At the European Vocational Skills Week 2017, taking place in November in Brussels, the European Commission will award examples of excellence in vocational education and training (VET) (website).

The European VET Research Award aims to reward an outstanding VET research project or an individual researcher who has made an outstanding contribution to innovative thinking in VET, including initial VET (IVET) as well as career-long professional learning or continuing VET (CVET). The European Research Network in Vocational Education and Training (VETNET) has been appointed to manage the call for proposals and the nomination and evaluation process.

VET researchers and professionals are kindly invited to propose a project or a person to be nominated for the European VET Research Award.

To propose a project or person, please fill in this form.

Procedure and dates

• Deadline for submission of proposals: 15 September 2017 23:59 CET latest.
• Evaluation and selection by Evaluation Committee: mid-October 2017
• Evaluation criteria: Excellence in VET research, relating to scientific soundness (e.g., transparency, adequacy, ethics), innovation (e.g., theory, methods and/or practice), and impact (e.g., on stakeholders, community, theory building)
• Information sent out to nominated person/institution: end of October 2017.
• Award ceremony: The award will be given by Marianne Thyssen, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility during the closing event of the European Vocational Skills Week in Brussels on 24 November 2017.
• Costs: The European Commission will cover the travel and accommodation costs for the Award Winner (individual) or Representative of the Award Winner Team (project).
• Publicity: The Commission will ensure that adequate publicity is given to the awards. VETNET will announce the award winner through its communication channels.
• An interview with the award winner will be published in the International Journal for Research in Vocational Education and Training (IJRVET).
• Please acknowledge that self-nominations are not possible.

Evaluation Committee

Representatives of EERA VETNET

• Prof. Dr. Barbara Stalder, Bern University of Teacher Education, Switzerland (co-link convenor, chair of evaluation committee)
• Emeritus Prof. Dr. Karen Evans, UCL Institute of Education, University of London, United Kingdom (board member)
• Prof. Dr. Lázaro Moreno Herrera, Stockholm University, Sweden (board member)
• Nora Cechovsky, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria (Emerging Researchers’ Conference ERC EERA)

Representatives of IJRVET International Journal for Research in Vocational Education and Training

• Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Michael Gessler, University of Bremen, Germany (editor-in-chief)
• Prof. Dr. Fernando Marhuenda, University of Valencia, Spain (advisory board member)
• Prof. Dr. Petri Nokelainen, University of Tampere, Finland (advisory board member)

Award Winner 2016

• Emeritus Professor Dr. Martin Mulder, University of Wageningen & Research, Netherlands