gsub mbH has been awarded the contract to provide external services to the Berlin Senate Department for Integration, Labour and Social Services: ‘Europe Agency’ is the agency created by gsub mbH for this purpose and its task is to actively support the Senate Department in their activities up to the end of 2018 and to raise the profile of Berlin’s employment, education and training policy at a European and international level.

The current contract is concerned, on the one hand, with the preparation, implementation and follow-up of events–such as international expert discussions, meetings and conferences—using a range of different event formats and methods. Documentation for most events is available (in both German and English) at: www.berlin.de/sen/arbeit/.

The support provided to the Senate Department for Integration, Labour and Social Services will however also focus on sharing experiences and on cooperation in the area of employment, labour market and education and training policy. This focus will also include overarching aspects and interfaces relating to policy-making areas (e.g. diversity, integration, equality) as well as research on the effectiveness of policy-making measures, including their evaluation, relating to the labour market, education and training. Networking in the context of Berlin’s town twinning arrangements, the EUROCITIES network and other forums and partnerships will have a key role to play in this.

In 2017, the Europe Agency organised an event for the Senate Department for Integration, Labour and Social Services.

As part of the Berlin Senate’s 100-day programme, the Europe Agency was able to support the Senate Department for Integration, Labour and Social Services in setting up the conference “Development of high-quality digital working in European cities and urban areas. Digital competencies in tomorrow’s initial and continuing education and training” which took place on 17/05/2017 and was led by the Senator for Integration, Labour and Social Services.

The theme of the event was teaching and learning methods in the initial and continuing education and training of the future. The event focussed in particular on the implementation of digital teaching and learning methods but above all on the opportunities associated with this for bridging the digital divide in society. To support this, and in addition to a series of lectures and podium discussions, specific thematic areas were set up to give participants the opportunity not just to learn from best practice examples from elsewhere in Europe, but also to share ideas and experience with one another.

In 2016, the Europe Agency organised an event on behalf of the Senate Department for Labour, Integration and Women’s Affairs:

An experts’ dialogue entitled “Work 4.0 – made in Berlin – interim review” took place on 23 March 2016. In advance of this, the Senate Department for Labour, Integration of Women's Affairs had already initiated the dialogue process “Work 4.0 - made in Berlin” on the future of employment. This resulted in a ‘metropolis’ conference (a conference for large cities and urban areas) at which action fields were developed. These action fields were presented and discussed at the experts’ dialogue. The planned projects and proposals of the Senate Department were set out and the next steps determined.

The second event “Work 4.0 German-Finnish Experts’ Workshop” took place on 22 June 2016. Four groups of topics had been selected which were then discussed using examples from Finland and Berlin—these covered, for example, the future of work, crowdsourcing and qualification 4.0, digital education and training, and human resources.

The third event on 22 June 2016 was an experts’ workshop entitled “Coaching approaches in labour market policy and measuring their effectiveness”. A range of European projects that work with individualised approaches, i.e. coaching, in supporting the sustainable integration of the long-term unemployed in the labour market were presented. The Berlin-based Jobcoaching was one of the programmes presented. The focus here was on how the effectiveness of programmes can be measured and demonstrated.

In the implementation of all other services, the Europe Agency is able to draw on the extensive experience of gsub mbH regarding the transfer of European employment, education and training policy and in the implementation of ESF programmes. The Europe Agency will also use the contacts and information from “MetropolisNet”—the network of large cities in urban areas (information is available from www.metropolisnet.eu  and MetropolisNet)—which gsub mbH co-founded in 1998—to support the European activities of the Senate Department.

The Europe Agency’s own work results and findings from the successful implementation of the initial contract—the organisation of a number of events (including international events) on behalf of the Senate Department for Labour, Integration of Women’s Affairs on the theme of labour market policy issues (e.g. a ‘metropolis’ conference entitled “Work 4.0 - made in Berlin” in December 2015)—will provide a sound basis for further work. The documentation from this and the further conference entitled “Successful approaches to combating unemployment in Europe” (2 and 3 June 2015) as well as the experts’ workshop “Researching the impact of employment policy” (19 and 20 May 2015) is available at www.berlin.de/sen/arbeit/.