This overview highlights major patterns of national and regional involvement in the ECER VETNET Proceedings.The papers of the whole period are broken down according to the country and region to which the author (or first author of a team) belongs (place of work).

    The first map below shows the distribution of papers according to the authors' region, both for the total period of 12 years and for two selected phases, contrasting the initial phase (1998/1999) with the present phase (2008/2009). The inclusion of countries in European regions can be looked up in the second map. 

    Papers by region of author (in per cent of total papers) 

    Pattern of regional distribution [percentage of papers: total period; initial phase > present phase]:

    C
    Central Eastern Europe
    [7; 2>3]
    N
    Northern Europe
    [20; 23>20]
    S
    Southern Europe
    [6; 9>2]
    W
    Western Europe
    [59; 52>68]
    E
    European institutions
    [2; 0>4]
    O
    Outside Europe
    [6; 14>4]
    Total period (1998 to 2009):
    C
    N
    S
    W
    E
    O
    Initial phase (1998/1999):
    C
    N
    S
    W
    O
    Present phase (2008/2009):
    C
    N
    S
    W
    E
    O

    In the regional distribution presented above, the papers from Western Europe clearly dominate, followed by those from Northern Europe. Papers from Central-Eastern and Southern Europe, on the other hand, are in the minority. And not only that - their proportion of the total papers has even decreased during the 12-year period. There was only a temporary rise in the number of papers from Central-Eastern Europe (2005, 2007) due to special support for participants (Cedefop-sponsored session). This persistent disproportion between North-West and South-East reflected in the ECER Proceedings perhaps merits more attention. Also worth noting is the declining proportion of papers submitted from countries outside Europe - contrary to overall trends of sharing knowledge world-wide!

    The second map presents the number of papers submitted from the individual European countries, grouped by region.

    Papers by country of author (number of papers) 

     
    DK
    FI
    NO
    SE
    		      
                 
    AT
    BE
    CH
    		  
    BG
    CZ
    EE
    DE
    FR
     IE
    		  
    HU
    LT
    RO
    NL
    UK
    		    
    SI
    		    
                 
    ES
    GR
    IT
    PT
    		  
    		 
      Number of papers
    I
    		  1-4
    I
    		  5-9
    I
    		  10-19
    I
    		  20-39
    I
    		  40-79
     
    Number of papers by country of author: AT 17, BE 4, BG 2, CH 5, CZ 7, DE 69, DK 10, EE 4, ES 16, EU 6, FI 48, FR 22, GR 2, HU 6, IE 5, IT 5, LT 7, NL 33, NO 7, PT 1, RO 1, SE 15, SI 1, UK 76

    As could be expected, the countries with high numbers of papers are found exclusively in the Northern and Western regions, while countries with small numbers of papers are typical of the Central-Eastern and Southern regions. 
       What should also be noted is the absence of several countries belonging to the Central-Eastern and Southern regions, among these even large ones like Poland. The small or missing representation of these countries in the Proceedings should however not be taken to  indicate a lack of research activity - there is in fact interesting evidence of national VET and HRD research across these countries (see Overview of VET and HRD research in EU countries). 
       Finally, there is a fairly heterogeneous group of countries at the top: contrasting in both size of population (Finland/ Netherlands - Germany) and use of language (France - UK). What many authors from these countries share, however, is a strong involvement in European projects and networks.


    © WIFO
    Set up: 8/12/2009
    Last update: 17/12/2009

    [Back to all Proceedings] [Index author] [Back to index country] [Index keyword]  [Top of the page]