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OECD reviews of national education policies provide a well-established means for member countries to engage their peers in reviewing their country’s policies. This report is divided into two parts: a background report, prepared by the Swiss authorities, and the OECD examiners’ report. This review makes recommendations for further improvements to the tertiary education system in Switzerland as it grapples with national and global challenges emerging from the transition to a knowledge society. 

This OECD Review of the Danish university system examines such aspects as governance, funding, the Research Council System, the Danish knowledge system, the university system itself, universities' interaction with society, and outcomes.  It finds that training and research is of high quality, but that the system needs to change in response to rapidly changing demands.  A number of recommendations are put forward, particularly in the area of university governance and steering of the system by the government.

This report presents a revised anlaysis of responses received from member countries to the Questionnaire on Data Requirements for Acute Oral Toxicity.
 

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. Specific objectives include providing a description of the OECD conceptual framework for evaluating chemicals for endocrine disruption, background on the standardised test methods used, and guidance for interpreting the outcome of individual tests. The general approach taken by the document is primarily to provide guidance on how test results might be interpreted based on the outcome of standardised assays. Key questions addressed in the document concern likely mechanisms of endocrine action and any resulting apical effects that can be attributed to such action. The document is not proscriptive but provides suggestions for possible next steps in testing (if any) which might be appropriate for a regulatory authority to take, given the various data scenarios. The guidance document is focused primarily on endocrine modalities included in the conceptual framework; estrogen, androgen, and thyroid mediated endocrine disruption and chemicals that interfer with steroidogenesis.

This document provides guidance for the conduct of laboratory inspections and study audit under the Principles of Good Laboratory Practice.

This document provides detailed practical guidance to OECD Member countries on the structure, mechanisms and procedures they should adopt when establishing national Good Laboratory Practice compliance monitoring programmes so that these programmes may be internationally acceptable.

The global economy relies increasingly on services for economic growth, employment, and innovation. Moreover, services trade plays a crucial role in mitigating some of the biggest challenges of our times, including by strengthening resilience in supply chains, supporting the digital transformation, and enabling a greener economy. Since 2014, the OECD has monitored services trade policies through the OECD Services Trade Restrictiveness Index (STRI), and offers annual updates on data related to services regulations. The STRI identifies opportunities for policy reform, and facilitates the quantification of benefits of open and well-regulated services markets. Building on a decade of monitoring and analysing services policies, this report presents developments on the evolution of the global regulatory and policy environment for services trade. It highlights that services trade barriers remain high and asymmetric across countries and regions, but that ambitious reforms could yield important benefits in terms of trade cost reductions. The report also serves as a unique roadmap for governments to develop ambitious strategies to revitalise services trade and how to leverage the STRI database, indices, and tools in order to implement impactful reforms.

Spain has been confronted with weak wage and productivity growth for several decades. This report provides an overview of the role that labour market policies as well as other policies can play in reviving broadly shared productivity growth in Spain. To set the scene, it starts with documenting the decline in broadly shared productivity growth and its underlying mechanisms. It then provides a discussion of how policies can enhance the adaptability of the economy and labour market to structural change. It concludes with a discussion of the role of selected labour market policies for promoting broadly shared productivity gains. The emphasis is on wage-setting institutions, employment protection and job retention support, consistent with the focus of recent reforms.

This information note elaborates on the concept of ‗Right from the Start‘ and describes how revenue bodies in the FTA are applying strategies aiming to cost-effectively influence taxpayer compliance behaviour by way of directing attention to the compliance environment. The purpose is to present a synthesis of current knowledge and experience in designing these strategies and provide assistance and practical inspiration for revenue bodies wishing to further explore such strategies.

This report presents the latest information on the nature and scope of the refugee crisis as well as the policy response in OECD countries. The latter covers information on the entry and stay conditions for Ukrainian nationals as well as information on the reception support available in terms of housing, subsistence means, and access to social services and to integration measures.

The OECD contributes to the improvement of the financial management of major catastrophes both through the activities of the International Network on the Financial Management of Large-Scale Catastrophes and through the leadership of its High-Level Advisory Board. This publication compiles a series of reports reflecting the OECD’s extensive work in this field over recent years. These reports include: 1) a stocktaking of initiatives to promote natural hazard awareness and disaster risk reduction education, resulting in the publication of a policy handbook; 2) a review of and recommendations on catastrophe-linked securities and the role of capital markets in supporting the financial mitigation of large-scale risks, aimed at governments promoting these instruments; 3) a review of current mechanisms used to quantify catastrophe losses within the OECD; and 4) a review of hazard risk mapping efforts in South East Asian countries.

Colombia has launched an ambitious reform to improve its risk governance and boost resilience to disasters. This OECD Disaster Risk Governance Scan reviews Colombia’s progress in implementing the reform against the 2014 OECD Recommendation on the Governance of Critical Risks. The report identifies success factors and good practices in implementing the disaster risk reform agenda, focusing on central government policies and their implementation, and provides a set of recommendations to strengthen Colombia’s efforts in the future.

This report presents the governance framework in Kazakhstan for managing disaster risks. A wide range of disaster risks are present throughout the national territory, primarily floods, landslides, avalanches, but also extreme cold and heatwaves. The report reviews how the central government sets up a national strategy to manage these disaster risks, and how a national risk governance framework is formulated and executed. It examines the role of the private sector and other non-governmental actors in contributing to resilience at a national and subnational level.

Taking risks is a fundamental driving force in business and entrepreneurship. To reap the full rewards of risk-taking, however, firms need to have in place effective risk management practices. This publication provides a stocktaking of ways in which SOEs and those exercising the state’s ownership role address the issue of risk management from the perspective of corporate governance (“risk governance”), as recommended in the OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises. The report looks at this issue from three perspectives: by taking stock, first, of national legal and regulatory SOE risk management frameworks, and then by taking stock of risk-management practices at the level of the SOE and then at the level of the state.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) have been in use since the 1950s as ingredients or intermediates of surfactants and surface protectors for assorted industrial and consumer applications. Some of the unique physicochemical properties of PFASs that popularised their widespread use are also associated with environmental and human health concerns. For example, within the past decade, several long-chain perfluoroalkyl acids have been recognised as persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic. Many have been detected globally in the environment, biota, food items, and in humans. This has led to efforts toward the development of risk reduction approaches, with the goal to reduce the global impact of these chemicals on the environment and health and to support a global transition toward safer alternatives.

In the context of sustainable development policies, decision making in the energy sector should be based on carefully designed trade-offs which take into account, insofar as feasible, all of the alternative options’ advantages and drawbacks from the economic, environmental and social viewpoints. This report examines various aspects of nuclear and other energy chains for generating electricity, and provides illustrative examples of quantitative and qualitative indicators for those chains with regard to economic competitiveness, environmental burdens (such as air emissions and solid waste streams) and social aspects (including employment and health impacts). It offers authoritative data and references to published literature on energy chain analysis which can be used in support of decision making.