Research themes

The Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA) is a research institute of the Maastricht University School of Business and Economics, established in 1986. The overarching research theme of ROA relates to the changing demand for skills, the acquisition of skills over the life course and the utilization of skills. This focus is elaborated upon in ROA’s Research and Policy Plan.

ROA’s mission is to conduct high quality research that has a strong societal impact. Building on a strong position in academia, ROA aims to inform and inspire policymakers and academics, and thereby to contribute to both scientific research and public and organizations’ skills policies. ROA’s research programme is organised in four themes:

  1. Education and Transition to Work
  2. Health, Skills, and Inequality
  3. Labour Market and Training
  4. Human Capital in the Region

The first two themes focus on education and skills as point of departure and study the drivers and outcomes at the individual, organizational and societal level. The last two programs study the developments in skill supply and demand on the labor market and the interactions between the two at the national and regional level.

ROA is also the home base for Education Lab Netherlands, a research network working to improve education by ensuring that educational policy and practice is informed by scientific evidence (for more information, see https://education-lab.nl).

  • Education, Skills and Educational Transitions

    Program director: Prof. Dr. Carla Haelermans

    The Education, Skills and Educational Transitions programme of ROA aims to use a multidisciplinary lens to study how education can effectively contribute to the development of skills in education, and to the transitions within education and from education to the labour market.

    Within this research theme, three main topics can be identified:1) School careers, 2) Educational innovation and development, and 3) Transitions within education and towards the labour market. Each research project belonging to the Education, Skills and Educational Transitions programme of ROA is part of one (and sometimes more) of these topics. Furthermore, there are two overarching themes that are interacting with these topics and with each other, meaning that one or both of these overarching themes is represented in almost all projects that belong to this research programme. The first overarching theme is (in)equality in education and the second is the development of skills. There is a broad range of skills that belong to the development of skills. Think for example of (but not limited to) cognitive skills, non-cognitive skills (such as well-being and motivation), digital/AI skills, citizenship skills and life skills (‘bildung’).

    Important questions are: 

    • How should we organise education to effectively contribute to the development of a broad range of skills?
    • What are effective ways to develop a broad range of skills in education?
    • How can education effectively contribute to qualification acquisition (to participate in society as well as be prepared for the labour market)?
    • How can transitions in education and from education to the labour market be organised in an effective way?
    • What is the relation between the development of skills in education, transitions within education and to post-secondary education and the labour market, and (in)equality in education?

    We look at the transitions and skill development of (individuals in) education at different levels: the macro level (national education systems), the meso level (schools / classes), and the micro level (students), as well as the relationships between these levels. In doing so, we consider the complete educational chain as well as all levels separately, from primary education to (higher) vocational and university education.  Given the broader social context in which education is rooted, studying education, at any of these levels, in relation to themes as social (in)equality, globalisation, climate change and AI also becomes increasingly important.

    Research themes belonging to the Education, Skills and Educational Transitions Programme:

    • Educational performance and school careers
    • Development of skills in education
    • School performance and school quality
    • Transitions in education
    • Transition from education to the labour market
    • Educational innovations and development
    • Educational technology/AI
    • (In)equality of education

  • Health, Skills, and Inequality

    Program director: Prof. Dr. Mark Levels

    Purpose

    With this program we explore how Western countries can best prepare today’s youth and workers for tomorrow’s labour market and society. We study how the complex interplay of social background, cognitive and non-cognitive abilities, skills, capabilities, culture, and health explains observed inequalities in education and on the labour market. We assess how current societal and economic trends and technological innovations help to shape the labour markets of the future, study what the implications of these trends are for social inequalities, and assess how individuals, firms, and governments can best respond. We especially focus on some of the most vulnerable groups in Western societies: marginalized adolescents, NEETs, kids from socially disadvantaged families and neighbourhoods, low-skilled workers, older workers, unhealthy children, teens, immigrants.

    Important questions are:

    1. Which skills and capacities are essential for successful participation in society and on the labour market?
    2. To what extent do current technological revolutions affect social inequalities in successful participation in society and on the labour market, how, and why?
    3. How, at what time and under which circumstances are the relevant skills best learned?
    4. Which circumstances, capabilities, and lifestyle choices influence our capacity to learn, grow, and flourish?

    Research themes

    • Automation of work and future inequalities.
    • Acquisition of cognitive and non-cognitive skills.
    • Health, lifestyles, and social inequalities.
    • Vulnerable groups.

  • Labour Market and Training

    Program director: Prof. Dr. Didier Fouarge

    Purpose

    In both research and policy, there is a growing attention for the cognitive and non-cognitive skills that allow workers to perform their tasks at work in an optimal way. An important challenge is to better understand what drives the dynamics in the demand for and the supply of skills in relation to the growing flexibility of the labour market, the growing complexity of work, and internationalisation and automation that affect the nature of workers’ tasks.

    This program has three main themes:

    Labour market information, and occupational and recruitment choices

    • Technological development/innovation on expected demand for supply for skills in the medium term.
    • The educational choices of youngsters, and occupational sorting over life course.
    • Adjustments in labour supply over the career.
    • Changes in the workers’ tasks and how it affects the demand for skills.
    • Commonality of tasks between jobs and the transfer of skills across occupations.
    • Relation between work and wage dynamics.
    • recruitment.

    Lifelong learning and employability

    • Trends, determinants and effects of lifelong learning
    • Sustainable employability and reintegration of groups with a weak labour market position.
    • Effects of HRD and HRM for organization and employees at the organization and sector level.
    • Sustainable employability from a multidisciplinary perspective (change in tasks, skills, workload and health) and how this is anticipated or recovered.
    • Training policies and learning cultures in firms.
    • Impact of New Ways of Working.

    Older workers and retirement

    • Labour market for the elderly and retirement decisions.
    • Skills and retirement.
    • Employability of the low-skilled and the elderly.
    • Relation between skill obsolescence, training, employability, productivity. and labour participation.
    • Replacement processes in firms.

  • Human Capital in the Region

    Program director: Prof. Dr. Frank Cörvers

    Purpose

    Human capital investments made at the regional level are important to match labour supply and demand, and to stimulate labour force participation, productivity, innovation and growth. Many regional policy makers are challenged by:

    • A lacking responsiveness of the regional educational system to new economic and technological developments.
    • Demographic transitions in the form of increasing migration flows and population ageing, with a declining or more diverse inflow of young people joining the workforce.
    • An insufficient regional pool of up-to-date qualified and highly-able teachers.

    These challenges differ between central (‘Randstad’) regions on the one hand and peripheral (‘Randland’) regions on the other, with the latter often being border areas that are more prone to demographic shrinkage. Employers, schools, local governments and private and public employment services can improve the transition between (vocational) education and the labour market by cooperating at the regional level.

    Research themes

    • Regional push and pull factors with respect to working and living for people at the higher, intermediate and lower educational level in both the Randstad and Randland areas.
    • Geographic mobility of workers regarding commuting and internal and international migration.
    • Regional educational infrastructure of vocational schools and higher education institutes.
    • Impact of demographic transitions (shrinkage and growth, ageing, migration) on regional labour markets, including the teacher labour market.
    • Barriers for international and cross-border mobility, including differences in tax, pension and social security systems, inefficient diploma recognition, poor cross-border public transport and road connections, language and cultural differences.
    • Labour force participation of vulnerable groups at the regional and local level, such as migrants, low-skilled and disabled people.