A new European Monitoring Centre on Change was launched on 23 October 2001 in Brussels at a conference entitled /What drives change?/. The centre [1] will be run from the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions in Dublin and will become operational in 2002.[1] http://www.eurofound.ie/about/emcc.htm
A new European Monitoring Centre on Change was launched in October 2001, with the task of helping people make more informed decisions about managing the processes of change.
A new European Monitoring Centre on Change was launched on 23 October 2001 in Brussels at a conference entitled What drives change?. The centre will be run from the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions in Dublin and will become operational in 2002.
The creation of such a centre (originally known as the 'observatory on industrial change') was proposed in the European Commission's five-year social policy agenda, published in June 2000 (EU0007266F), in response to the recommendations of the Commission's high-level expert group on the economic and social implications of industrial change (EU9805106N), headed by the Swedish industrialist, Pehr Gyllenhammar. The group published its final report, Managing change, in November 1998. This group was set up in the wake of the French motor manufacturer Renault's controversial decision, made public in February 1997, to close its operations in Vilvoorde, Belgium without prior information and consultation of the workforce (EU9703108F). The creation of the new monitoring centre was confirmed in the December 2000 Nice European Council conclusions (EU0012288F).
The new centre will be briefed to 'provide tools for key actors in European social policy to make more informed decisions about managing the processes of change', according to Raymond-Pierre Bodin, director of the Foundation. The approach which the centre will take will be based on regional, sectoral and company-level research.
In an initial phase, the centre will focus on information and communications technologies as a driver of change. It will also look at the role played by financial markets and resources in instigating change at company, sectoral and regional level. In its first year of operation, therefore, the centre will concentrate on gathering and analysing information about these two 'drivers of change'. A web-based portal will be up and running during the first quarter of 2002.
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Eurofound (2001), European Monitoring Centre on Change launched, article.
