In May 2012, the Centre for Skills, Performance and Productivity Research (CSPPR) invited a panel of international experts to conduct a series of roundtable discussions and public lectures on the recent developments of skills research and workforce development policies.

In order to illustrate some of these new arguments and their implications, we have selected three papers (by Phillip Brown and Hugh Lauder, David Finegold, and Andy Dickerson and Rob Wilson) for this Civil Service College–IAL joint publication.

In addition, Wu Wei Neng from the Civil Service College also provides a contextual paper which examines the strategic issues facing the Continuing Education and Training (CET) sectors, linking the three papers to the events and policy discussions in Singapore.

Together, these papers will identify some of the most important challenges for contemporary workforce development in Singapore.