Reports

The paper is the second in a series of two papers mapping young people’s environmental sustainability competence in EU and OECD countries that were prepared as background for the forthcoming OECD Skills Outlook 2023 publication. The papers are the results of a collaboration between the OECD Centre for Skills and the European Commission - Joint Research Centre (Unit B4) on students’ environmental sustainability competence. The first paper is titled ‘Young people’s environmental sustainability competence: Emotional, cognitive, behavioural and attitudinal dimensions in EU and OECD countries.

This publication contains the 2022 Second Round Peer Review Report on the Exchange of Information on Request for Portugal.

This country note presents the results of an analysis of undertake Portugal undertaken within the Labour Market Relevance and Outcomes of Higher Education Partnership Initiative project. The project was implemented by the OECD with the support of the European Commission with the aim of helping policy makers and higher education institutions enhance the employment outcomes of graduates by better aligning higher education provision with labour markets skill demands. Portugal has a high the concentration of students in short-cycle programmes in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and engineering. These programmes have the potential to increase student enrolment in bachelor and postgraduate fields of study that are connected with the digital and technological transition of the economy, and so far have seen low enrolment. The success of short-cycle programmes as pathways to further study will require a combined approach of improved study guidance and student support. The country note reviews the system context, highlights challenges faced by higher education institutions and, lessons learned from current practice, and presents policy options.

This publication is part of the OECD workstream on Preparing Regions for Demographic Change. It elaborates a case study for the Portuguese region of Alentejo and focuses on improving the delivery of educational services taking into account the multi-level governance context. The study highlights the need to better articulate and co-ordinate the delivery of educational services among levels of government to improve access and quality. It also sheds light on the decisive role that geography plays and the importance of adopting a spatial lens to mitigate the rising inequality present in Portugal in access to education services. Alentejo is a rural region that expects to lose 30% of its population between 2020 and 2080, hence it needs to put in place forward-looking and effective policy levers to delivery sustainable education services to citizens living in rural communities.

The OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) conducts peer reviews of individual members once every five to six years. Reviews seek to improve the quality and effectiveness of members’ development co-operation, highlighting good practices and recommending improvements. Portugal mobilises its whole of government expertise with a strong focus on partner country ownership. Building on long-standing and close bilateral relations, it concentrates its funding on countries most in need. Through effective international advocacy, the country champions triangular co-operation and has fostered agreement amongst European Union (EU) members on issues such as strengthening Team Europe’s commitment to human development when it held the Presidency of the EU Council. However, Portugal can make more out of the wide participation of state and non-state actors in its development co-operation. This peer review provides a set of recommendations to improve co-ordination across government, pull bilateral efforts together, focus more on outcomes and take action to increase official development assistance (ODA).

The Review of Inclusive Education in Portugal provides, from an international perspective, an independent analysis of major issues regarding diversity, equity and inclusion in education in Portugal, current policy initiatives, and possible future approaches. The report serves three purposes: i) to provide insights and advice to Portuguese education authorities; ii) to help other countries understand the Portuguese approach to inclusive education; and iii) to provide input for comparative analyses of the OECD Strength through Diversity project. The scope for the analysis in this report covers primary (including 1st and 2nd cycle of basic education) and secondary education (including 3rd cycle of basic education and upper secondary). The analysis in the report focuses on the following areas: i) governance and financing of inclusive education; ii) capacity building; iii) school-level interventions and iv) monitoring and evaluation. This report will be of interest in Portugal and other countries looking to improve the equity and inclusion in their education systems.

This report assesses the enabling conditions for maximising the benefits of foreign direct investment (FDI) on SME productivity and innovation in Portugal. It looks at the quality of investment that Portugal attracts and the capacity of Portuguese SMEs to benefit from any knowledge and technology spillovers resulting from these investments. It studies the extent to which FDI-SME spillovers occur through value chain linkages, strategic partnerships, labour mobility, competition and imitation effects. The report provides an overview of Portuguese public institutions responsible for investment, SMEs, innovation and regional development policies, taking a close look at arrangements to ensure multi-level policy coordination, stakeholder consultation and evaluation of policy impacts. It then reviews the mix of government policies that are currently in place to support FDI-SME linkages and spillovers, noting areas for further policy reforms. The last chapter introduces a regional lens, focusing in particular on the regions of Norte and Alentejo. This report is part of a broader European Commission-OECD programme on strengthening FDI-SME linkages and serves as a pilot for future country assessments.

Italy’s start-up visa aims to make the national start-up ecosystem more easily accessible to foreign talent, rich with knowledge and skills, and more integrated into global markets. Government reports show that the programme has not yet achieved a critical scale. The analysis of similar initiatives in Chile, France, Ireland and Portugal identifies five gateways for attracting more foreign entrepreneurs, such as an effective policy outreach, smooth inter-institutional co-operation across the migratory process, and the provision of sound support services for a 'soft landing' of entrepreneurs upon arrival. These takeaways may also inform new talent attraction policies targeting remote workers, an expanding group in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

After a decade of steady growth, the tourism sector in Portugal is facing its most acute challenge in modern times, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. As inbound visitors return to Portugal, the tourism workforce will need digital skills to make effective use of new technologies, and exploit the opportunities digitalisation is opening up for marketing, as well as product and destination development. Successful digital uptake by businesses will be a driving force in building recovery and resilience in the longer term. While there has been progress in recent years, especially in response to the pandemic, there remains considerable scope to go further. To support this digital transformation, this report examines and assesses current policy approaches to support digital skills and workforce development in the sector, and presents a selection of policy considerations to: i) address digital transformation gaps, shortages and opportunities for workforce organisation and skills development, and ii) enhance governance mechanisms to support the digital skills transformation of the tourism workforce.

This profile provides a concise and policy-relevant overview of health and the health system in Portugal as part of the broader series of the State of Health in the EU country profiles. It provides a short synthesis of: the health status in the country; the determinants of health, focussing on behavioural risk factors; the organisation of the health system; and the effectiveness, accessibility and resilience of the health system. This edition has a special focus on the impact of COVID‑19. This profile is the joint work of the OECD and the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, in co-operation with the European Commission.