Three major conferences related to VET and HRD research will be held in 2009. In addition to the annual events ECER/VETNET and "HRD Research and Practice Across Europe", the bi-annual conference "Researching Work and Learning (RWL)" will take place in Europe next year. While each conference has its individual profile, there is considerable common ground in their thematic strands. You can find a comparative overview on the WIFO page below:

Thematic strands of VET and HRD related research conferences:
http://www.b.shuttle.de/wifo/vet/strands.htm

In the following notes, the three conferences are briefly presented in chronological order:

HRD Conference
The 10th International Conference on HRD Research and Practice Across Europe will be held at Newcastle upon Tyne (UK) from 10 to 12 June 2009. The programme, focusing on the theme "HRD: Complexity and Imperfection in Practice", involves ten thematic streams and a Doctoral Workshop. The deadline for abstracts and proposals is 16 January 2009. More details will soon be available on the conference website (http://www.newcastlebusinessschool.co.uk/hrd.aspx).
Further information on HRD research and practice, including previous conference papers, can be obtained from the home page of the University Forum for HRD (http://www.ufhrd.co.uk/).

RWL6
The University of Roskilde (Denmark) will host the 6th International Conference on Researching Work and Learning, from 28 June to 1 July 2009. All potential contributors are encouraged to submit proposals, preferably for a symposium of their choice or for the open paper section, the deadline being 15 December 2008. Brief outlines of the 14 symposia on offer, and further information on the conference, are provided on the website (http://rwl6.ruc.dk/). Alongside the general call, the following special announcements for individual symposia have been received:

# Integrating workplace learning and institutional learning (symposium 2)
Organisers: Pernille Bottrup and Bruno Clematide, Kubix Consultants, Copenhagen.

# Vocational Education and Training - New models of apprenticeship (symposium 6)
Organisers: Christian Helms Jørgensen, Roskilde University;  Philipp Gonon, University of Zurich;  Lorna Unwin, London School of Education.

ECER/ VETNET
The European Conference on Educational Research, including the programme of the European Research Network in Vocational Education and Training, will take place at the University of Vienna, 28-30 September 2009, addressing the theme "Theory and Evidence in European Educational Research". The call for proposals and further details are available on the conference website (http://ecer2009.univie.ac.at/). The deadline for submitting proposals and abstracts is 1 February 2009.
The specific objectives and thematic keywords of VETNET can be looked up on the network page of the European Educational Research Association  (http://www.eera-ecer.eu/networks/network2/). The VETNET programme within ECER will appear on its home page in the course of 2009 (http://www.vet-research.net/). This website also offers full information on the previous ECER VETNET programmes, alongside the proceedings and index of papers (1998 to 2008) published on the WIFO site  (www.ecer-vetnet.wifo-gate.org).

Information on further European and international conferences can be obtained from the WIFO page (www.conferences.wifo-gate.org), including major annual events (VET and culture, adult learning and lifelong learning) and the first interdisciplinary congress on research in VET ("Effectiveness of Learning and Efficiency in VET Systems") held in Switzerland. Your updates on events for this page are welcome at any time!

Kind regards
Sabine Manning