What can we learn about policy innovation?

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the institutional structures and processes that facilitate or hinder policy learning and innovation with respect to effective measures for school-to-work (STW) transitions. The salience of youth employment problems in many European countries has brought the need to develop effective measures of STW transitions to the top of the EU agenda. Indeed, it has generated EU initiatives for integrated policies addressing youth at risk and has accelerated mutual learning, policy transfer, and experimentation within and across countries. Experimentation with proactive youth employment measures is facilitated by a mode of policy governance that supports (regional/local) partnerships and networks of public services, professional bodies and education/training providers, employers, youth associations, and other stakeholders. As such, policy entrepreneurs play a significant role in promoting policy learning and transfer.