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PISA in Focus No. 64 - Are there differences in how advantaged and disadvantaged students use the Internet?

Even when all students, including the most disadvantaged, have easy access to the Internet,a digital divide, based on socio-economic status, still persists in how students use technology.




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Educating for Innovation and Innovation in Education (OECD Education Today Blog)

Students unable to navigate through our complex digital landscape are simply no longer able to participate in our social, economic and cultural life.




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Improving School Leadership and Evaluation in Mexico: A State-level Perspective from Puebla

The education system of Puebla is undergoing a transformation. Ambitious national reforms have provided a new framework to improve teaching and evaluation practices, and ultimately raise student learning outcomes. At the same time, Puebla has also launched promising initiatives to improve the quality of education in the state.




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How student attitudes towards the value of education can be shaped by careers education – evidence from the OECD’s PISA study (OECD Education Today Blog)

As governments around the world seek to tackle stubbornly high levels of youth unemployment, new attention has been focused on the relationship between education and employment.




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Finding and cultivating talented teachers: Insights from high-performing countries (OECD Education Today Blog)

In a rapidly changing world, having a strong knowledge base in their subject area, good classroom management skills and a commitment to helping students learn may no longer be enough to meet the expanding role of teachers.




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OECD to launch Skills Outlook 2017: Skills and global value chains, 09:00 GMT on Thursday 4 May

Amid a growing debate over the benefits of globalisation, a new OECD report examines how the level and mix of skills in a country’s workforce can affect its chances of winning or losing from the globalised production chains that see workers dotted across different countries contributing to the design, manufacture and sale of a single product




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PISA in Focus No. 75 - Does the quality of learning outcomes fall when education expands to include more disadvantaged students?

Globally, enrolment in secondary education has expanded dramatically over the past decades. This expansion is also reflected in PISA data, particularly for low- and middle-income countries. Between 2003 and 2015, Indonesia added more than 1.1 million students, Turkey and Brazil more than 400 000 students, and Mexico more than 300 000 students, to the total population of 15-year-olds eligible to participate in PISA.




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Benefits of university education remain high but vary widely across fields of study

Tertiary enrolment is expanding rapidly, with very strong returns for individuals and taxpayers, but new evidence shows that universities can fail to offer, and individuals fail to pursue, the fields of study that promise the greatest labour-market opportunities, according to a new OECD report.




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Schools at the crossroads of innovation (OECD Education Today Blog)

Innovative schools challenge the boundaries – in time, space, and also in curricula and learning processes – that tradition seems to impose on schools today. They often have different approaches to the learning process and especially how its pedagogical core is organised.




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PISA in Focus No. 76 - How do schools compensate for socio-economic disadvantage?

As educators know well, there are many barriers to learning that originate outside of school, such as those that arise from socio-economic disadvantage. In many education systems, the concentration of disadvantaged students in certain schools poses an additional challenge.




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Why innovation becomes imperative in education (OECD Education Today Blog)

Since Harvard economists Goldin & Katz published their ground-breaking book The Race between Technology and Education (2008), education has come face-to-face with the challenges of a world continuously altered by technological innovation. Education is generally perceived to be a laggard social system, better equipped to transmit the heritage of the past than to prepare for the future.




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Education Indicators in Focus No. 56: Who really bears the cost of education? How the burden of education expenditure shifts from the public to the private

Despite the obvious benefits derived from education, governments face difficult trade-offs when balancing the share of public and private contributions to education.




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More efforts needed to help children from disadvantaged families succeed

Too many people from disadvantaged backgrounds are falling behind in education and future job market, according to a new OECD report. Educational Opportunity For All says that children, students and adults from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds receive too little support to succeed in school and in learning opportunities later in life.




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PISA in Focus No. 80 - In which countries and schools do disadvantaged students succeed?

PISA 2015 data show that, on average across OECD countries, as many as three out of four students from the lowest quarter of socio-economic status reach, at best, only the baseline level of proficiency (Level 2) in reading, mathematics or science.




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Gokul Anandayuvaraj is the Unique Entrepreneur with a Progressive Mindset and Mission

Gokul Anandayuvaraj, the founder and CEO of VINVELI, is one such entrepreneur and tech innovator. From his consistent hard work and contribution, he has been inspiring millions of engineers and budding entrepreneurs all over the world, especially in the field of aerospace.




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OECD Reviews of Regional Innovation: Central and Southern Denmark

This book examines regional innovation in central and southern Denmark, looking at its role in the economy, its governance and policy context and regional strategies for innovation driven growth.




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Russia: Innovation and Modernising the Rural Economy

Russia: Innovation and Modernising the Rural Economy




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Report: Delivering local development review to assess the efficiency of the Regional Development Agencies Integrated Network of the Slovak Republic

This project aims to support the Slovak Republic as it seeks to create a clear rationale for the Regional Development Agencies Integrated Network which currently comprises 38 agencies.




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Conference: Innovation in skills development for SMEs competitiveness (Ankara, Turkey)

The conference discussed the results of the project as well as policy recommendations on training and skills development for the creation of an innovative and competitive SME sector in OECD countries.




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OECD Reviews of Regional Innovation: Wallonia, Belgium 2012

This publication looks at regional innovation in Wallonia, Belgium, by examining the political context, governance issues and the role of innovation in the economy, along with regional innovation strategies to promote growth.




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Ports: How to Get More Value for Money?

Ports are the nervous system of global trade. Over 80% of world cargo (by volume) is transported by sea. Our efforts to raise the efficiency, competitiveness and sustainability of ports can help boost trade, growth and jobs. It can also help us to promote green growth and development in the poorest regions, said OECD Secretary-General.




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Regions and Innovation: Collaborating Across Borders

This report examines cross-border collaboration on innovation, building on case studies of cross-border areas that include the following countries: Finland, Sweden, Norway, Estonia, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, United Kingdom and Ireland.




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Netherlands: Make economic, innovation and territorial reforms work together to boost growth and competitiveness, says OECD

The Netherlands is gradually emerging from a double-dip recession with strengthened public finances and reforms on track to improve the labour and housing markets and the health care and pension systems. These reforms are paying off, says the OECD. Growth is expected to reach 1% this year and 1.3% in 2015.




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Governments must tackle regional variations in health care use, says OECD

Health care use varies widely across countries but can also vary as much or more within countries. Governments should do more to improve their health systems to prevent unnecessary interventions and ensure that everyone has the same access to quality healthcare, wherever they live, according to a new OECD report.




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Poorer regions struggling to catch up in advanced economies, says OECD

Living standards continue to diverge within many economically advanced countries as poorer regions struggle to catch up with richer ones. Half of the 34 OECD countries have seen the income gap between their best-off and worst-off regions widen since the 2008 crisis, according to new OECD research.




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Still too much variation in health care quality across Italian regions, says new OECD report

Italy has significantly improved the quality of health care in recent decades but needs to tackle the wide disparities that remain between regions, according to a new OECD report.




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Colombia: Supporting the development of local innovation systems – Policy review

The project provided recommendations to the city of Medellin and Antioquia to support the development of the local economy and includes a focus on how the innovative environment can be strengthened to support inclusion, entrepreneurship, SME, and local developmentto and how to better coordinate and integrate its policies with the national level.




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Business brief: Innovation and urban mobility in Brazil

“What is the city but the people?” asked Shakespeare in Coriolanus. All city planning focuses on people and the quality of life. The big cities in Brazil took shape from the 1950s, when the country’s population amounted to approximately 52 million inhabitants, only 36.2% of whom lived in cities.




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11th Trento Festival of Economics 2016

11th edition of Trento Festival of Economics: the arena where economists, political and institutional stakeholders, researchers and journalists from all over the world, will exchange views and investigate the topic “Where growth takes place”.




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Innovations and challenges in the management of regional policy

Seminar on Innovations and challenges in the management of a regional policy held in Bratislava, Slovak Republic, 22 February 2017




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OECD sessions on Local Development and Spatial Productivity at the 13th Trento Festival of Economics on Technology and Jobs

The OECD Trento Centre organised five sessions within the 2018 Festival of Economics on Technology and Jobs on 1-3 June 2018. OECD and intenational experts along with high level government representatives discussed the impact of new technologies on jobs and its effect on local economies and policies and what regions and regional policy can do to narrow economic gaps and promote productivity catching-up.




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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Pesticide Programs’ Aquatic Life Benchmarks now available on eChemPortal

The aquatic life benchmarks (for freshwater species) are based on toxicity values reviewed by EPA and used in the Agency's most recent risk assessments developed as part of the decision-making process for pesticide registration. Each Aquatic Life Benchmark is based on the most sensitive, scientifically acceptable toxicity endpoint available for a given taxon of all scientifically acceptable toxicity data available to EPA.




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The first update to the third generation of the OECD QSAR Toolbox is now available

30/01/2013 –The first update to the third generation of the QSAR Toolbox (version 3.1) has now been released containing improved search functionalities, interface improvement, a new database for observed rat in vivo metabolism; updated auto oxidation and metabolism simulators; updated DNA binding profiler and additional ways of expressing mixtures composition.




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Consensus document on composition of new soybean varieties: food and feed nutrients, anti-nutrients, toxicants and allergens

This revised document supplies basic information (compositional considerations, key constituents), useful in risk/safety assessment of food and feed using new varieties of soybean (Glycine max.). This updated publication replaces the original issue of 2001.




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Low-level presence of transgenic plants in seed and grain commodities: Environmental risk/safety Assessment, and availability and use of information

This Biosafety document aims to serve as an aid to risk assessors and regulators; providing guidance on handling the aspects of an environmental safety assessment, accessing and using information in situations of low-level presence (LLP) of transgenic plants in seed and grain commodities.




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Emission scenario document for wood preservatives

The OECD has published a revision of the 2003 Emission Scenario Document on Wood Preservatives to take into account the experience gained in working with the 2003 ESD. The document has been totally restructured, emission scenarios have been updated and new, niche scenarios have been added. The document is an essential tool for Member countries working in the area of biocidal products assessment.




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Consensus document on compositional considerations for new varieties of oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus): Key food and feed nutrients, anti-nutrients and toxicants

This document supplies basic information useful in the risk and safety assessment of food and feed using new varieties of oyster mushroom: compositional considerations, key constituents (nutrients, anti-nutrients and toxicants). It is issued in the Novel Food and Feed Safety Series.




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Removal/emission predictions of wastewater treatment for exposure assessment and Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers

This document compiles information on the current methodologies, tools and models and helps readers identify appropriate models/ and methodologies for estimating substance-specific removal/emissions from wastewater treatment systems. It could support efforts to improve these models and tools.




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Consensus document on the biology of cassava

This document is a tool for environmental safety assessment of novel varieties of Cassava derived from modern biotechnology. Cassava is a key staple crop in Africa, Asia and Latin America, this document will be useful to many readers interested in biosafety issues.




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A new guidance is now available to facilitate the ecological risk assessment of organometallic and organic metal salt substances

The OECD has published guidance to facilitate the ecological risk assessment of organometallic and organic metal salt substances. A strategy is presented based on key steps that first consider the fate of these substances in the environment, the identification of moieties of concern, and subsequently the selection of an appropriate path forward to either assess the inorganic moiety and/or the individual substance.




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Physical-Chemical Properties of Nanomaterials: Evaluation of Methods Applied in the OECD-WPMN Testing Programme

This new document focuses on the evaluation of test methods applied to determine the physico-chemical properties of different types of nanomaterials.




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Revised Guidance Document 150 on Standardised Test Guidelines for Evaluating Chemicals for Endocrine Disruption

This guidance document was originally published in 2012 and updated in 2018 to reflect new and updated OECD test guidelines, as well as reflect on scientific advances in the use of test methods and assessment of the endocrine activity of chemicals. The document is intended to provide guidance for evaluating chemical using standardised test guidelines.




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Assessing the economic valuation of the benefits of regulating chemicals - Environment Working Paper

This paper reviews and compares five case studies on quantification and economic valuation of benefits in cost-benefit analyses (CBAs) of regulating phthalates, mercury, PFOA (perfluoro-octanic acid) and its salts, NMP (1 methyl-2-pyrroloidine) and formaldehyde. The case studies had all been carried out as part of the SACAME project, and the purpose of the present paper is to draw out cross-cutting findings from these studies.




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Lyft president John Zimmer on rivalry with Uber

How the ride-hailing chief’s good-guy image is paying off




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Jean-François van Boxmeer, Heineken CEO

The brewery chief has staved off decline with emerging market acquisitions




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Top tips on how to add value to property

Five ways to improve your home




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Researchers prepare for human challenge trials of Covid-19 vaccine

Deliberately infecting volunteers could accelerate research but raises ethical questions






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Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy's summit to heal rift ends in deadlock

The footballers' wives have been at loggerheads after Coleen, 34, accused Rebekah, 38, of leaking stories about her, and their case could now go to the High Court after failing to reach a resolution.