European Centre for the Developmentof Vocational Training

PUBLISHING IN VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING JOURNALSEuropean Conference on Educational Research10-12 September 2008-09-15Göteborg, SwedenSubmitting work to theEuropean Journal of Vocational TrainingÉric Fries GuggenheimEditor in Chief EJVTI. Short history of the European Journal of Vocational Training1. Cedefop creation, 1975

Cedefop was created in 1975 mainly at the instigation of the social partners and especiallyof the Workers’ Unions. Maria Weber of DGB plaid a prominent role in this creation. Thesocial partners whished to develop Vocational Education and Training in Europe, diffusingthe best practices and fighting for the parity of esteem with general training. Thougharticle 128 of the EEC treaty signed in March 1957 stated than the Council of Ministers of the Community would lay down, on a proposal of the Commission and after consultingthe Economic and Social Committee (ESC)

‘general principles for implementing acommon vocational training policy capable of contributing to the harmoniousdevelopment both of the national economies and of the Common Market’

, manygovernments refused to relinquish their sovereignty in what regarded a very delicate field,that they implicitly considered, as it is the case for Education matters, as pertaining totheir national domain. The creation of Cedefop in 1975 was an attempt to find a way tolaunch a common action in favour of the development of vocational training.

2. Cedefop Bulletin, 1977.

In the funding regulation of Cedefop (article 3.1) the funding of a “Community Vocationaltraining bulletin is explicitly foreseen. This Bulletin was created in 1977, under the nameof

‘VOCATIONAL TRAINING – INFORMATION BULLETIN of the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training’

. This Bulletin contained information on Cedefoplife, on its work programme for example, as well as minutes of meetings and report onseminars made at Cedefop, and some articles of reflection on Vocational Education andTraining. The European Journal of Vocational Training is in a way the heir of the

‘Cedefop Bulletin’

a 24-pages A4 booklet published

in six languages, Danish, Dutch,English, French, German and Italian. And the editorial in the very first issue, No 1 of 1977, specifies that in publishing this Bulletin, the Centre

‘is continuing the work done bythe Directorate-General for Social Affairs of the Commission of the EuropeanCommunities in establishing and developing the Bulletin’

. Thus at the outset it wasconceived as an instrument of the Centre’s Information Service, and was designed tocontain information and articles supporting the Centre’s work programme (seminars,conferences and study projects).

3. Vocational Training Bulletin, 1982.

Nonetheless, from the outset the Bulletin published themed dossiers alongside informationon the Centre and the conferences it organises. These dossiers comprised two or threearticles written and signed by vocational training experts in Europe. In 1981 the Bulletinacquired an editor and an editorial team composed of Cedefop experts. From 1982onwards, the journal retained the title Vocational training, but was no longer presented asa Bulletin from Cedefop but as a

‘regular publication of the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training’

. The editor, Duccio Guerra, became

‘Editor-in-chief’

, and in his editorial in

issue No 8 of May 1982

, although the Communitynature of the journal was reaffirmed, Duccio Guerra’s definition of its target readershipwas much broader than what one would expect from a Community bulletin: ‘The publication is addressed to decision-makers, those who develop and supply technical andscientific decision-making aids and finally those required to implement these decisions.’This description already explicitly includes researchers, the social partners and the playerson the ground expressly targeted today. So the birth of the European journal of vocationaltraining can be more precisely dated as May 1982, with the publication of issue No 8,even though, as Duccio Guerra says, it had been a gradual process spread over sevenyears. Published in the 6 previous languages until 1986 he was then published in 9languages, adding a Greek, a Portuguese and a Spanish version to the 6 previous ones.

4. European Journal - Vocational Training, 1994

By the end of 1993, we had come a long way from the 1977 Bulletin, Vocational training.Indeed, everything was in place to make it genuinely possible to describe the publicationno longer as a Bulletin, but rather as a scholarly journal. In 1994 Cedefop decided toconcentrate on quality, which led to a rigorous method of selecting articles for publicationand the establishment of an Editorial Committee that was largely independent of theagency financing the journal, namely Cedefop. The first Editorial Committee of theEuropean journal - vocational training was chaired by Jean-François Germe andcomprised seven academics and academic researchers, three representatives of associations and the social partners, five Cedefop experts, and one representativeofCedefop’s Management Board, with a trade-union background. There have been threeChairmen of the Editorial Committee since January 1994, first Jean-François Germe,Professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (CNAM), France, then JordiPlanas, Professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), Spain, and thirdlythe current Chairman, Martin Mulder, Professor at the University of Wageningen (WUR),the Netherlands. There have also been three Editors-in-chief, namely Fernanda Reis, SteveBainbridge and Éric Fries Guggenheim. The Journal was published in the 9 languages of the

Vocational Training Bulletin

until 1996. In 1997 for budgetary reasons, and becauseof the very small amount of their readers, the Danish, Dutch, Italian, Greek andPortuguese versions were abandoned. Nevertheless, in 1998 the Portuguese Governmentdecided to support a Portuguese edition, which made that the EJVT was in fact publishedin five languages until the end of 2008, English, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish.An other very particular characteristic of the EJVT was the fact that,until the end of 2008,itaccepted articles written in 28 languages, the 23 official languages of theEuropean Union, including Irish, the two additional languages of the European EconomicArea (Icelandic and Norwegian), and the languages of the three candidate countries(Croatian, Macedonian and Turkish).

5. European Journalof Vocational Training, 2006

After almost 30 years of developments in the course of which the publication has evolvedfrom the Cedefop Bulletin – Vocational training into the European journal of vocationaltraining in its present form, our publication has become a scholarly journal to be reckonedwith in the vocational training landscape. It has outgrown its youthful excesses, and it was becoming more apparent every day that presentation in A4 format with covers of varying2

degrees of colourfulness and authors’ photos at the head of their articles, was inconsistentwith the scholarly nature of its contentThis is what led the journal’s Editorial Committee to opt for B5 format, which is mucheasier to handle, and to use only one colour on the cover in addition to black and white.So the journal has acquired a new image, but it has not changed course or become anyless rigorous. It has simply brought its appearance into line with its practice – serious andsober. So even though the change effected with this issue, No 37, January-April 2006, ismuch more obvious than that effected in issue No 8 in May 1982, it is actually much lessradical. Your journal remains unchanged as regards its content, which naturally we areconstantly working to improve.The Editorial Committee currently comprises 14 members – 10 lecturers/academicresearchers, one expert from the European Training Foundation (ETF), 2 experts fromCedefop, and one representative of Cedefop’s Governing Board, who represents theGovernment’s Group. The representatives in these three last categories all have a solidacademic training, and were recommended by the Editorial Committee for this reason.The rule is that all new members of the Editorial Committee are appointed by Cedefop’sDirector on a recommendation from the Committee.In July 1999, an Editorial Secretariat was created on the initiative of Steve Bainbridge, thethen Editor-in-chief of the journal. This Secretariat composed of four Academicresearchers, assists the Editorial Committee in its work and has become particularlyimportant since, at the instigation of its current Chairman Martin Mulder, the EditorialCommittee adopted the double-blind peer review as its working method. This means thatmembers of the Editorial Committee and, in particular, the reviewers, do not know theidentity of the authors of the articles submitted to them, and the authors do not know theidentity of their reviewers. The Editorial Secretariat is responsible for anonymising proposed articles received and for acting as intermediary between authors and theEditorial Committee and its reviewers. At the instigation of the Editorial Committee’scurrent Chairman, Martin Mulder, the journal has also decided to establish an

Editorial Advisory Board

comprising well-known personalities and researchers in the field of vocational training who will serve as ambassadors, as it were, for the European journal, inthe vocational training world.

II. What do we publish in the EJVT

The EJVT publishes Original articles, non published in any other refereed Journal. Weaccept nevertheless article already published in the grey literature on draft presentation, aslong as they are reformatted for the EJVT. The authors keep they wrights on their articleand may republish them if they want elsewhere after publication in the EJVT as long asare mentioned the first publication in the EJVT and the publisher’s name, Cedefop.The field of publishing occupied by the journal is, of course, that of initial and continuingvocational training (ICVT). However, this field has been interpreted very broadly ever since the journal began. Thus in addition to articles directly addressing vocational trainingissues, naturally it publishes articles on lifelong training, on the relationship betweentraining and employment and labour-market access, and on the relationship between work and training. However, it also publishes articles on educational sciences, the philosophy of education, history, the sociology of education, economics, law and political sciences whenthey are addressing an issue directly associated with ICVT or an issue of general interestwith direct consequences for ICVT.The Journal publishes four kinds of articles: research, policy analysis, case studies, and personal accounts. Articles should focus on European issues or address issues that can betransferred to, or are of interest for, other countries.

Articles submitted to the journal must be