The green transition and technological change are reshaping European labour markets. Automation is reducing routine and low-skilled work, while demand is growing for highly qualified workers with competences combining theoretical understanding and practical problem-solving (European Commission, 2023; Cedefop, 2025). Employers increasingly seek graduates who can apply knowledge flexibly in real settings (European Commission DG EAC, 2024). Against this backdrop, linear education pathways often don't provide sufficiently smooth transitions across sectors. Integrative training models that link vocational education and training (VET), higher education (HE), and company-based learning are therefore gaining attention. These models aim to reduce fragmentation and increase permeability across levels and sectors, supporting learner mobility and employability (Cedefop, 2022; Bjørnåvold & Pouliou, 2023).

Although the German education system remains sharply divided between vocational and general education, dual study programmes and vocational academies have become established routes for bridging this divide and enhancing the appeal of VET (cf. Wolter, 2019; Mordhorst & Jennert, 2023). In recent years, it has tested and expanded formats (e.g. apprenticeship-integrating dual HE programs and the HE-integrating apprenticeship) that explicitly combine VET, HE, and workplace learning, and innovation and transfer initiatives such as InnoVET (cf. Euler & Severing, 2017; Ertl, 2020). Hungary, under different institutional conditions, has also reformed VET to strengthen links between vocational and academic tracks and to increase labour-market relevance and cooperation with industry, particularly through the 2019 VET reform (Act LXXX of 2019; Ministry of Innovation and Technology, 2019). In both countries, stronger VET-HE-company collaboration is expected to reduce skills mismatches, improve employability, and support innovation.

Despite these shared aims and the continued importance of apprenticeship-based training, the institutional settings in which skills matching and recruitment pressures are addressed differ substantially (cf. Cedefop, 2023; Euler, 2023). In Hungary, demographic decline coincides with a reform trajectory marked by strong central steering and governance consolidation, alongside selective adoption of dual-training elements often associated with Germany (cf. Cedefop & ReferNet, 2024). Germany, by contrast, has pursued incremental development by combining the dual system with hybrid progression routes and programme-based innovation and transfer initiatives (cf. Cedefop, 2020; Ertl, 2020). These differences point to policy transfer without simple convergence and provide a strong basis for examining how multi-actor collaboration is organised to meet changing labour-market demands (cf. Ciantar, 2025).

In the initial phase of the study, this paper aims to explore how Germany and Hungary promote collaboration between education sectors and industry at the national policy level. By examining and comparing the regulatory frameworks, governance arrangements, institutional configurations, and financing mechanisms underpinning the tripartite collaboration of VET, HE, and companies, this study reveals differences in institutionalization and governance of the integrative VET-HE-Companies models between the two countries.

The analytical approach is grounded in the three-perspective model for international VET comparison developed by Cedefop (2023). The study conceptualises “integrative VET-HE-Companies models” as institutionalised coordination arrangements that link educational provision with labour-market participation and progression into HE through stable rules, actor relations, and resource commitments. Drawing on the Education System and Socioeconomic perspectives, institutionalisation is operationalised through: national VET aims and quality values; the organisation of VET and HE at programme and institutional levels; governance and coordination across education and work; provider autonomy within national standards; outcomes and access rights to occupations and further education; quality assurance arrangements; and the financing mechanisms for sustaining integration. Within this framework, integration is treated as a governance achievement that can vary across systems. To interpret cross-national differences, the study also draws on perspectives from historical institutionalism and collective skill formation, which explain how similar goals can lead to different institutional arrangements under corporatist versus state-led governance (Busemeyer & Trampusch, 2012).

The study adopts an exploratory, comparative case study design, analysing Germany and Hungary as two distinct national cases. The methodology is centered on a qualitative document analysis, employing a structured yet flexible thematic analysis approach (Braun & Clarke, 2021; Kuckartz, 2013). The thematic analysis framework was applied to the document corpus, which comprises national legislation, strategic policy documents, and relevant international reports. The primary coding structure was deductively derived from the predefined analytical dimensions of the Cedefop model (2023). This structured coding was supplemented by open coding to capture emergent themes and nuances not anticipated by the initial framework, ensuring both theoretical grounding and empirical responsiveness. Country selection was guided by a combination of purposive and convenience sampling. The purposive rationale is grounded in the two cases shared institutional characteristics -specifically, their commitment to dual-system initial VET (Cedefop, 2023) - as well as comparable enrolment challenges (Cedefop, 2025) and aligned socioeconomic policy goals for VET development (e.g., Euler, 2023; Ministry of Innovation and Technology, 2019). Furthermore, the pairing addresses a gap in recent comparative literature on these two systems.

This research provides an initial comparative analysis of how Germany and Hungary institutionalise and govern integrative models that combine VET, HE and industries. The findings reveal that while both systems strive to realise the core education system aims of effective skills matching, adequate learner provision, and individual career capability development, they pursue these objectives through distinct institutional logics and governance structures. The principal difference lies in their foundational integrative paradigm. Germany operates a model of differentiated coordination. It maintains strong, historically distinct institutional spheres - the dual apprenticeship, the school-based VET, and the academic HE. Integration is achieved not by merging these spheres but by creating carefully constructed, legally defined hybrid interfaces (e.g., duales Studium) and regulated sequential pathways between them. Governance is characterised by decentralised corporatist coordination, where the state sets the framework but delegates substantial co-decision authority to social partners, resulting in a complex, multi-pillar system of shared responsibility and funding. Conversely, Hungary exemplifies a model of unified integration. It seeks to build a coherent, prestigious VET pillar where general education, VET, and HE preparation are pedagogically and administratively combined within institutional programmes (e.g., okleveles technikusképzés) from the outset. The governance model is of a centralised nature, with the government assuming a directive role through the implementation of unified administrative and quality assurance framework. The utilisation of economic actors is primarily limited to their role as executive partners, although they participate in central decision making to some extent (e.g. ÁKK, SZIT). Thus, integration governs the main VET structure, rather than a supplementary bridge between separate sub-systems. The preliminary findings of this comparative analysis highlight the absence of a single path to effective skills ecosystems, emphasising nationally distinct configurations for mediating the nexus between vocational training, work, and higher education.

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