The Austrian-Slovak Expert Academy

Even today, for many people living and working across the border is part of their daily lives. Political and economic developments as well as changing living conditions contribute to the fact that the Austrian and Slovakian employment markets are increasingly growing together, and that a common employment market is developing. In order to effectively meet these challenges and to improve the opportunities of workers in both countries, common employment market policy approaches and plans are needed. The Austrian-Slovak Expert Academy EXPAK AT.SK unites employment market policy actors from ministries, employment market services and implementing organisations. The networking concept, which was started in 2007, was intensified to turn into continuous cooperation and systematic knowledge exchange. In the framework of pilot projects, initial common solutions are tested and service offers for workers and companies are developed.

The Vienna institute L&R Social Research (www.LRsocialresearch.at) is the lead partner of EXPAK AT.SK. The Austrian partner institutions are ÖSB Consulting and WISDOM. Slovakian partner institutions are UPSVaR – Central Office for Labour, Social Affairs and Family, EDUCTA and IVAKS.

In terms of strategic and content-related matters, EXPAK AT.SK is supported by the Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland branch offices of the Public Employment Service Austria (AMS) and the Slovakian employment offices in the regions Bratislava and Trnava.

The EXPAK AT.SK project receives funding from the European Regional Development Fund in the framework of the programme on cross-border cooperation SLOVAKIA – AUSTRIA 2007-2013. The Austrian national co-financing funds are provided by the Federal Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Consumer Protection.

The central aims of the Expert Academy include:

• Creation of an employment market policy cooperation system that facilitates the steering of an integrated, permeable employment market and the elimination of obstacles in employment.
• Development and implementation of measures for the strengthening of the location quality and competitiveness of the region through better employment opportunities.
• Removal of existing imbalances on the regional employment markets.

The activities of the EXPAK AT.SK focus on the following fields of action:

• Information and publicity are ensured and made available in the form of brochures, newsletters, websites and documentation.
• The border region monitor documents the key developments and tendencies in the region and serves as a basis for further specific project activities.
• Cooperation structures are established and strengthened through specific cross-border partner-ships, information seminars and practice-oriented cooperation, study visits, demand-oriented consulting for employment market institutes as well as the Trilateral Employment Market Con-ference (Slovakia, Czech Republic, Austria).
• The productive ageing consulting pilot project brings the productive ageing approach closer the companies. Innovation is generated through the further development of existing approaches by combining experiences of companies in both countries.
• The work package migration concentrates on the content-related focus areas of border migration and third-country migration. The aim is to install a common information system for an exchange over migration policies and approaches of the PES on employment market integration of migrants.
• New models regarding the demand-oriented qualification of unemployed and long-term unemployed men and women are developed to increase the employment opportunities of women and men in the region.

All reports, studies, concepts, documentation, planning documents as well as information on events organised by EXPAK AT.SK are published on http://www.expak-at.sk. All information and documentation is available in German and Slovakian.

Additionally, we release an electronic newsletter with information on current events of the Austrian-Slovak Expert Academy on a regular basis. You can subscribe to this newsletter on: www.expak-at.sk.

Related projects: Austrian-Hungarian Expert Academy, Austrian-Czech Expert Academy, Austrian-Slovenian Expert Academy