News
Regional Workshop on the Baltic States
The workshop aims to discuss the impact of automation technologies on the labour markets in the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), and to highlight policies in the region that have been designed to stimulate innovation and inclusion on the labour markets. Specifically, the project team would like to focus on three policy areas during the workshop:
Call for Papers: CESifo Venice Summer Institute 2023
There are worse things in life than decamping to a leafy island right across the water from San Marco in Venice. And if you can check the “work” box for it, well, that much better. SPRU and Pillars will be holding a workshop at the famed lagoon town in June 2023, devoted to combining different disciplinary approaches to tackle the effects that technological change will have on the future of work, instead of letting each discipline toil away on its own silo.
Spotlight: Francesco Trentini - A Pillar of Society
Francesco Trentini didn’t home in onto economics right away. His interest in the study of society led him to enroll in 2008 for a bachelor in Economics and Social Sciences at Milan’s Bocconi University, where he initially went for sociology and demography. His first thesis was on norms in cohabitation patterns in Europe.
Christina Langer presented her research at Stanford Digital Economy Lab
Christina Langer has been invited to share her research about the German apprenticeship “The Value of Skills: New Evidence from Apprenticeship Plans” at the Seminar Series of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab.
Check out her talk here:
Policy Debate of the Hour
Pillars researchers were granted the honour to contribute to the first 'Policy Debate of the Hour" in the new issue of the EconPol Forum (formerly CESifo Forum) on European Labor Markets.
Brussels Pillars-EconPol Conference Report
Check out the report that recaps the Pillars-EconPol conference held in Brussels last July.
New Kid on the Block
The Pillars Scientific Advisory Council has gained in Bledi Taska a new member whose credentials and expertise are a perfect fit to help guide Pillars’ course towards inclusive labor markets.
Spotlight: Promoting Young Scholars Ekaterina Prytkova
When economists don’t talk to technology specialists, or vice-versa, the results can range from commercially disappointing to downright disastrous. Think of overengineered cars or planes that flopped in the marketplace, or of recent tragic failures in aircraft safety when bean counters prevailed over engineers.
Spotlight: Promoting Young Scholars Giulio Vannelli
Since he decided to go into Economics, Giulio Vannelli always had globalisation in his mind, in particular its core element, global value chains. That’s what he devoted his PhD thesis to, at the University of Trento last year, examining “Economic development in a globalised world: the role of Global Value Chains”. The Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research, honoured him with a PhD scholarship to this end.
1st Pillars Conference "Education, Skills and Worker Retraining"
Until just a few decades back you could count on the education you got in college seeing you all the way to retirement. Now, you have to reinvent yourself professionally several times during your working life just to stay current. Lifelong learning is the name of the game, and training and re-skilling the tools of choice.
Delphi Survey on Future Trends in Automation Technologies
PILLARS will run a global Delphi survey to gather different views on the future trends in emerging automation technologies, the industries that will adopt them and the tasks they will perform. To that purpose, we want to hear from technology experts in business, workers’ associations, inventors, researchers, and civil society organizations.
Spotlight: Promoting Young Scholars Ana Oliveira
Ana Oliveira joined the Pillars Team at UNU-MERIT in February 2022. Get to know her.
Conference on Education, Skills, and Worker Retraining
We are pleased to announce the 1st PILLARS Conference on Education, Skills, and Worker Retraining on Thursday 17 and Friday 18 February 2022.
Please note that due to the current Covid situation the conference will run in an online format and the dates have been changed to Thursday 17 and Friday 18 February 2022.
Spotlight: Promoting Young Scholars Christina Langer
One of the things PILLARS takes pride in is in promoting young talent. This month the spotlight is on Christina Langer, a scholar at the Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt.
Fast-Five with PILLARS Coordinator Oliver Falck
PILLARS coordinator, Oliver Falck, explains what prompted the creation of yet another labour market think-tank.
Given the many think-tanks and research organisations devoted to labour, why Pillars? What is the rationale behind its creation?
Video Introduction of PILLARS
The main objective of the Horizon2020 project PILLARS is to provide policy makers and the public with information about what kind of (new) skills will be in demand and how to revise education and training systems to create the opportunities to acquire them. See Prof Oliver Falck and Prof Maria Savona explain how we are doing that in this introduction video.
Join the Expert Group on Future Technologies, Skills and Inclusive Labour Markets of the PILLARS project!
What is the Expert Group on Future Technologies, Skills and Inclusive Labour Markets? It is YOUR opportunity to engage with key policy makers in the government, academia, industry and civil society sectors, as well as, with the PILLARS project team to support the development of inclusive and evidence-based labour market policies.
Where PILLARS comes in...
Technological progress is influencing the way we live and work. Labour markets will adapt and demand new skills. New jobs will evolve, while others are likely to disappear. Three main factors have dominated European labour markets in recent decades and are likely to continue to influence them in the future: technological change, international trade and industrial transformation. However, it is not yet clear how exactly such advances will transform our labour markets. This is where PILLARS comes in. The first phase of the project is centred around taking stock.
PILLARS Kick-off meeting!
And we have started! On the 1st and 2nd of February 2021 all PILLARS project partners met online to officially start this three-year Horizon2020 project. After a few welcoming words of Oliver Falck (ifo Institute), Kerstin Wilde (EU REA) started the day with a short presentation.
