The Significance and Impact of Innovation Networks of Academia and Business with a Special Emphasis on Work-Based Learning

The Europe 2020 Strategy puts the quality and relevance of education and training systems at the heart of EU’s efforts to improve innovation and competitiveness and to achieve intelligent, sustainable and inclusive growth. The development of partnerships between vocational schools or higher-education institutions and the business sector must be considered as a critical factor in identifying learning requirements, improving the relevance of education and facilitating access to education and learning. The growing lack of skills is one of the major challenges for companies that rely on more highly qualified personnel. To increase the cooperation between academia and the business world means to integrate small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), since 99.2 per cent of European businesses are SMEs. They are the blood cells of the European economy and are essential for growth, yet a very heterogeneous group that can only be integrated in cooperation networks by intermediate organisations which tackle the needs of this diverse group of businesses. Such a partnership of 17 universities and polytechnics, including the University of Latvia, was founded in 2010 and is shortly introduced as a best practice example.To stay competitive in the globalised world, companies need to be innovative and that requires cooperation with knowledge institutions. A survey conducted in 2013 revealed that one of the major obstacles for SMEs to improve their innovation capabilities is their inability to find qualified personnel. This corresponds to the huge challenges the labour markets face in Europe. Almost all countries report a growing lack of skilled workforce while at the same time youth unemployment is increasing. This gap between the current qualifications and the qualifications demanded by businesses sector can be overcome by a closer cooperation between enterprises and education facilities, on a national but also international level between Western and Eastern countries. The introduction of work-based education plays a crucial role in narrowing this divide.