Brussels (BE) / Essen (GER), November 2012 - The first European Conference LINQ 2012 on "Learning Innovations and Quality" took place to great success in Brussels. The organizers from the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany and the Q-Cert-VET project consortium greeted a variety of international authors, European project representatives, and participants from over twenty countries who came to take part in the development of a discussion on the potential points of interaction between innovations and quality.
"We were overjoyed with the dialogue arising from the participants' contributions," says Christian M. Stracke, LINQ Conference Chair. "Furthermore, their work demonstrates how current the theme of LINQ 2012 is and has inspired us to continue this conference series with LINQ 2013 in Rome next spring in May 2013."
LINQ 2012 began with a warm welcome followed by an honoured keynote speech by Sophie Weisswange, policy officer from the European Commission Directorate General of Education and Culture. She presented the state and progress of learning quality and its related processes and standards that are supported by European policies and funding. Christian M. Stracke discussed the two themes of the LINQ conference: learning innovations and learning quality.
Analysing their potential conflict, he emphasized the necessity for an interrelationship between them towards the overarching objective of the most appropriate and adapted quality for learners. Sandra Feliciano and Sofoklis Sotiriou made further contributions to the Conference dialogue. Ms. Feliciano discussed her experience with quality standardization and certification in vocational education and training in the Portuguese and European context, while Mr Sofoklis expounded upon his involvement in science education as head of the R&D department at Ellinogermaniki Agogi in Greece.
The afternoon meeting was composed of three parallel sessions on the topics of learning innovations and quality (LINQ), competences and skills for lifelong learning (COME-HR), and European projects for lifelong learning. Almost thirty international authors and project representatives were able to demonstrate their roles in the expansion of learning innovation and quality in these sessions.
The great variety of approaches to learning innovation and quality make evident the value of the LINQ conference as a platform for further academic conversation. LINQ 2012 concluded with a lively plenary discussion amongst all participants about the importance and future of learning innovations, learning quality, and their relation to each other.
All presentations including the keynotes as well the proceedings, with the scientific articles from the Call for Papers selected by the Programme Committee in double-blind peer-review and the project descriptions from the Call for Projects, are available on the LINQ conference website.
The LINQ conference series will continue with LINQ 2013, planned to take place in Rome in May 2013 - a related Call for Papers will be published in the near future.
