European Summit on the Career Workforce of the Future

On September 3rd & 4^th 2014 the European academic network NICE is holding a large event at Canterbury Christ Church University in England.  Key figures from all partner countries will discuss central issues around the education and training of people in the practice of career guidance and counselling.

At a time of economic and political change around Europe and beyond, enabling citizens to engage successfully with the world of work has never been more important for the economies of nation states and for individuals. The education and training of those who will guide individuals and who will advise the process of policy-making is therefore also crucial. Keynote speakers Dr Gideon Arulmani and Professor Stefano Zamagni will open the summit illustrating the challenges that lie ahead of us and pointing to some changes, which might be necessary in the future.  Dr Arulmani, founder of the Promise Foundation in Bangalore, India, will enable delegates to consider issues relating to the migration and mobility of workers across the globe. Professor Zamagni, economist from the University of Bologna, Italy, will examine the impact of globalisation on the individual and in relation to significant economic factors. These speakers will thereby focus delegates on the challenges that careers professionals face in enabling their clients to engage in a complex and rapidly changing labour market, and how their education and training must evolve.

The goal of the summit will be to actively discuss concrete proposals on the future of education and training for the career workforce with key professionals, policy makers, researchers and educators.  Central questions will relate to the competences that different types of career professionals (and people from related professions) need, to the cooperation between practice, policy and academia, and to major research questions which we need to concentrate on in the future.

To ensure a fair representation of different countries and stakeholder groups, the participants of the summit are being invited personally through members of the network. They include key decision makers and representatives of professional bodies, practitioners, academic and research institutions, service users, policy makers and managers of services.

For more information, please contact:

Dr Hazel Reid, Chair of the Summit, Canterbury Christ Church University (hazel.reid@canterbury.ac.uk) 

Johannes Katsarov, Coordinator NICE (Johannes_katsarov@hotmail.de)

Dr Peter Weber, Coordinator NICE (pweber@ibw.uni-heidelberg.de)

Background Information

NICE – the Network for Innovation in Career Guidance and Counselling in Europe – currently includes 45 Higher Education Institutions from 29 countries across Europe. NICE is dedicated to professionalism and academic excellence in Careers work across all sectors and at all levels. It has been working towards the goal of sustaining and strengthening cooperative efforts in Careers research and education since the initial funding from the EU Commission in 2009. The network has already published extensive guidelines on the academic training of career guidance and counselling professionals, which it aims to fine-tune and implement in the future.

From 2012 to 2015, NICE is focusing on setting up sustainable structures for future cooperation of higher education and research institutions dealing with career guidance and counselling. Some of the main goals are to:

·         increase the exchange of researchers and students throughout Europe,

·         build up an online database for the sharing of teaching resources and research outcomes,

·         develop common standards for academic training in career guidance and counselling,

·         test support-structures for the development of new and existing degree programmes in career guidance and counselling, and

·         work out an organizational concept for maintaining European-level cooperation in our academic field.

After 4 years of intensive conceptual work, NICE wants to use the summit in Canterbury to reach out to important stakeholders all around Europe. On the 2 days following the summit, the members of the network will work together intensively to evaluate how the network should develop in the future.

Anne Chant