Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI)
Systemic Innovation in
Vocational Education and
Training
Francesc Pedró
14 October 2009
What counts as innovation?
• Innovation?
“the implementation of a new or significantly improved product (good or service), or process, a new
marketing method, or a new organisational method in business practices, workplace organisation or
external relations” (Oslo Manual, OECD/Eurostat)
• Innovation in education?
Change that adds value:
performance, process or perceived satisfaction
• Systemic Innovation?
How a system manages innovation holistically:
Inspires, funds, monitors, assesses, and scales it up
Innovation is always relative
• To context
• To stakeholder
Overview
• Objectives
– Investigate how systems go about innovation in VET
– Processes and stakeholders relationships
– KM perspective
• Methodology
– Desk research, questionnaire plus 14 case studies
• Countries
– Australia, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Mexico, and Switzerland
• Outputs
– Country reports: www.oecd.org/edu/systemicinnovation/vet
– Full report: Working Out Change
Main Findings
• Drivers
• Pumps
• Enablers/Barriers
• Specific barriers in VET
• Conclusions/policy implications
Drivers
• Economic
– Development of new skills
– Efficiency
• Social
– Equity
– Inclusion
• Political
• Technological
Pumps
• Vision
• Networks
• Technology
The emergence of an innovative
education industry? Growth of patent applications: Worldwide new education technologies (1990-2006)
USA, 2003, 274.6666667
Japan, 2006, 358.6666667
EU27, 2006, 177.3333333
Korea, 2002, 36.33333333
China, 2006, 43
Education technologies by year - Main Countries (MA(3) - Patent Families only)
USA Japan EU27 Korea China
Pumps
• Vision
• Networks
• Technology
• Research
Educational research and development
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Education Health
Total expenditure as % of GDP (country average in recent years)
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Education Health
Share of total public research expenditures (2008) on
Enablers / Barriers
• Leadership
• Consensus building
• Research evidence
• Brokerage: generation and dissemination of knowledge
Specific barriers
• Competing policy agendas
• Accountability mechanisms and public policy agendas:
– Restricted risk management
– Short-term planning
• Innovation fatigue
Conclusions
Systemic innovation as useful analytical framework
– Targeted strategy to induce system-wide change
SI VET as guiding principle for innovation policy
Need for formalised knowledge base
– Losing innovation opportunities
Establish a formalised knowledge base
– Monitoring and evaluation
– Support link between systems research and innovation
– Evidence-informed dialogue with stakeholders
Policy implications
Who counts in innovation?