Reform of Employment Services Research Network
Academic and practitioner interest in the reforms being undertaken in contemporary welfare states is growing rapidly. Nowhere is this more pronounced than in employment services where many OECD countries are currently searching for new ways to deliver services to unemployed citizens and others at risk of exclusion from the labour market.
The objective of this network is to develop and refine the comparative and theoretical study of employment service reforms in selected OECD-countries in terms of substance of employment policies as well as organisation and steering of public policy. The primary instruments of reformers are contracting out service delivery to for-profit and non-profit providers, decentralisation of the steering structure, including single gateways (or one stop shops), public-private partnerships, empowering service users vis-à-vis service providers, and introducing new management tools (like performance targets, performance related pay, and contractualism).
Numerous country-based studies have been undertaken in the past ten years and there is also a small but growing literature on the comparative dimensions of the reforms and their impacts upon clients, public services and non-government agencies involved in this sector.
While there are strong discipline-based associations at national and international level in fields such as labour market economics, political science, public administration, social policy and sociology, there are no established organizations or networks to support this area of multidisciplinary research.
A group of international renowned researchers under the name of Reform of Employment Services Quorum (RESQ) brings together key researchers from several of the countries engaged in such reforms to develop an international research network. The purpose of the network would be to:
- facilitate regular dialogue among researchers concerning contemporary practices in employment services in different countries in Europe as well as overseas
- encourage a deepening of analysis of the theoretical and practical significance of changes taking place in different national systems
- provide opportunities to compare methods of inquiry and different approaches to the study of these institutions and programs
- exchange data and insights concerning current transformations to facilitate improved comparative research on the impact of different instruments, programs and institutional arrangements
- provide a vehicle for the encouragement of early career researchers to enter this field
- establish a regular means by which researchers and practitioners working within national governments, international policy organizations (EU, OECD, ILO etc) and other stakeholders can contribute to, and learn from, improved scholarship in this field.
While the primary purpose of the network will be to improve academic research collaboration, the network is engaging in constructive knowledge transfer with the various industry associations in this sector.
Structure: about us
A Steering Group made up of representatives of various key centres of excellence in different countries has developed the network and secured funding for the meetings, including its program of annual events.
The Steering Group will undertake to
- seek funding from relevant national and international sources to support a program of meetings in the first three years [Thomas how do you want this described]
- devise themes and topics for the first meetings in 2008-9 at which participants may deliver papers on aspects of research in the field and plan future research activities
- establish a web-site through which other scholars may join the network, list papers and events and register interest in upcoming events
- create collaborative contacts with key institutional actors in this field so that the work of the network becomes well understood and supported.
The website is hosted by the University of Amsterdam. Consideration may be given at a later stage to the desirability of also:
- publishing a e-newsletter
- creating a working paper series, or
- running educational workshops.