This symposium draws on perspectives and findings from the FP6 Integrated Project ‘Towards a Lifelong Learning Society in Europe: The Contribution of the Education System’ (LLL2010). It addresses two linked questions: • How well-designed are European lifelong learning policies and practices to meet the challenges which global recession will place on the EU and its peoples? • What impact is recession likely to have on equity, cohesion and efficiency in lifelong learning? Over the period 2005-2010, LLL2010 explores the role of educational systems in promoting lifelong learning (LLL). Addressing macro, meso and micro levels, it explores structural factors, national policies, institutions and actors’ motivation and actions to analyse the historical, political, institutional, economic, individual and methodological factors related to participation in and access to LLL. Since the white paper "Teaching and Learning: Towards the Learning Society" (CEC 1995) the EU has become a major player in LLL. That paper claimed ‘the demise of the major ideological disputes on the objectives of education’: ‘everyone’, it asserted, was convinced education systems should focus on ‘employability and capacity for economic life’. This symposium questions whether this (assumed) consensus provides a satisfactory basis for policy in European LLL today. Since 1995, employment and competitiveness have always been central to EU LLL policies; but social inclusion, cohesion, citizenship, and language have formed significant sub-themes. Several authors (e.g., Mitchell 2006, Robertson 2007) see the Lisbon process since 2000, and particularly since the Kok Report (High Leve Group 2004), as strengthening the primacy of the economic, partly through technologies of targets, evaluation and measurement. LLL2010 research suggests economic concerns (rather than cohesion or citizenship) are particularly marked in countries formerly under Communist rule (Holford et al. 2008). As global recession gathers momentum, this symposium explores how European LLL policies and practices are faring. The symposium has two Sessions: (A) "Patterns of adult participation in Lifelong Learning" (4 papers); and Section (B) "The Role of SMEs in Adult Learning" (4 papers). Among the questions addressed are: • How far are the EU’s LLL policies, shaped in a period of relative global and European prosperity, adequate to meet the demands recession is placing on societies and economies? • What are the main patterns of participation in LLL across the EU, and what strengths and limitations might they have in the face of global recession? • How effectively are European SMEs contributing to LLL? How is recession affecting this?

The papers within this symposium draw on research extending over five years (2005-10) and examining policies, participation and strategies in thirteen countries: largely from the EU, but also Norway and Russia. The EU member states include long-standing members in north-western Europe (Belgium (Flanders), Ireland, the UK (England and Scotland)), as well as a range of Central and Eastern European countries which have joined since 1995 (Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Slovenia). The research reported here draws in particular on comparative policy analysis; on statistical analysis of datasets from the Adult Education Survey and the Labour Force Survey and of a large-scale stratified survey of 1000 learners conducted in each of the countries; and on case studies of SMEs in selected sectors of each country. Specific papers address different aspects of these questions, drawing on evidence from the LLL2010.

This symposium provides an opportunity for researchers and policy-makers to reflect on the impact of current economic conditions on lifelong learning (LLL) in Europe; and on the capacity of LLL to provide effective policy responses. Building on findings published in Holford et al. (2008), and elsewhere, particular attention will be given to the likely impact of recession on equity and social justice in LLL, and on the role of LLL in improving economic efficiency and competitiveness. The LLL2010 project’s exploration of tensions between the knowledge-based society, LLL, and social inclusion in the context of enlargement of the EU and globalisation, and its analysis of the adequacy of LLL policies in Europe and their implications for different social groups, especially the socially excluded, give a strong empirical basis for discussion of the role of LLL in the recession.