The management of change within complex systems is a key challenge to educational policy-makers, yet the dynamics of innovation in education remain to be fully understood. Thus far, limited comparative analytical attention has been devoted to the policies related to educational innovation, the knowledge-base on which they draw, and their effectiveness. Moreover, the analysis of innovation from a systemic perspective has been very limited in the field of VET. Building on past work of the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) on educational innovation and R&D and in parallel with ongoing work on innovation, CERI work on Systemic Innovation in Vocational Education and Training analyses innovation systems and strategies in VET by focusing on six countries: Australia, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Mexico and Switzerland. All participating countries proposed two or three case studies of recently implemented systemic innovations in the area of VET. For this context, systemic innovation was defined as any type of dynamic system-wide change intended to add value to educational processes. This study analyses innovation systems and innovation strategies in VET by gathering evidence of the drivers for systemic innovation. Particular attention is paid to how participating countries go about initiating innovation, processes involved and the relationships between main actors, the knowledge base which is drawn upon, and the procedures and criteria for assessing progress and outcomes. The systemic approach to innovation applied to VET can provide good insights for a broader perspective of innovation systems and policies in education and a basis for further research in this area, especially regarding the connections between research evidence and innovation in education. Work on systemic innovation in the VET sector offers major opportunities to investigate: competing conceptions on innovation in VET; dynamics of innovation in VET from a knowledge management perspective; and how innovation policies in VET are designed from the perspective of evidence-based policy research.

This study analyses innovation systems and strategies in VET by bringing together evidence of the drivers for systemic innovation in six different countries. All participating countries put forward two or three ‘case studies’ of recently implemented systemic innovations in the area of VET. An analysis of cross-cutting themes emerging from all country studies allowed for the analysis of the process of innovation and the identification of system drivers and barriers in the initation, implementation and evaluation of innovation.

In-progress