This edited volume provides an in-depth analysis of strategic policy documents on skills and their implementation across different types of skill formation and lifelong learning systems, exploring how they aim to reduce skill mismatches while balancing economic and social goals. In a pioneering effort, leading experts from Austria, Bulgaria, England, Germany, Norway and South Korea examine the diverse orientations and objectives of skills strategies and illustrate how they have been implemented on the ground. The volume equips researchers and policymakers with a deeper understanding of skills strategies, including their benefits for skill formation and lifelong learning systems, the barriers to implementation, and design and implementation principles for the next generation of strategies.

Daniel Unterweger is team leader and senior consultant at 3s Research & Consulting for Lifelong Learning, Austria, specializing in comparative research on skills systems, with clients such as Cedefop, the European Commission and the ETF.

Eva Steinheimer specializes in lifelong learning, workplace learning and adult education. After nine years at 3s, she joined bifeb, the Austrian Federal Institute for Adult Education, as Head of Educational Programmes and Communications.

Jörg Markowitsch, co-founder of 3s, is a researcher and policy adviser in vocational training and adult learning, working with national authorities and international actors such as the ILO, the European Commission and Cedefop.