The preparation of this report was led by the OECD Centre for Skills (SKC) in collaboration with the Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs (ELS); the Directorate for Education and Skills (EDU); the Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation (STI); the Economics Department (ECO); the Centre for Tax Policy and Administration (CTP); the Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities (CFE); the Directorate for Public Governance (GOV); and the Development Centre (DEV).
Montserrat Gomendio, Head of the OECD Centre for Skills (SKC) supervised the design and elaboration of the report. Dirk Van Damme (EDU), Head of the Skills Beyond Schools Division (EDU), provided advice and guidance on the development of the report. The report was co-ordinated and edited by Andrew Bell, Head of the National Skills Strategy Projects (SKC). The primary authors were Andrew Bell (SKC), Ricardo Espinoza (SKC), Ben Game (SKC), Montserrat Gomendio (SKC), Patricia Mangeol (EDU), Katharine Mullock (ELS) and Bart Staats (SKC).
Contributing authors included Jonathan Chaloff (ELS), Elena Crivellaro (ECO), Dirk Van Damme (EDU), Stephanie Jamet (SKC), Samuel Kim (SKC), Malgorzata Kucszera (SKC), Thomas Liebig (ELS), Anthony Mann (SKC), Luca Marcolin (STI), Glenda Quintini (ELS), Mariagrazia Squicciarini (STI) and Raffaele Trapasso (EDU). Chapter 6 (Strengthening the Governance of Skills Systems) benefited greatly from comments and written contributions from Marius Busemeyer (University of Konstanz).
Written contributions and comments were also provided by Jonathan Barr (CFE), Tanja Bastianic (EDU), Bert Brys (CTP), Alessia Forti (ELS), Daniel Gerson (GOV), Sylwia Goławska (SKC), Mark Keese (ELS), Kristine Langenbucher (ELS), Helena Van Langenhove (SKC), Fabio Manca (ELS), Cuauhtémoc Rebolledo-Gómez (SKC), Laura Reznikova (SKC), Marieke Vandeweyer (ELS), Theodora Xenogiani (ELS), and Juan Vazquez Zamora (DEV).
Participants at the expert workshop on the Governance of Skills Systems, held on 5-6 April 2018 in Paris, provided valuable comments on an early draft of Chapter 6 on “Strengthening the governance of skills systems”. These participants were: Jonathan Barr (CFE), Bert Brys (CTP), Claire Charbit (CFE), Donata Cutuli (Fondimpresa); Emma Duchini (University of Warwick), Alessia Forti (ELS), Michael Horgan (DG Employment, European Commission), Florina Koester (EDU), Marco Leonardi (University of Milan), Fabio Manca (ELS), Luca Marcolin (STI), Elvio Mauri (Fondimpresa); Marco Mira D’Ercole (STP), Konstantinos Pouliakas (CEDEFOP), Marinus Rouw (EDU), Micheline Scheys (Voorzitter NVSM), Mariagrazia Squicciarini (STI), Siria Taurelli (European Training Foundation), Sergio Urzua (University of Maryland) and Bryan Wilson (Workforce Data Quality Campaign).
The report has benefited from the strong support and fruitful exchanges with the delegates of the Education Policy Committee (EDPC), the Employment, Labour and Social Affairs Committee (ELSAC), the Skills Strategy Advisory Group, and representatives of the Trade Union Advisory Committee and the Business and Industry Advisory Committee. The report also benefited from comments and guidance from participants at the Skills Summit 2016 in Bergen, Norway and the Skills Summit 2018 in Porto, Portugal.
The OECD has benefited greatly from the experiences and insights of members of the inter-ministerial national project teams in the countries that have completed OECD Skills Strategy Projects (i.e. Austria, Belgium [Flanders], Italy, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain) as well as of those countries that were currently working on OECD Skills Strategy Projects at the time of this report’s preparation (i.e. Latvia, Poland and the Slovak Republic) in 2018. The members of these inter-ministerial project teams have been generous in sharing their experiences with designing and implementing skills policies and developing skills strategies. Many of the improvements to the OECD Skills Strategy have their genesis in comments and feedback from these very talented people who are far too numerous to name here.
Cuauhtémoc Rebolledo-Gómez (SKC) provided statistical assistance for all chapters. Dana Blumin (ELS) and Chris Clarke (ELS) also prepared figures for the report.
Véronique Quénehen (SKC), Sarah Zaft (EDU), Sophie Limoges (EDU), Lucy Hulet and Lauren Thwaites (ELS) provided invaluable support for the manuscript preparation, layout, design and publication planning.
Many thanks are due to Michel Rochard (TRA) and Maïa Kirilovsky (TRA) as well as the rest of the OECD Translation Services team for their professionalism and collaboration in delivering the French translation of the manuscript.
Julie Harris conducted the final editing and formatting of the report.
Thomas Scalway and Megan Banner (Lushomo Communications Ltd.) created the design of the infographics based on fruitful exchanges with the NSS team.
Strategic oversight and guidance were provided by Stefano Scarpetta, Director of the Employment, Labour and Social Affairs Directorate, and Andreas Schleicher, Director of the Education and Skills Directorate.