Reflections and comments/Reflektioner och kommentarer.

I have been working as senior consultant now for one and a half year. It has been a challenging task with a diversity of different missions.  One of the problems is to find a balance between non-profit work and consultancy on the market. Another challenge is to find a balance between quick fix-missions and more long-term oriented  tasks. Looking backwards, it seems that I have loaded my portfolio to heavy with many differents tasks. Last year, I was documentating Swedish data bases on life after 50 for the JPI More Years – Better Lives mission (in total a copule of month work). I also have invested many hours and days in a policy study on youth unemployment in the Baltic Sea Region (Abrahamsson, K. & Besér, Nathalie, 2013, eds) The Baltic Edge. Reflections on youth, work and innovations in he Baltic Sea Region (available on print on demand at    www.vulkan.se). I have also been active in the Unesco/MOST-committee and been organizing workshops and seminars. A substantial part of the autumn was also devoted to assessing publications of applicants for academic positions. Furthermore I have been participating in almost ten international workshops and conferences during the last year. What I have missed is my intention to write a couple of new books; so far mostly some articles and and assessment of books. Next to come missions during spring 2014 are, CEDEFOP project on vocational education, policy development on sustainable work systems in the contexts of EU Horizon 2020, work for think tanks, MOST and also a capacity building project for Malmö University College (www.mah.se ).