Comparative research on VET in Europe has taken on a new dimension as a result of the enlargements of the European Union and increased educational cooperation since the mid-1990s (Clarke, Westerhuis, & Winch, 2021). Especially due to the accession of Central and Eastern European countries to the European Union, the variety of systems to be considered as well as the intensity of research has increased massively in the last two decades (Tūtlys, Markowitsch, Pavlin, & Winterton, 2022). To manage this increasing complexity various VET typologies have been developed (for excellent overviews see for instance Rageth and Renold (2017), Gonon (2016) or Bosch (2016)). However, putting national VET systems into prefabricated boxes runs the risk of overlooking national specificities of VET and of reproducing cultural prejudices. Apart from that, many typologies focus on a very limited set of dimensions of comparison. More open systems for the analysis or descriptions of countries’ VET systems tend to be the exception. The paper presents a new framework for comparing VET building on previous conceptual frameworks in particular on works by Moodie (2008); Rojewski (2009) and Billett (2011) and uses design principles of the ‘morphological analysis’ (Zwicky, 1969). The framework has been developed jointly by an interdisciplinary group of VET researchers over a seven-year period as part of Cedefop's research on the future of VET. It essentially consists of 50 dimensions to analyse VET systems, as well as parts of them, structured according to three overlapping main perspectives: an epistemological and pedagogical perspective, an education system perspective, and a socio-economic or labour market perspective. It is expected that the research paper presenting the framework will be published in spring 2023. The presentation will focus on the methodological principles of the framework, illustrate various applications and provide an outlook on a possible new theory of comparative VET research.

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