It has long been recognised that Europe is facing a number of socio-economic and demographic challenges. Increasing globalisation, rapid technological change, an ageing population, improving the level of education; increasing social and labour risks and the demands of a more knowledge- and skills-intensive European labour market, have resulted in the need to provide adults with opportunities to increase their skill levels in order to meet these challenges [European Commission (EC) 2010a]. These societal transformations in the EU have produced substantial changes in the perception of education and training and its interrelation with other socio-economic policies. The continuous participation of the citizen in education and training is seen as key to assure quality of life and work. It has become a component of active labour market policies in order to transform the European social model to a more dynamic version which avoids the incidence of social need through ‘proactive social investments’. This strategy advocates a market-oriented approach, reinforcing the link between social rights and social obligations, and fostering social inclusion through active participation in the labour market.

More recently, the Transitional Labour Market approach (TLM) emerged as an alternative to these activation policies. This approach links social risk management in transitional work periods with concepts of social equity dating back to Rawls, Dworkin and Sen. TLM stresses the role of public institutions in managing situations of social risk, promoting proactive, flexible public engagement to forestall individual social risk, and reinforcing the qualitative dimension of labour market policies in contrast to a reliance on mere quantitative results. TLM thus provides a framework to identify specific social risk situations (transitions) and ways to provide appropriate measures aimed at mitigating the negative impacts of life changes.

This suggests that in involuntary transitional periods, citizens should be able to rely on different forms of institutional support, for instance direct financial support or the funding and organising of Lifelong Learning (LLL) activities. However, in this report only institutionally supported formal LLL activities with a clear labour market orientation are considered to be relevant to transitional labour markets. In particular, university programmes for adult learners have a considerable potential as institutional support to manage life and labour market transitions. The TLM approach can thus be seen as an effective ‘social bridge’ that prevents individuals from (transitional) social exclusion and as a means to increase the probability that, for example, nonstandard jobs become ‘stepping stones’ to sustainable job careers [Räisänen & Schmid, 2008].

In the THEMP Project, we distinguish between social danger, social risk and individual risk. The difference between risk and danger is the degree of knowledge of the possibility that certain events may occur. Social vulnerability, on the other hand, is a measure of individual responsiveness – in short whether it is limited to acting preventatively in responsive mode, or whether there is the capacity to react in advance of the risk situation. In other words, citizens’ vulnerability is assumed to grow in relation to the limits of their capacity for action. Without denying the self-responsibility of citizens, a ‘bounded knowledge’ of social-economic developments limits the citizens’ ability to avert labour market upheavals. Further, limited action capacity restricts their possibility to avoid (or stimulate) undesired (or desired) labour situations, to act proactively and to react in advance of potential negative events.

As a strategy to measure the efficiency of Tertiary Lifelong Learning (TLLL) programmes beyond access to jobs, and to insert a more life-wide perspective, TLM suggests a link to theories of social justice. Such theories have been recently expanded and developed under the heading of the ‘capability approach’. This perspective, especially in Sen’s articulation, allows the measurement of the quality of social insurance programmes beyond the rates of active participation or employment and focuses on the quality of work and life. It starts from the premise that each individual has a set of capabilities (individual agency) and objectives regarding their quality of life (functionings), which should be considered in the design of planned futures. Resources are not aims per se, but a means to achieve a (subjectively defined) better quality of life.

One main area to obtain resources is the labour market, but one’s position in the labour market depends on the outcomes obtained during the course of diverse formal, informal and non-formal learning processes. TLLL aims to improve the qualifications of learners, providing them with new knowledge to support intellectual development and to facilitate new social relations. However, seen through a labour market lens, achieved learning outcomes must be converted in capital. This requires its recognition as having value in appropriate labour market segments: learning outcomes must be converted to human, cultural and social capital. This is a complex process of social bargaining in the specific labour market fields. Such TLLL-acquired capital can either open or restrict opportunities for professional development, for facing critical life transitions in an age of TLMs and for achieving new levels of well-being.

We thus use the well-known notion of ‘capital’ to measure the social efficiency of TLLL for learners in mid-life within the overall analytical framework provided by TLM theory. Each labour market segment is conceived as a social field determining which learning results are convertible to capital and what is the value of the capital stock of each individual, so defining their positions in the labour market and their occupational opportunities. The labour market position of citizens, and their occupational opportunities, depends upon their capital stock and its valuation in the labour market segments. There is a complex interrelation between capital accumulation, capability development, learning outcome and quality of life in a given socioeconomic context.

Based on this coherent theoretical frame, the THEMP project analysed adult education programmes at universities with a high participation rate of persons older than 45 years old. THEMP focused on this specific group of persons because they are more and more exposed to social and labour market exclusion; and because their inclusion in lifelong learning programs is still an open question in the strategy of the European Union.

The project also focused on a specific level of lifelong learning – tertiary lifelong learning or tertiary adult education – believing that people holding such a certificate will be more and more relevant for the dynamics of the global economy. For instance, the new ‘Europe 2020’ strategy of the European Union established the aim to increase the number of people with higher education to 40% in the age group between 25 and 35 years. In other words, the EU promotes a greater generalisation of higher education. It thus seems thus realistic to hypothesise a) that the role of the universities and other higher education institutions as promoters of lifelong learning programmes will increase in the next years; and b) that the labour market relevance of university lifelong learning programmes will also increase.

THEMP proposes an analysis of lifelong learning programmes of universities with a high participation rate of persons older than 45 years. THEMP gives special attention to periods of labour transition i.e. changes of the work place in the same enterprise or between enterprises, and also to the adaptation to changes in the actual work environment and to re-entry into the labour market after a period of unemployment.

Using a multiple case study approach [see Mariani & Krüger 2013], the project analysed tertiary lifelong programmes at Universities in seven EU member states (Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and United Kingdom). Initially, the national landscapes of tertiary lifelong learning were described (desk research) and documented in a series of discussion documents to which a transnational report in the form of an e-book was added. The case studies were then documented in individual case study reports including recommendations presented to, and discussed with, the persons responsible for the analysed tertiary lifelong learning programmes. These case study reports were also discussed between the project members, but not presented on the project website, as they were considered to be confidential documents.

The case studies formed the basis for the development of national reports on university adult education and thematic summary reports on (i) the structural and (ii) the teaching & learning aspects that would address the social effectiveness of these programmes. The national thematic reports allowed us to compile comparative reports on both these topics.

The findings of the case studies and the comparative reports were inputs for two mutual learning seminars. Both seminars were conceived as spaces to bring together the practitioners from the studied programmes, so that they could interchange experience, and this would enable us to contrast our approach and research findings with the opinion and experience of these practitioners.

The thematic reports were published as working papers. The national reports and the draft of the thematic comparative reports were published as discussion papers. In accordance with the opinion of the practitioners, the final reports of the comparative reports on ‘social inclusion’ and ‘teaching & learning’ were elaborated and published as e-books.

Based on this rich material, a report titled ‘Core Conditions’ was composed. It is a resumé of the whole project, also introducing the findings of other European projects working in the same field. These projects have been identified in the course of the constant up-dating of the dissemination strategy. Representatives of some of these projects were invited to the THEMPconference held in November 2013. The conference was not only conceived to present the results of the THEMP-project to a wider audience, but also to stimulate a wider discussion between experts and practitioners in the field of university adult education and labour market policies. With this objective, three experts in labour market policies, the social benefits of education and teaching & learning were invited as keynote speakers to the conference. Their speeches together with three presentations of project results are available at Youtube.

In general, the project has developed an intense dissemination strategy. On the one hand agreements have been made with the ‘PASCAL-Observatory’ and the Spanish portal for social science ‘Geocrit’ to publish the discussion papers and e-books. But the main task is to connect to projects and initiatives in the fields of lifelong learning, higher education and socialeconomic policies at regional, national and international level. The objective was to insert the project results into the on-going discussions on lifelong learning, adult learning and socioeconomic policies at different levels, and to create synergy. The major articulation of this strategy has been the Final Conference of our project.

Returning to the report on Core Conditions, this tries to provide answers to the core questions of the project:

a) What is the role of the university in those lifelong learning policies which aim to achieve social effectiveness in terms of access to jobs and quality of work? b) What are the core conditions that enable university adult education programmes to achieve social effectiveness?

The analysis of the structural and teaching and learning aspects of tertiary lifelong learning demonstrates a high level of heterogeneity amongst the case studies: This made it difficult to formulate recommendations for European policies in the field that would add to the statements expressed in numerous documents published by the Commission. The need is for a) a clear statement of whether lifelong learning is part of the education mission of the universities or not; and b) in the case of a positive response to this, a clear analysis of the opportunities for, and obstacles to, adult education at each university.

The revision of the national landscape in the previously mentioned seven EU-member states, and the results of the case studies indicates that the universities in these countries have not accepted adult education as part of their education mission, nor as a component of their third mission.

The EU purportedly conceives higher education as a crucial factor for economic and social development. Promoting higher education as a key factor of employment and economic policy would include the changes in the labour market for those people with higher education certificates that may no longer be viable. In the past, higher education institutions have provided education mainly for people who work in public administration, in the academic system including non-university public research institutions, in the health system (medicals) and in the legal system. But these environments have changed in the last decades and so must the mission of Higher Education. In other words, higher education systems are required to strengthen the vocational aspects of their curricula. The significance of education and training, including higher education, as elements of employment and economic policy implies the risk of having a more limited perspective on the social function of education and training. Yet, in the longer term, education and training is per se a crucial constituent of social, cultural and economic development. When education and training becomes an element of employment and economic strategies, the focus tends to be on short and mid-term development, disregarding its contribution to societal development. In general, such a strategy ignores the different logics of education and economic systems. Both systems, formal higher education and the labour market, operate in different cycles, making it difficult to coordinate. Under this premise, tertiary adult education seems to be an instrument for adapting higher education, especially university education, in a flexible way to labour market requirements, and for updating the respective knowledge, skills and competences of learners as well as their certification¹.

This requires intensifying the relationship with enterprises and other stakeholders. Universities must create new forms of cooperation in learning networks, with the aim a) to design appropriate programmes for adult learners with professional experience, b) to develop tools and techniques for detecting learning needs and labour market needs, c) to assess and evaluate the  social effectiveness of their programmes not only in terms of employability but also in terms of the quality of work and life; and d) to provide the learners and other interested parties with valuable information from which decisions on the most appropriate learning programme on the risks and benefits of social investment can be taken.

Within the labour market perspective, lifelong learning has the capacity to support the labour market transitions of learners, and the reduction of their social risks of exclusion with its accompanying loss of work and life quality. In the real world, this means helping learners to find appropriate learning opportunities in order to enhance learning trajectory decisions in accordance with their work and life objectives. This includes information on labour market opportunities and the financial and time investment they must make to take advantage of them. And it also entails the constant up-dating of the learning programmes to meet external requirements.

Complementing the concept of continuous training, lifelong learning also questions the traditional boundaries of the education systems. Higher education has always been a component of a whole life learning process, but traditionally it is framed in a specific life period as a third education and training transition stage between secondary school and the labour market. Once completed, the learner will never be required to return to the university as a learner. But the lifelong learning approach puts in question this traditional concept of higher education. It implies greater continuity in the ‘traditional study programmes’, and constant re-entry and updating of learners through university adult learning programmes. ‘Traditional study programmes’ and ‘adult learning programmes’ should together be considered part of the educational mission of the universities. Our case studies have shown a high heterogeneity in the ways that the universities are handling this issue. At one extreme there are universities which do not consider adult education to be part of their core mission and at the other extreme there are universities who see adult education as a major competitive factor in the higher education system.

For this reason it is impossible to establish general core conditions for the social effectiveness of university adult learning. But one result of our empirical research is that in many universities there is a lack of a coherent strategy based on social costs and benefits. For this reason, we propose a flexible model of social business planning for a) the institutional approach and b) the individual programmes within the classification scheme we have presented above. For the balance between social cost and benefits we also propose to integrate a series of modular questionnaires into the institutional procedures which measure the social benefits using as an instrument to measure the quality of work which the learners have assigned to their participation in lifelong learning.

A more detailed project description, as well as the discussion papers, e-books and other products, can be consulted at the project web site: www.themp.eu.

 ¹ This is problematic and again ignores the social justice and empowerment potential of higher education