The high number of events is a result of there being four areas of European cooperation in the jurisdiction of the MEYS – education, research and development, youth and sport. Because of the participation of ministers of the member states, the events on the highest level are informal sessions of the Council of Ministers of the EU, namely in two formations – Ministers of Education and Ministers for Competitiveness. However, in terms of the possibilities to implement ministerial and national priorities, two further conferences are the most important here.
Conference on Partnership between Educational Institutions and Employers
The Conference on Partnership between Educational Institutions and Employers is one of the most important events that will be organised by the MEYS during the Presidency. The participants from the ranks of experts from education, European bodies and representatives of employer and entrepreneurial organisations will deal with not only the partnership of schools and employers as such but also the related areas. In the lectures and workshops, contributions will thus be heard on the requirements of employers on the graduates, on student scholarships, support for entrepreneurial thinking already from the primary levels of education, on motivational aspects, recognition of the results of learning and on the functioning of the frameworks of qualifications from the employer’s perspective. Special attention will be paid to the development of key competencies and abilities.
The theme of partnership is tied to our homonymous national priority of the Czech Republic in the area of education. By means of this conference, we hope to promote the theme of partnership on the European level and interconnect it with the already existent initiatives which the EU has begun in this direction (e.g. the European Forum on Cooperation between Higher Education and the Business Community). Our aim is for the results of the conference to contribute in a significant way to formulating the conclusions of the Council of Ministers of the EU for education, youth and culture on the partnership of schools and companies which will be adopted during the Czech Presidency.
Conference on Strengthening the European Research Area through the Influence of the Research Infrastructures
The large infrastructures of research have been situated in the large founding states of the EU up to now and probably will continue to be so in the near future. The large infrastructure of research is a natural knowledge triangle, thus contributing to the stabilisation and development of human resources in research, to the development of cooperation between the academic and industrial spheres, and in this way to the increasing of the competiveness of the areas where it is located. The conference, focused on the regional and interregional aspects of this issue, will study the possibilities by which the disharmonious development of Europe could be eliminated.
The European Research Area (ERA) without barriers cannot be founded on a model of Europe where the rich, large states are unwilling to surrender their leading positions and consider the specific advantages of the small and new member states. The ESFRI working group for regional issues, which has been led this year by a representative of the CR, has prepared the Report on the State of the Research Infrastructures in the NMSs and their integration into Europe’s so-called metaregions. This report will serve as a programme document on the priority of the ERA research without barriers – large research infrastructures.
