ALMALAUREA CONFERENCE 2005

Investigating and identifying the major aspects and most significant pathways in graduates’ transition to the labour market provides fundamental feedback information not only to the higher education institutions that have trained them, but also to the production system at large, in particular to the sectors of research and public administration. Furthermore, any such survey is all the more useful when it can draw upon reliable and up-to-date information. This year, with the setting up by the Ministry for Education, Universities and Research of the Students’ Registry and, at a later date, of the Graduates’ Registry, this survey will become even more important.

Given the high number of institutions and graduates involved (55,000), the remarkable interest shown by participants (82 graduates out of 100 have replied to the telephone interview) as well as the time span under consideration (the survey covered graduates of the years 2003, 2001 and 1999 interviewed 1, 3 and 5 years after graduation), the documentation gathered as part of the 7th Study offers a reliable cross-section of the general situation and important insights for further in-depth analysis.

The presentation of the 7th ALMALAUREA Study on the Employment Conditions of Italian University Graduates will also provide an opportunity to outline the objectives of three major international projects in which ALMALAUREA is directly involved. The second European survey of university graduates’ employment conditions in 12 countries 5 years after graduation (REFLEX-Research into Employment and professional FLEXibility), funded by the EU and supported by the Ministry for Education, Universities and Research, which will be carried out in Italy jointly by ALMALAUREA and Istituto IARD "Franco Brambilla". The GRADUA2 European-Latin American Project (ALFA Programme), involving 10 European universities and an equal number of Latin-American institutes, which is aimed at developing good practices within universities and at monitoring the employment conditions of graduates. The EUROALMALAUREA-NET pilot project, supported by the EU as part of the eTEN Programme, which is aimed at the Europe-wide extension of the graduates’ database to include Eastern European countries.