HORIZON EUROPE┋Effective education and labour market transitions of young people

Expected Outcome

Projects should contribute to the expected outcomes described in the first and second bullet points, or to the expected outcomes described in the third and fourth bullet points:

• Provide quantitative and qualitative evidence of what determines participation and completion rates in upper secondary and tertiary education, including the long-term impact of the Covid-19 crisis and the role of policies and investments to promote equity and inclusion in education and training.
• Enhanced knowledge base about which policies and practices can promote better-informed and more effective educational choices at all levels, including the role of vocational education and training.
• Improved understanding of the long-term impact of the Covid-19 crisis on the transition from education to (vocational) training or from education and training to the labour market of young people across the EU, including through foresight.
• Informed policies and programmes aiming to help the transition from education to (vocational) training or from education and training to the labour market, including in the area of student and graduate international mobility.

Scope

Effective educational transitions, in particular participation and completion rates in upper secondary and tertiary education, are prominent in the European Education Area[1], which includes targets[2] on early school leaving and tertiary educational attainment. Promoting successful transitions from education to the labour market has been one of the core European Commission policy activities since the outburst of the Great Recession. The COVID-19 crisis has made educational and labour market transitions more challenging, especially for disadvantaged young people. This may lead to worsening inequalities, which could become persistent unless education and training policies and investments tackle them appropriately.

Proposals should use quantitative and qualitative methods to analyse transitions between educational levels (including between general education and vocational training) and/or between education/training and the labour market and improve the evidence base for policy decisions by addressing several interrelated research questions, such as: what are the determinants of participation and completion rates in upper secondary and tertiary education and how can they evolve in the post-COVID world? What are the implications of COVID-19 on learning mobility and on graduates’ labour market outcomes? How do education outcomes interact with sources of disadvantage in defining labour market outcomes of young people? How can vocational education and training institutions adapt to the future of education and work, including the digital transition? Proposals should also include the voice of young people and other relevant stakeholders as part of the data collection. Clustering and cooperation with other selected projects under this call and other relevant projects are strongly encouraged.

[1] https://education.ec.europa.eu/

[2] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=uriserv:OJ.C_.2021.066.01.0001.01.ENG