Research Network 2: Workplace Learning
Network Coordinator:
Professor Karen Evans is Emeritus Professor of Education at UCL Institute of Education (University College London). She has held professorships and academic leadership positions in the University of London and the University of Surrey, where she directed the Postgraduate Centre for Professional and Adult Learning. Most recently she held the Chair in Education and Lifelong Learning at UCL and served as Head of Lifelong Education and International Development in the Institute of Education, University of London. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and currently holds Honorary and Visiting Professorships in the United Kingdom, Australia and Latvia.
Karen has worked as a university researcher and teacher for over 40 years. She has particular interests in professional learning and how development depends fundamentally on multiple forms of knowledge which practitioners continuously develop and put to work in practice.
Asian Network Coordinator:
Ruhizan Mohammad Yasin is a Professor in the Faculty of Education at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (National University of Malaysia) in Kuala Lumpur. Her field is Technology and Vocational Education (TVET) specialising in curriculum and evaluation.
She obtained her PhD from the University of Minnesota, USA. Her research interest is in education for sustainable development and Lifelong Learning.
Other than ASEM LLL Hub member, she also involved with international research collaboration with universities in China, Germany and Ireland in the EU Asia Link’s DCCD (Design and Implementation of Curriculum on Curriculum Development) project.
European Network Coordinator:
Dr Natasha Kersh is a Lecturer in Education and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, at the UCL Institute of Education (UK). Her research interests and publications relate to the study of VET, school-to-work transitions, workplace learning and adult education in the UK and international contexts. She has extensive experience of working and directing national and international projects such as EU-funded projects and UK-based funded initiatives. Natasha’s research and teaching activities involve active international collaborations and participation in a range of international initiatives including active collaborations with organizations and networks. She was recently a Local Coordinator on a Horizon 2020 project (European Commission) Lifelong learning for young adults: better policies for growth and inclusion in Europe: Adult Education as a Means to Active Participatory Citizenship (EduMap). She is currently a board member (convenor) of the European Research Network on Vocational Education and Training (EERA VETNET). Natasha has authored/co-authored over 50 publications related to her field of study. https://iris.ucl.ac.uk/iris/browse/profile?upi=NKERS50
Network Member:
Helmut Fennes is a researcher and lecturer at the Institute of Educational Science, University of Innsbruck with special focus on non-formal education/learning, intercultural education, citizenship education/learning and youth affaires.
He is an internationally recognised expert in international youth work and for European-level training and training of trainers in the youth field, including at the Council of Europe’s Directorate of Youth and Sports and as former Director of the Intercultural Centre in Vienna (National Agency of the European Union’s youth programmes).
His experience includes the development and implementation of numerous national and international research projects in the field of on citizenship education and non-formal education/learning as well as seminars and training courses for teachers, youth workers, youth leaders and trainers in non-formal education in Europe and in the Middle East.
Annette Ostendorf has held the chair for business education at the University of Innsbruck’s School of Management since 2006. From 1989 to 2005, she was Assistant Professor at the University of Munich School of Management in Germany, where she completed her Habilitation thesis on knowledge management discourse.
Her current research interests are related to workplace learning, cross-border learning, post-structuralist educational theory, development of vocational competences, portfolio work and textbook research.
Her teaching experiences include seminars and lectures in vocational didactics, business education theory and research, management of educational organisations, human resource development and intercultural learning.
Pier Paolo Pasqualoni is specialising in adult and higher education research and practice. He published across a wide range of topics, including action research, social movements, mobility and migration.
Pier Paolo Pasqualoni is currently holding the positions of a Professor of Educational Science at the Edith Stein University College of Education (Austria) and as an Associate Professor at the International College of NIDA (National Institute of Development Administration, Thailand).
While continuing to teach at other universities, he occasionally leaves academia to offer courses on communication, conflict transformation, group dynamics, gender and diversity to professionals.
Reinhard Nöbauer is senior expert for international co-operation in TVET. His main interests are dual training and school based TVET at upper secondary level and TVET system development.
He has a long time experience in TVET co-operation in many countries on four continents. He is currently the Austrian senior official in the ASEM education process and has previously worked for the European Commission and CEDEFOP
Margaret Malloch is Honorary Professor at Victoria University, Australia where she was Director of Research and Training for Arts and Education. She is a Board Member of the Vocational Education and Training Network of the European Educational Research Association and of the Australian Council of Deans of Education Vocational Education Group. Her research interests include VET policy and practice, doctoral education and gender equity. Margaret is a life fellow of the RSA.
Jian-Min Sun is Chair of the Department of Psychology and professor at the School of Labour and Human Resources at Renmin University of China (People’s University of China) in Beijing. He was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar in the College of Business Administration at University of Florida in 2007/08 and received his Ph.D. in Psychology from Beijing Normal University.
His research focuses on personality and performance, leadership, human resource management, and cross-cultural differences in the business field. His work appears in journals such as Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Leadership and Organizational Development Journal, Sociological Review, Journal of Social Psychology and Management World.
He is a member of the International Association of Applied Psychology, the Academy of Management and the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology.
Dr Yuan Dayong is associate professor of Graduate School of Education, Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU). His research mainly focuses on vocational education and adult education, international and comparative education.
Currently he is working on a number of research projects about vocational education, lifelong learning and global governance in education. At the same time, he provides consulting and academic service to Ministry of Education of China, Beijing Municipal Education of Commission etc.
He is also responsible for international exchanges and cooperation in his school of BFSU. He was the academic visitor in University of Cambridge (2009), University of Oxford (2010), University of Bremen (2011) and University of Stirling (2012), and he is the CONFINTEA Scholar at UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning in 2014.
He published an English book Towards The Learning City of Beijing：A review of the contribution made by the different education sectors (Glasgow Caledonian University), and many articles in Chinese journals.
Petr Novotný is Associate Professor at the Department of Educational Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University in Brno. His main fields of research are learning, work and innovation.
His focus is divided between andragogy (including the elaboration of the subject of workplace learning) and methodology of educational research. Recent publications include Workplace learning. Possibilities of applying the concept of workplace learning in the Czech environment (in Czech).
He also edited collection of papers entitled Workplaces as learning spaces (in Czech and in English) and thematic volume of academic journal Studia paedagogica named Educating Adults, both with contributions by members of Research Network 2.
Milan Pol is Professor of Education and Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. In his research, education and development activities he focuses on the development of schools as institutions, specific organisations and communities and on evaluation in education.
His recent research projects concern inclusion in schools as a leadership challenge, leadership of organisational learning in schools, school culture, democracy in schools, and the lives and professional paths of school leaders. Recent years, he has intensively been involved in quality assurance processes in higher education institutions across Europe.
Also, he is serving as the editor-in-chief of education-focused and interdisciplinary-driven academic journal Studia paedagogica (www.studiapaedagogica.cz).
Ulrik Brandi is an Associate Professor in Organisational and Workplace Learning at the Danish School of Education, Aarhus University. Ulrik holds a PhD in Organisational Learning from Learning Lab Denmark, Aarhus University.
Ulrik’s research interests include workplace and organisational learning and change, knowledge sharing, and innovation. He studies how organisations and its members learn new behaviour, practices and share knowledge, and studies the factors that facilitate or impede formal, non-formal and informal learning processes in workplaces and organisations.
He is the author of several articles and book contributions on workplace and organisational learning and has directed and participated in several research projects, national as well as EU projects, studying learning in workplaces and organisations.
Ulrik is currently leader for the research programme ‘Learning, Innovation and Sustainability in Organisations’ (LISO) at AU’s Danish School of Education.
Bent B. Andresen is a researcher at The Danish School of Education (DPU) at Aarhus University’s Copenhagen campus. He is also member of the IFIP working group on lifelong learning.
His research interests include: teaching and learning throughout life and under different circumstances, pedagogical analysis, the application of digital technologies into educational settings, methods of research and assessment.
He has written several books, contributed to others and written numerous articles and conference papers.
Elina Maslo is Lecturer in Education and Language Learning at the University College Copenhagen. She works with in-service and pre-service teachers in the field of plurilingual language learning and transformative language pedagogy. Her research focuses on transformative learning spaces in education and work, especially the interplay between language, learning and pedagogy. Elina is engaged in exploring participatory ethnographic
research and its reflexive nature. She is a co-editor of the book Cultivating Creativity in Methodology and Research: In Praise of Detours (2018) and the author of the chapter “Studying Diverse Learning Spaces at Work Together with People who Learn and Work: Multiple Levels of Reflection” in the new Sage Handbook of Learning and Work (2021). Elinas publication list can be found on https://www.ucviden.dk/en/persons/elina-maslo.
Hanna Toiviainen is Associate Professor of adult education at the Faculty of Education, University of Tampere, Finland. Her research and teaching focus on adults’ learning in the changing working life particularly in the context of interorganisational and multiprofessional networks.
Drawing on activity theory and Developmental Work Research her publications deal with an interventionist approach aiming at the development of the tools and practices of learning in industrial as well as in service production.
She has been actively involved in several European research partnerships and is a co-editor of the book ‘Working and Learning in Times of Uncertainty: Challenges to Adult, Professional and Vocational Education’ (2015).
Current research partnerships focus on networking concepts of digital service production in Finland, and on Adult Education for active participatory citizenship in Europe.
Valérie Cohen-Scali is a social psychologist and Professor of Adult Education at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, Paris, France. She also contributes to the work of the university’s Research Centre in Educational Sciences and co-directs her department’s research group on professional identity in adult education.
In addition, she is Associate Researcher at the Laboratory of School and Career Counselling, which is part of the National Institute of Studies on Work and Career Counselling in Paris, and Associate Editor of the journal L’Orientation Sco-laire et Professionnelle [School and Vocational Guidance].
Her research interests concern the development of professional identity in young adults who work while studying, organisational socialization, and the evolution of identity and competences of training, counseling and social work professionals.
Padma Ramsamy-Prat is researcher at CRF-Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers where she received her Ph. D in Adult Education. She is a lecturer in interpersonal communication in Masters’ programmes at the Université de Cergy Pontoise.
She is qualified by la ComUE (Communauté d’Universités et d’Etablissements). For her Ph. D research, she worked on a national programme “Educating the Patient” involving 4 French universities. Her professional activities consist in analysing the activity of practitioners in service-oriented organisations and designing team management programmes.
She participated in EU-funded projects with UK partners. Her current research is HeSam (Hautes Etudes Sorbonne Arts et Métiers) funded and concerns the work of the museum educator.
Gábor Erdei is General Deputy Director at National Institute of Vocational and Adult Education in Budapest, parallel Senior Lecturer in the Department of Andragogy at the University of Debrecen’s Institute of Educational Sciences.
Having completed his Ph.D. on the role of companies in adult learning in Hungary’s Northern Great Plain Region, his research and publications focus on workplace learning and include regional and social development and adult education, cultural institutes and adult learning, leisure time and learning time in adulthood.
In addition, he has participated in a number of EU research projects funded under the Erasmus, Grundtvig and Leonardo chapters of the Lifelong Learning Programme as well as under the Interreg programme.
Associate Professor Dr. Divya Upadhyaya Joshi is currently working as a Deputy Director at the University Grants Commission-Academic Staff College Kumaun University, Nainital, Uttarakhand, India.
With a training background in Political Science and gender studies from Kumaun University, where she earned her graduate and undergraduate degrees, Dr. Joshi received the National Award (First Prize) from the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) in its All India Case Study Competition in 2011.
Her research focused on gender, environment, and rural development issues. In addition, she is also a founder member and Associate Editor for the QUEST – The Journal of UGC-ASC, Nainital since 2007.
Déirdre O’Byrne MSocSc BA is a Senior Programme Co-ordinator with Adult Continuing Education (ACE) at University College Cork, where her role intrinsically involves working at the interface between industry and the university, while having a particular focus both on management and leadership education and management practice. Déirdre previously worked as a community development specialist, providing management support and training for third sector organisations in partnership with state agencies and government departments.
Currently, Déirdre has a leadership role within ACE, in the development, co-ordination and delivery of programmes both at UCC and in an outreach capacity, which serve the education needs of larger global corporations in particular. This involves working with industry to develop a closeness-of-fit between the education and training needs of corporations and specific bespoke university programmes provided through ACE. Concomitantly, it involves the enhancement of quality assurance mechanisms throughout the process. Déirdre is also an active researcher and academic.
In recent years, she has published in areas such as: techniques to promote interpersonal skills to enhance management in third sector agencies; enabling an equality-based management relationship between third sector and state agencies and the changing nature of community development to meet the needs of state services provision.
Kenji Hirata is Associate Professor in the Department of Social Psychology at Toyo University in Tokyo. He received his first degree from Waseda University and his doctorate from the Tokyo Institute of Technology. He is a specialist in “expert science”, which studies the acquisition, assessment and management of knowledge, ability, skill and competence from the view-points of both psychometrics and informatics.
Before moving into academic life, he spent 17 years as a training and e-learning developer in a management consultancy company, during which time he also acted as a consultant for organisational development and human resource management.
He now continues with his consultancy work from his university base, particularly for workplace learning issues. He has also contributed as national delegate to the development of ISO-based training standards, in this context also serving as vice-president of the society for human resources mark-up language, ISO editors in Quality management for technology based learning and competency modeling, and national committee member in several industries, embedded technology, bio-technology, IT, healthcare and infrastructure industries.
Soo-Koung Jun is an assistant professor in Namseoul University in South Korea. She graduated from Chungnam National University for B. A. in Education and from Seoul National University for M. A. in Education. She was awarded Ph.D. in 2014 at UCL Institute of Education, University of London. Her Ph.D. thesis was “A comparative study of two non-credit educational organisations for older people: the University of the Third Age (U3A) in the UK and the Senior University (SU) in South Korea”. Her research interests are educational gerontology and professional learning.
Professor Chaphichith gives lectures on Management Communication and Leadership through Communication courses for postgraduate students.
His research interest is on governance and management of higher education, educational policy, and language education.
Recently, he is interested in the knowledge of workplace learning because it is becoming the core value of needs for working people to sustain their career more smartly and effectively
Dr. habil. paed. Irina Maslo is professor in social pedagogy at the University of Latvia. Since 1997 she worked on development and implementation of inclusive pedagogy in Latvia and in several national innovative projects on facilitating learning for all.
She has been Director of the Scientific Institute of Pedagogy of the Faculty of Education, Psychology and Art; Director of the Master’s degree programme “Educational Treatment of Diversity” (recognised in 2017 as one of the 15 best European practice examples on preparing teachers for diversity in education); Director of the Doctoral School “Human Capacity and Life Wide Learning in Inclusive Contexts of Diversity” and represented University of Latvia in the University Council of the ASEM HUB LLL.
Irinas research interests and expertise covers fields of adult education and training, workplace learning, and social inclusion policies. She participates in the European cooperation in these fields as consultant and independent national expert, latest for the Directorate General of Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (DG EMPL) of the European Commission and ECORYS.
Daiva Bukantaite is Vice- dean in the VMU Music Academy and Associate Professor in the Department of Music theory and pedagogy.
In Vytautas Magnus University she works since completing her PhD in education there in 2005. Her doctoral research was in the field of learning network organizations.
Currently, she in particularly interested in workplace learning, learning organizations, education management and marketing, music education and performers training.
Nor Aishah Buang is a Professor in Educational Science at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (National University of Malaysia), where she has worked since 1988 after earning first and second degrees in the USA (BA in Economics at California State University and MA in Education at the University of Minnesota, Duluth).
She returned to the USA to complete a PhD in Education at Indiana State University, Bloomington in 1994, specialising in curriculum and instruction, following this up with a second MA in Business Administration in 1999 from her home university.
She is a visiting member of the academic staff at Malaysia’s Multimedia University and Bandar Utama College; she additionally works as a training and research consultant for the Multimedia Development Corporation, the Technopreneur Development Centre, INSKEN (Institut Keusahawanan Negara) and KOPERTIS (Centre for Private Universities in Sumatera) in Indonesia.
Currently is an associate member and coordinator for Center for Small & Medium Enterprises Development (CeSMED) at UKM.
Dana Rad, PhD is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Educational Sciences, Psychology and Social Sciences at Aurel Vlaicu University of Arad, Romania. She is Head of Center of Research Development and Innovation in Psychology. She holds a double specialization in Psychology (PhD) and Automation and Intelligent Systems (MD). She was a Visiting Professor at Instituto Superior Miguel Torga in Coimbra, Instituto Politecnico Portalegre, Portugal and University of Oviedo, Spain and research scientist in more than 20 European Union funded projects. She is member in the editorial review board of 13 International Journals. Her research interests include: Cognitive Science, Organizational Psychology, Multiple Criteria Decision Making, Fuzzy logic, Nonlinear Dynamics, etc. She is coauthor of 20 books and over 100 international conferences and journal papers. She is a member of IANLP, IACAT, IAENG and APA.
Helen heads the research Centre for Work and Learning (CWL) within IAL. CWL’s research contributes to policy and practice in the continuing education and training sector in Singapore with significant impact. Helen’s research interests focus on learning across a wide variety of contexts, including workplace learning, learning in high technology environments, professional learning and learning through collaborative activity.
She has published widely on a range of topics including professional learning and development of continuing education/vocational teachers, workplace learning, generic skills, dialogical enquiry, learning spaces between classroom and work and the development of research instruments.
Her most recent publication (with Peter Rushbrook) is Towards a new understanding of workplace learning: The context of Singapore. Helen has a background in vocational training and education, having coordinated the Bachelor of Adult and Vocational Education at the University of Tasmania, (Australia) and before that spent some years as a trade union trainer.
Her experience teaching in Australian secondary schools is the source of her deep interest in pedagogy and learning.
Sahara is a member of IAL’s Centre for Research in Work & Learning. She holds a Masters in Comparative Politics from the London School of Economics & Political Science in 2012.
Her research interests pertain to the employability of workers amidst the changing nature of work. She has worked on a comprehensive study of the learning and development of non-permanent workers in Singapore, and is currently working on a comparative research study on the understanding of talent in a rising Asia.
Prior to joining IAL in 2014, Sahara worked in a number of government agencies, including the Ministry of Education, and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research where she served in a range of portfolios that included corporate communications, and policy planning.
Areeya Rojvithee now works as Freelance Consultant on HRD, Migration, Labour Affairs, Gender and Skill Development, etc. Her experiences worked with the ILO on Skills for Green Jobs, with the Asian Development Bank on Agreed Frame Work for Mutual Recognition Skills and Qualifications in the GMS as the Gender and Social Development Specialist and Skills Development Specialist, following a long and distinguished career in the Thai government service, rising to become Deputy Director General in the Department of Skill Development at the Ministry of Labour.
She holds B.A. on Political Sciences ( Second Class Honours) from Thammasat University, an M.P.A. from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok and a Diploma in Social Planning from the London School of Economics and Political Science (UK), also got German Scholarship on Skill Development Management and Training . She joined the Thai civil service in 1973 and spent four decades working in labour affairs, skill development and international affairs before her retirement from active government service in 2009.
Throughout her career, she remained active in vocational training policy research, with particular interests in gender issues and regional development in Asia. She was a founding member of the ASEM-LLL Advisory Board and has been an active member of its workplace learning research network since its inception. Currently, she got invited to be the External Lecturer teaching at the School of Economics and Public Policy, Srinakarinwirot University in Bangkok in the subject Current Economic Problems and Issues linking with the OECD WIKIGENDER University in Paris and also working as Consultant for Japanese Industries in Thailand.
Patcharawalai Wongboonsin is Professor of Demography at the College of Population Studies, Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, specialising in population & development, human development, economic and non-economic driven migration in Asia.
Administratively, she is the founder and Director of Human Development & Migration Studies Center at the College of Population Studies while also serving as Deputy Executive Director for academic affairs at the ASEAN Studies Center, Chulalongkorn University, a member of the Executive Board of the university’s Institute of Asian Studies.
She completed her postgraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania (USA) and her PhD at Kyushu University in Japan. An expert of international standing in her field, she is ex-Deputy Director of the Thai European Studies Centre, member of the East Asian Economic Cooperation Council, founding member of Kyoto International Consortium for Asian Studies, while representing Thailand in the East Asian Network Think Tank.
In addition, she is chief editor of the Journal of Demography.
Chompoonuh K. Permpoonwiat is an Associate Professor in Economics at School of Economics and Public Policy, Srinakharinwirot University, Bangkok.
She received her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Utah (USA) specializing in public economics, economics of gender and development, and quantitative methods. Her research interests are in public policy analysis related to local public finance, transportation, human resource development, and natural resource and environmental issues.
She has been also appointed to be one of the management committees among other leading economists in Thailand for the Program in the Advanced Certificate Course in Public Economics Management for Executives at the King Prajadhipok’s Institute.
Andrea is Head of Research at the Edge Foundation, an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, Department of Education (OUDE) and has been a member of the Cedefop Community of Apprenticeships Experts for England since 2019. She has a first degree from the University of Applied Science in International Business Administration (Hungary, Budapest) and competed a M.Sc. and D.Phil at OUDE. Andrea has over 20 years of research experience and had worked for Oxford and Warwick universities before she joined Edge. Her areas of research interests include TVET, apprenticeships, work-based learning, employability and skills development, transition from school to work/HE, employer engagement and educational policy. She also has an interest in work-based learning higher education models. She is an active researcher in comparative and international education, in particular in the former East-European countries. She has widely published in these areas. Her current projects include Young Lives, Young Futures and Degree Apprenticeships in England.
Andrea has been teaching at post-graduate level at several European Universities and supervised students in her areas of interest. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Associate Members:
Katharina Lunardon has worked as anchor person for the ASEM LLL RN2 network at the University of Innsbruck´s Research Centre Education – Generation – Life-course and was deeply involved in the Learning Cities Project of the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning. Currently she is actively supporting the accreditation and transformation process of the Vorarlberger Landeskonservatorium into a private university.
Her interest’s focus on urban learning spaces, transitions from educational institutions to working life and vice-versa, and on the links between teaching and research as a means of strengthening the links between students’ interests and the realities of universities as organizations.
Adeline is a Senior Assistant Professor at Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah Graduate School of Education (SHBIE), Universiti Brunei Darussalam. Adeline gained her Ph.D. from the Institute of Lifelong Learning at the University of Leeds, UK and was later appointed as an honorary research fellow at Birkbeck College, University of London. Throughout her career journey, she has worked in diverse roles such as a vocational teacher, teacher trainer, professional development facilitator and university administrator. These roles have attributed to her research interests which largely focus on the intersection between work and learning; such as understanding the ways individuals learn across a wide variety of contexts, including workplace learning, team learning and professional learning i.e., the relationship between the development of professionals and the changing nature of professional learning due to, but not limited to, digitalisation of work. She also researches and writes on how individuals learn across their working lives.
Adeline has been involved in national and international projects such as the regional TVET teacher standards for ASEAN, TVET Teacher training programmes and Institutions in the ASIA-PACIFIC region with UNESCO Bangkok and SEAMEO-VOCTECH, Brunei Technical Teacher standards. She is also the expert external reviewer for submissions of good practice in vocational-technical education included on the Regional Knowledge Platform – Sea-vet.net. She had the experience of being the lead consultant for the project: Systems Approach for Better Education Results: Workforce Development (SABER-Wfd) with the World Bank Organisation.
Guibin Mu is Associate Professor at Hebei University School of Educatiion’s Department of Psychology in Baoding in northern China.
He began his career as an information and educational technologist before completing his Ph.D. in human resources development at Renmin University of China, since which time he has collaborated and published together with Jian-Min Sun.
His research interests lie in learning in organisations and working life, human resource development and knowledge management.
Dr. Xiaohua Jiang is an Associate Professor at the School of Education, Shanghai International Studies University. She also holds the position of Deputy Director of the Secretary Office of the International Collaboration Committee at the China Vocational and Technical Education Association. Her current research interests center around university reform, academic evaluation, comparative vocational education and comparative higher education. Dr. Jiang has published over 20 papers in domestic and international journals, including Sage Open, Learned Publishing, Higher Education Policy, Asian Pacific Journal of Education, Educational Management Administration & Leadership, British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, among others. In 2016-2017, she was a visiting scholar at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne. Dr. Jiang actively contributes to the academic community by serving as an anonymous reviewer for several scholarly journals.
Márta Takács-Miklósi PhD is an assistant professor at the Institute of Educational Studies and Cultural Management, at the University of Debrecen. She has her PhD on education science. She has been working in research concerning prisons for about 10 years.
Her research topic is focusing on education and training of prisoners, the situation of prison teachers and the role of NGOs in prisons. In the past years she has participated in several Hungarian and international initiatives, research programmes, among others concerning prisoners and staff in Czech, Slovak and Polish prisons on educational and cultural opportunities and “Retrieval in Prison”.
She has mainly studied the educational and cultural rights of prisoners in penitentiary institutes in Hungary, Southern Europe (Italy, Malta, Portugal) and Central Europe (Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland), the situation of prison teachers, the role of religious education in prisons.
David works with organisations and work-based learners to identify upskilling needs to support organisation effectiveness, career advancement, and aligns these skills needs with a range of flexible programmes and other support at the University of Limerick. David supports the design and development of new programmes and modules and micro-credentials.
David is a Registered Technology Transfer Professional (RTTP) and has previously held roles as Director of External Services at the University of Kent Business School where he was responsible for Professional and Executive Education, together with Knowledge Transfer, consultancy, entrepreneurial learning, incubation, philanthropy and Alumni networks.
Prior to this David was Director of Knowledge Transfer for the Leeds City Region Universities (including the Universities of Leeds, Huddersfield, Leeds Beckett and York), Head of Business at Bradford School of Management, and Business Advisor Team Manager at Business Link Calderdale and Kirklees in the UK. David is the co-ordinator of UL’s input into the annual Limerick Lifelong Learning Festival.
Nicola Pensiero is a sociologist at LLAKES Centre for Research on Learning and Life Chances, UCL Institute of Education, where he joined in 2013 after completing a PhD at the European University Institute. His general interests lie in stratification and inequality, education and political economy. His research focuses on skills, education systems, and social class.
He has recently completed a research project funded by the Nuffield Foundation to study the role of after-school programmes in England in contributing to skill formation and social mobility among adolescents. He has worked extensively on large scale skill surveys such as PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), IALS (International Adult Literacy Survey), PIAAC (Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competences) to analyse the macro determinants of academic performance and achievement levels and inequality from a cross-country perspective.
He has published articles in Oxford Review of Education, Comparative Education Review, British Educational Research Journal. He has provided consultancy for UK government departments and Nuffield Foundation, as well as for European Commission.
Dr. Chaturaphat Chantith is an Economics lecturer at Songkhla Rajabhat University, Thailand. He holds a Doctoral degree in Economics from Srinakharinwirot University and has been honored with notable scholarships, including the Thailand Higher Education Commission, Erasmus+ program, and the Royal Golden Jubilee scholarship. Dr. Chaturaphat specializes in public economics, development economics, and quantitative methods. His research focuses on public policy analysis, local public finance, road traffic accidents, quality of life, and lifelong learning. Moreover, he contributes as a social impact evaluator for various research endeavors and organizations, showcasing his diverse and impactful contributions.