Louis Lemkow – författare

This volume assembles the background and results of the major part of the empirical research performed in the frame of the SOCOSE project – interviews with employees who are affected by changing work environments (“insecure jobs”) or who had previously lost their jobs and have found new employment through the help of outplacement/replacement counselling (“successfully reemployed”). 250 employees in five European countries were questioned with regard to their experiences and their future job prospects.For each country, we will present cases where social actors joined in an innovative way in order to cope with redundancy, where specific strategies were developed, e. g. targeting vulnerable groups, or where employers expressed their social responsibility towards dismissed employees in a way that could set an example.

Although the first Agro-Food products based on modem biotechnology (e. g. recombinant chymosin for cheese production; tomato puree based on genetically engineered tomatoes; herbicide-resistant, genetically modified soybean; insect­ resistant maize) have been introduced in the EU markets in recent years, the application of this technology is still being intensively discussed in the European Union. Recent opinion polls indicate as well that consumers'' acceptance of genetically engineered food and agro-products still is relatively low (e. g. European Commission 1997, Hampel et al. 1997), at least in some member states of the EU. In contrast, representatives from politics and industry underline the necessity to apply modem biotechnology in the Agro-Food sector as well, mainly to ensure the competitiveness of EU agriculture and food industry and for employment reasons. Against this background there seems to be a need for a scientific analysis of the future impacts of modem biotechnology in the Agro-Food sector of the EU. Recent studies trying to analyse this issue (e. g. OECD 1992, Teuber 1992) usually comprise extrapolations of status-quo analyses. What has not been exploited so far in this context are systematic technology forecasting approaches which do not include only one single country, but get information on an international level. Therefore, the impacts of modem biotechnology on the Agro-Food sector in five member countries of the EU (Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain) have been analysed with the help of the Delphi methodology which represents one of the most reliable tools for technology forecasting.

Thomas Kieselbach This volume is the third publication of the project "Youth Unemployment and Social Exclusion: Objective Dimensions, Subjective Experiences and Innovative Institutional Responses in Six European Countries" (YUSEDER) supported by the Directorate Gen­ eral Research of the European Commission (DG Research) within the Targeted Socio­ Economic Research Programme (TSER) of the 4th Framework Programme. The YU­ SEDER research project tries to answer some crucial questions with regard to the risk of social exclusion associated with long-term youth unemployment. The first volume de­ scribed the available empirical evidence on youth unemployment and health in the par­ ticipating six countries of the EU\ the second volume drew attention to the concept of social exclusion in the context of youth unemployment as well as to vulnerable groups 2 of young unemployed people • The 3''" YUSEDER volume includes the qualitative analyses of 300 young long­ term unemployed people (20-25 years old) regarding their experiences with their own unemployment and related processes of social exclusion in six European countries. The aim of the study is to analyse the content and extent of social exclusion among young unemployed persons including the specific courses and developments of processes of social exclusion, key mechanisms leading from unemployment to social exclusion (pro­ tective factors and vulnerability factors) and individual coping mechanisms with regard to unemployment and the risk of social exclusion.

Although the first Agro-Food products based on modem biotechnology (e. g. recombinant chymosin for cheese production; tomato puree based on genetically engineered tomatoes; herbicide-resistant, genetically modified soybean; insect­ resistant maize) have been introduced in the EU markets in recent years, the application of this technology is still being intensively discussed in the European Union. Recent opinion polls indicate as well that consumers' acceptance of genetically engineered food and agro-products still is relatively low (e. g. European Commission 1997, Hampel et al. 1997), at least in some member states of the EU. In contrast, representatives from politics and industry underline the necessity to apply modem biotechnology in the Agro-Food sector as well, mainly to ensure the competitiveness of EU agriculture and food industry and for employment reasons. Against this background there seems to be a need for a scientific analysis of the future impacts of modem biotechnology in the Agro-Food sector of the EU. Recent studies trying to analyse this issue (e. g. OECD 1992, Teuber 1992) usually comprise extrapolations of status-quo analyses. What has not been exploited so far in this context are systematic technology forecasting approaches which do not include only one single country, but get information on an international level. Therefore, the impacts of modem biotechnology on the Agro-Food sector in five member countries of the EU (Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain) have been analysed with the help of the Delphi methodology which represents one of the most reliable tools for technology forecasting.