascrosses, 31000 TOULOUSE, France 

Toulouse Business School (Work Employment and Health Research Group) in collaboration with Curtin University Business School is hosting the International Conference on Skills for the Future: Training, employment, occupations and employability in turbulent times.

There is universal policy consensus on the need to build workforce skills to support economic development and cope with evolving labour market needs in a period of profound and sustained restructuring. This political consensus involves international agencies such as the OECD, ILO, IMF and World Bank, supra-national regional bodies such as the EU and APEC and governments of nation states. All stress the importance of forecasting future skills needs to ensure that education and training systems are suitably adapted and to avoid skills gaps, shortages and mismatches.

It is also widely recognised that occupations are evolving as sectors undergo a profound restructuring, with some disappearing and new occupations emerging, demanding opportunities for continuous acquisition of new competences. Some competences are susceptible to transfer between occupations particularly in the case of skills shortages (for example, nurses taking on new tasks formerly reserved for doctors in the face of increasing shortages of doctors).  

This Conference is designed to provide the intellectual space for debates surrounding skills and competence, training and development, occupations, employment and employability. Additionally, we are interested in papers addressing related topics such as migration and migrant workers, union-led learning, restructuring, precarious work and unemployment, high performance work systems and worker well-being. Vulnerable workers and those in precarious work will be rendered more vulnerable by the changes underway unless they have the opportunity to develop the competences supporting adaptability and employability.

Papers that advance theory and understanding of these issues are welcome as are papers with a strong empirical focus. In particular, we seek contributions with an international comparative dimension that are based on sound empirical research. This list is neither exhaustive nor exclusive: we encourage papers from diverse disciplines (including economics, sociology, politics, employment relations, organisational behaviour and human resource management) and research that employs a variety of methodologies.

The language of the conference and publications will be English. We are negotiating edited collections with publishers and special issues of academic journals with editors; selected papers presented at this conference will be considered for inclusion in these initiatives. 

Contribution

Closed

Programme

Under development

Registration details

Registration fee: €140 including coffee, lunches and documentation; conference dinner an additional €60. [Total €200 if attending conference dinner.]

Dead-line 28th July 2014

For further information

Contact the conference organisers:
Françoise Le Deist

Jonathan Winterton

Scientific committee

• Peter Boxall, Auckland University Business School, Auckland, New Zealand
• John Burgess, People, Business and Strategy, Curtin University Business School, Perth
• Julia Connell, People, Business and Strategy, Curtin University Business School, Perth
• Richard Cooney, Monash University, Melbourne
• Tony Dundon, National University of Ireland Galway
• Chris Forde, Centre for Employment Relations Innovation and Change, Leeds University Business School
• Nigel Haworth, Auckland University Business School, Auckland, New Zealand
• Françoise Le Deist, Work Employment and Health Research Group, Toulouse Business School
• Colin Lindsay, Strathclyde University Business School
• Ron McQuaid, Stirling University
• Martin Mulder, Competence Group, Wageningen University, 
• Samo Pavlin, Ljubljana University, Slovenia
• Mark Stuart, Centre for Employment Relations Innovation and Change, Leeds University Business School
• Ivan Svetlik, Ljubljana University, Slovenia
• Jonathan Winterton, Work Employment and Health Research Group, Toulouse Business School
• Vidmantas Tùtlys, Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania