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The purpose of this paper is to develop an integrated theoretical framework for energy security concept and to shed light on the policies and strategies applied by the European Union countries to confront the challenges that faces them.

The research paper uses Regional Security complexes theory, which mainly developed in Copenhagen school for security studies, that founded by Barry Buzan. This school tried to clarify the untraditional security aspects, through expanding its scope by adding new dimensions than military perspective.

Despite the consolidated efforts exerted by the European Union to assure safe levels of energy security, and their continuous pursuit to be liberated from Russian energy over dependence, but the results are still limited.

The value of this research paper stems from the fact that it encompass the theoretical aspect by shedding light on all the developments occurred to energy security concept, in addition to the Empirical side, by analyzing various European energy security challenges and their confrontation strategies.

The paper aims to analyze collective bargaining in the facility management business of these six countries to explore similarities and differences between them. The analysis serves to test the differential impact of the national institutional setting on the protection provided by collective agreements to facility management workers.

The paper adopts a case study methodology to approach a facility management multinational company providing services in six European countries (France, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the UK) that represent different industrial relations systems with variance in key dimensions of collective bargaining, including its structure, coverage and extension of agreements.

The extension of the facility management business model has not always adopted a high-road strategy aimed at enhancing the quality and efficiency through the integrated management and delivery of services, which is expected to positively impact employment conditions. Rather, it has, in many cases, been a deliberate, low-road attempt to undercut working standards, taking advantage of the multiple services provided by the company in a context of growing de-centralization in collective bargaining. The results point to an important role of industrial relations institutions in shaping facility management strategies and outcomes.

Similar to other forms of outsourcing, facility management leads to fragmented employment relations. However, the concentration of outsourced workers under the same supplier organization introduces opportunities to ensure the protection of workers, depending on the adoption of a high- or low-road competitive strategy. This paper provides for the first time comparative evidence about industrial relations in facility management businesses, a largely under-researched area.

Starting in the late 1950s with the creation of the National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA), followed by the formation of other professional organisations both in the USA and Europe, there was a growing sense that research management was indeed a profession. One goal was the creation of professional standards that would lead to a standard training curriculum and, ultimately, a professional credential, and there have been many attempts at developing research administration certification. Now, in the US, accreditation through the Research Administrators Certification Council (RACC) exam has become ubiquitous, whereas in other parts of the world, certification by portfolio is more common. This chapter will compare and contrast the salient features of certification, certificates, and degree programs in research administration and review their development and growth over the past 30 years. The chapter will discuss their relative merits and how they work to advance the profession of research administration.

In the context of debates on the role of social partners in shaping anti-crisis policies, the article explores the developments of social dialogue in Poland following the outbreak of the pandemic. The central research question is whether the crisis has helped to revitalise social dialogue or has it further revealed its weaknesses that were apparent before it.

The paper is based on the combination of literature review and the analysis of primary data derived from 22 expert interviews with the representatives of trade unions, employers and ministries collected in 2020–2021 in four essential industries (education, health care, social care and logistics).

The analysis suggests that the pandemic led to reinforcement of “illusory corporatism” in Poland, deepened mistrust among social partners and triggered a shift to informal channels of influencing policymaking. The weakness of the social partners and the strong position of the right-wing populist government meant that fears of recession and a health crisis were insufficient to develop “crisis” corporatism. While business interests were represented better than labour in policymaking, limited labour-friendly outcomes have been achieved as a result of workers’ mobilisation and unilateral decisions of the government rather than tripartite social dialogue.

Based on original empirical research, the article contributes to the discussion on the impact of the crisis on social dialogue under patchwork capitalism. It points to the role of strong governments and informality in circumventing tripartite structures and the importance of essential workers’ mobilisation in response to the lack of social dialogue.

This paper aims to critically examine the European Union’s legislative initiative to establish an Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA), which will introduce union-level supervision and provide support to national supervisors in the field of anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT), as well as to financial intelligence units (FIUs) in European Union (EU) member states. The paper discusses why this initiative was deemed necessary, which are the key objectives, rules and principles of AMLA and which challenges and opportunities will emerge as AMLA becomes operational.

This paper draws on reports, legislation, legal scholarship and other open-source data on the EU legislative initiative to establish a new AMLA.

AMLA will provide a comprehensive framework for EU-level AML/CFT supervision and for cooperation among FIUs. If all organisational challenges are properly addressed, the new authority will significantly enhance the EU’s ability to tackle money laundering and terrorism financing.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is one of the first to examine the mission, governance and supervision mechanisms of the EU’s AMLA, as well as the challenges and opportunities associated with its functioning.

Studies on the work integration of persons with disabilities (PwD) and the role of social dialogue therein are scarce. The study examines how the different systems of workers’ representation and industrial relations in Slovakia and Norway facilitate PwD work integration. Taking a social ecosystem perspective, we acknowledge the role of various stakeholders and their interactions in supporting PwD work integration. The paper’s conceptual contribution lies in including social dialogue actors in this ecosystem.

Evidence was collected via desk research, 35 semi-structured in-depth interviews with 51 respondents and stakeholder workshops in 2019–2020.

The findings from Norway confirm the expected coordination of unions and employers in PwD work integration. Evidence from Slovakia shows that in decentralised industrial relations systems, institutional constraints beyond the workplace determine employers’ and worker representatives’ approaches in PwD integration. Most policy-level outcomes are contested, as integration occurs predominantly via sheltered workplaces without interest representation.

This paper identifies the primary sources of variation in the work integration of PwD. It also highlights opportunities for social partners across both situations to exercise agency and engagement to improve PwD work integration.

By integrating two streams of literature – social policy and welfare state and industrial relations – this paper examines PwD work integration from a social ecosystem perspective. Empirically, it offers novel qualitative comparative evidence on trade unions’ and employers’ roles in Slovakia and Norway.

This study aims to provide an overview of the past two decades of lifelong learning (LLL) policies for enhancing employability and reduce social exclusion in young people of European countries through the development of the so-called LLL key-competences.

Built on a quasi-systematic review, this contribution explores traditional and new methods for promoting the LLL transition, and then employability, in young adults (e.g. apprenticeship, vocational training, e-learning, etc.).

It argues the need to identify all the possible approaches able to support policymakers, as they can differently impact key-competence development.

Finally, based on the consolidated EU policy experience, we propose a strategy of implementation of the LLL programmes that facilitates the institutions’ decision processes for policy-making through the use of decisional support system.

This paper aims to present findings from an EU-funded international student-led energy saving competition (SAVES) on a scale previously unseen. There are multiple accounts of short-term projects and energy saving competitions encouraging pro-environmental behaviour change amongst students in university dormitories, but the purpose of this research is to provide evidence of consistent and sustained energy savings from student-led energy savings competitions, underpinned by practical action.

A mixed-methods approach (pre- and post-intervention surveys, focus groups and analysis of energy meter data) was used to determine the level of energy savings and quantifiable behaviour change delivered by students across participating university dormitories.

This research has provided further insight into the potential for savings and behaviour change in university dormitories through relatively simple actions. Whilst other interventions have shown greater savings, this project provided consistent savings over two years of 7 per cent across a large number of university dormitories in five countries through simple behaviour changes.

An energy dashboard displaying near a real-time leaderboard was added to the engagement in the second year of the project. Whilst students were optimistic about the role that energy dashboards could play, the evidence is not here to quantify the impact of dashboards. Further research is required to understand the potential of dashboards to contribute to behavioural change savings and in constructing competitions between people and dormitories that are known to each other.

SAVES provided engagement with students, enabling, empowering and motivating them to save energy – focusing specifically on the last stage of the “Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action” framework. Automated meter reading data was used in the majority of participating dormitories to run near real-time energy challenges through an energy dashboard that informed students how much energy they saved compared to a target, and encouraged peer-to-peer learning and international cooperation through a virtual twinning scheme.

Findings from energy saving competitions in universities are typically from small-scale and short-term interventions. SAVES was an energy-saving competition in university dormitories facilitated by the UK National Union of Students in five countries reaching over 50,000 students over two academic years (incorporating dormitories at 17 universities). As such it provides clear and important evidence of the real-world long-term potential efficiency savings of such interventions.

Migrants play an essential role in economic and societal outcomes of the host society, both as members of the workforce and as citizens. However, integration and finding employment after migration remain critical issues. The purpose of this paper is to employ an evidence-based quantitative approach to identify migrant workers’ most important qualifications from an employer perspective and to explore factors that influence employer perception of migrants.

This study uses European Social Survey data that contain responses from managers in European countries in 2014 (n=2,828) and 2016 (n=3,014). Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling are used to analyse the data.

For managers, migrants’ commitment to the host country’s way of life is more important than their job skills, educational level and language proficiency. The effects of managers’ individual characteristics, including demographics, expectancies and personal values, on their general attitude towards migrants are also quantified.

The study’s outcomes can assist migrants to develop the qualifications most valued by employers, and allow policymakers to integrate the organizational perspective into policies and initiatives for integration of migrant labour.

Through HR practices, organizations significantly affect migrants’ career outcomes. Yet research on migrant workers from an organizational and managerial perspective is limited. This study identifies migrant workers’ most important qualifications from an employer perspective. It also explores which individual characteristics most influence organizational decision-makers’ perception. Utilizing a cross-cultural and longitudinal data set provides a unique opportunity to generate generalizable findings.