Katarina Lukacova: reforming the labour market and creating opportunities by connecting research, people and policy

When Katarina Lukacova joined the European Training Foundation (ETF) in March 2024, she arrived with an unusually rich mix of academic depth and real-world exposure. A Slovak human capital development expert with a strong research background in industrial relations, labour markets, welfare policies, she was a PhD research candidate at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence, trained in the European Parliament, advised local communities in Slovakia, and conducted applied research at CELSI, the Central European Labour Studies Institute in Bratislava.

Yet moving from think-tank life into an EU agency that works directly with countries, institutions and people proved transformative. 

“In research, you mostly work alone,” she says. “At the ETF, I immediately realised that policy is completely different. When you work with a country, there is no textbook, no blueprint. Every context requires its own approach.”

Today Katarina is ETF’s contact point for Turkmenistan and a key contributor to the regional dialogue of DARYA, the EU’s EUR 10 million flagship initiative for Central Asia, implemented by the ETF in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan: all countries where the Turin-based EU agency has 30 years of experience. 

Lukacova recently organised, together with the DARYA team, the 4th High-Level Group meeting, bringing vice-ministers of Education and Labour from the Central Asian countries, EU institutions and international partners into a shared conversation about skills, qualifications and labour-market governance, held in Turin at the end of October.

Her path illustrates why connecting evidence and policy really matters, and why Europe’s broader skills transitions need new voices, including younger experts who lived through economic transformation themselves.

A childhood shaped by transition

Katarina grew up in Slovakia during the transition years marked by the shift from a centrally planned to a market economy, culminating in EU accession in 2004 and the adoption of the euro in 2009. It was a period defined by new realities, mounting challenges and profound socioeconomic change.

 “I didn’t just study the transition, I grew up through it,” she recalls. Slovakia was long portrayed as a Central European success story: first as one of the “Central European tigers”, then as the world’s leading car producer per capita. Yet the same model later exposed its vulnerabilities: labour shortages, labour market dualisation, and a high dependence on foreign automotive investment..

Her experience shapes how she looks at the countries with which the ETF works: EU accession countries, the Western Balkans, and especially Central Asia. Some patterns feel familiar.

 “Slovakia developed economically thanks to the flow of foreign direct investments and integration into global production chains.,” she explains. “But without diversification, such open, export-oriented  economy becomes fragile."

Lukacova notes that this lesson is highly relevant for many partner countries seeking to attract foreign investors to create local employment opportunities. During her time living in Montenegro in 2016–2017, she often encountered the aspiration to “develop like Slovakia” by opening the economy and attracting foreign companies. Conducting comparative research of the two development paths has proven particularly telling for the local counterparts, especially given the strong diplomatic ties Slovakia and Montenegro have built over the years.

This perspective is equally important to keep in mind in Central Asia, particularly in the context of the investment potential linked to EU’s Global Gateway. The core message is clear: “Build your own country’s economic potential to remain relevant and future oriented".

Many ETF partner countries, she notes, are navigating similar dilemmas: how to build resilient labour markets, how to diversify, and how to ensure reforms serve long-term domestic potential.

Learning from practice: social dialogue and the “just transition”

One of Katarina’s core thematic areas is fair transition, ensuring that green and digital shifts do not leave communities behind. Once again, her engagement is personal. She grew up just five kilometres from a major Slovak coal plant in Upper Nitra, one of the EU’s first pilot regions for just transition.

“There was already active social dialogue on what will be the future of the region without coal. Long before European funds such as Just Transition fund have been set up in the EU to help with the transition,” she says. “Miners, citizens and local actors built an action plan together.” But the process also revealed pitfalls. “Some essential proposals, like retraining and requalification defined at district level, were never fully adopted. That affected people’s motivation to stay engaged in the discussions. Multilevel governance matters enormously in these delicate situations for all levels of the community and the wider ecosystem.”

Her conclusion is clear: successful transitions depend on strong middle-level governance that articulates local needs and connect them with national and European frameworks (and by genuine social dialogue). “You must embed the perspective of the whole community to make sure the transition is truly inclusive. Listening to the people at the heart of transition is not as difficult as we think, nor expensive.”

This insight now guides her work in Central Asia, where the demographic landscape is dramatically different from Europe. The context changes everything, from education systems to labour-market planning.

“There is so much young energy in the region,” she says. “Youth is one of Central Asia’s greatest assets. With a median age of around 26 and nearly one-third of the population under 15, Central Asia is currently one of the youngest regions in the world.”

By 2050, the region’s population is projected to reach around 114 million, with nearly two-thirds of people of working age. “When you are dealing with such a demographic window of opportunity, discussions tend to be more positive.”

Partners and stakeholders, she adds, increasingly ask: “What can we do together?” “They are pragmatic, open and eager to cooperate with the EU.”

From datasets to real people

Working closely with Turkmenistan has reshaped how Katarina interprets evidence. “I used to read the context  mostly from hard data. Now I’ve learned to add the value of soft evidence, such as listening to people, building trust, understanding lived experiences,” she explains. “In Turkmenistan, partners emphasised how much personal meetings and in-person events and workshops matter. Being present opens doors that no dataset can.”

She highlights that in many ETF partner countries data accessibility is limited. “In the EU you have Eurostat; in Central Asia steps are only now being made towards a regional labour-market analysis platform. In DARYA we try to help with that.”

Straddling the research world and the policy arena gives Katarina a unique vantage point.

 “When I did research I always said: academia and policy need to start speaking the same language,” she points out. “Policy moves fast. We as policy advisors don’t always have the luxury of time to go into a deep analysis. Meanwhile, valuable academic work often disappears because it lacks visibility.”

She believes EU agencies should actively bring researchers into major initiatives. “In DARYA and other ETF projects, more academic involvement would add real value. There is a gap to bridge, and we should be building that bridge – one that would benefit both worlds.”

Organising the latest High-Level Group for Central Asia taught her how strategic these bridges can be. “What I learned most is that our priority is not just connecting countries with each other, but connecting the region with the EU. Bringing Commission services, EU Delegations, institutions and banks around one table creates real opportunities for cooperation and innovation.”

Youth as the centre of Europe’s future

For Katarina, the biggest question Europe still isn’t asking loudly enough concerns motivation and engagement, especially for young people. 

“We discuss transitions, future skills needs. But do we ask enough whom we are doing all this for?” she says. “Youth, vulnerable groups, adults outside the labour market: these are the people we must listen to.”

She recalls a survey about the perception of youth of climate action in the Western Balkans and Central Asia: “Although climate change is a major concern for young people worldwide, almost 70 per cent said they do not have enough opportunities (or are not aware of any)  to have their voices heard in environmental and climate policies.”

Her message is simple: engagement is not a detail — it is the foundation of any reform. It shapes motivation, willingness to learn and openness to change. Schools, in particular, have a crucial role to play. While survey results show that many young people feel their education does not yet fully prepare them for the green economy, they also point to schools as a powerful entry point for awareness and participation.

“Schools are where awareness can become confidence and skills — especially when learning goes beyond theory and gives young people the space to engage, act and feel part of the solution,” Lukacova says.

Although still early in her ETF journey, Katarina embodies a new generation of European policy expertise: research-trained, internationally shaped, and deeply committed to cooperation across borders.

But don’t tell her that, she keeps her feet firmly on the ground.

 “What I love about this work is that it keeps you humble,” she reflects. “Countries teach you how to listen. They remind you why we build skills systems in the first place: to give people real opportunities, and to build futures that are fair and sustainable.”

In many ways, her story mirrors the ETF's mission: bridging knowledge and practice, Europe and its neighbourhood, policy and people. And as Central Asia, the Western Balkans and Europe face shared transitions, from green and digital shifts to demographic change, voices like hers show how constructive, pragmatic and youth-centred cooperation can help shape the next decade of skills development. Likely, the most crucial decade of the last century.