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Matthias Pilz "Most Productive Author”

VET research: Matthias Pilz is a world leader.

Portrait Prof. Dr  Matthias Pilz

Prof. Dr Matthias Pilz from the Institute for Vocational, Economics and Business Education is the most prolific researcher in the field of VET and VET research, according to a recent global scoping review.

Scoping reviews are a recognised means of mapping a research area and providing guidance on the state of the research literature. A comprehensive and worldwide "Scoping Review on Research" on VET has now been presented by Michael Gessler, Christof Nägele and Barbara E. Stalder. Their "Bibliometric Mapping Analysis of the Last Decade" aims at nothing less than a mapping of the intellectual and conceptual structure of the research field at the boundary between learning and working.

For the WiSo Faculty, it is all the more gratifying that Professor Dr Matthias Pilz, holder of the Chair of Economics and Business Education, established himself as the world's most prolific author, with 28 peer-reviewed articles in the years 2011 to 2020. Most cited work of Prof. Pilz, was his Multi-Perspective VET Typology-approach in the context of international comparative VET research. In relation to Germany, Matthias Pilz is the only researcher on the list. Second place went to Alberto Cattaneo from the Swiss Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training SFIVET with 21 publications. A total of 5,474 articles listed in the prestigious Scopus database were included in the analysis.

Matthias Pilz has thus been working successfully in a highly dynamic research field for more than ten years, which is also characterised by high growth, as the study authors note. One reason for this is the multidimensionality of the interface between working and learning, which encompasses economic, political, institutional, social and individual concerns in equal measure. A structure that the interdisciplinary struclture of the WiSo Faculty certainly accommodates. In view of the crises of recent years, the social, economic, political and scientific significance of vocational education and training and vocational education and training research has also increased massively.

Matthias Pilz's research focuses, in addition to comparative VET, on school development, the modularisation of VET and the transition from school to work. A strong practical orientation and a well-founded international perspective characterise his research projects. In keeping with the faculty motto "Today's Ideas. Tomorrow's Impact", Professor Pilz thus takes into account another aspect of the research field which, as Gessler, Nägele and Stalder note, has so far been characterised by a strong national orientation.