PhD thesis defence by Milan Thies
The shift towards knowledge-based economies has placed skills at the centre of economic development and social cohesion. This transformation has produced a range of challenges, in particular growing skill-biased inequalities and persistent shortages of skilled labour. Skills policies therefore face a dual imperative: to support economic upgrading while maintaining inclusiveness. Governments across Europe have pledged to strengthen their commitment to skill formation, yet these systems are embedded in historically stable institutions and constrained by powerful employer interests. Greater state involvement also risks destabilising the foundations that have long sustained the development of a skilled workforce. This raises a central question: Can governments meaningfully adapt skill formation systems to socio-economic change?
Using computational text analysis, the first paper shows that governments have expanded their involvement in vocational education and training (VET) across the EU. A case study on Germany, a least-likely case, shows how digitalisation and climate imperatives created a window of opportunity for redefining the state’s role in VET.
The second paper examines how state intervention shapes access to training. In France, reforms overhauled previous governance arrangements and expanded the overall training provision. However, they reduced access to up- and reskilling for low-skilled individuals. In Germany, state interventions complemented the existing system based on social partner networks and improved access among low-skilled adults and youth.
The third paper investigates whether a shared trajectory of stronger state intervention and European coordination can coexist with sustained national diversity. It finds that polysemic concepts such as ‘skills’ enable alignment without convergence, as Member States adapt EU frameworks to own priorities.
The fourth paper extends the analysis to parental leave, a less institutionalised area of skills policy concerned with sustaining a skilled workforce despite parenthood. It shows that inter-party coordination shapes these reforms, illustrating how coalition dynamics affect the evolution of skills policies.
Milan Thies is a PhD researcher at the European University Institute (EUI). His research focuses on the political economy of socio-economic transformation and the governance of education and skills. Specifically, his thesis asks whether states have the capabilities to govern skills in the knowledge economy and how this affects the social inclusiveness of training systems. His work has been published in Regulation & Governance and Government and Opposition. He was a visiting researcher at Sciences Po’s Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics in Paris and at the Humboldt University of Berlin. Since December 2025, he has been a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lausanne as part of the Swiss Leading House Project for Governance in Vocational and Professional Education and Training (GOVPET).