1. Baiba Rivza professor, Latvia

2.  It is important to have the vision, especially in the time of economic downturn, both,  in a national level ( Latvian National development plan in Latvia 2009-2013,Latvia 2030) and  in a community level, like, EU strategy “Europe 2020”

3.  Europe 2020 puts forward three mutually reinforcing priorities:  – Smart growth: developing an economy based on knowledge and innovation.  – Sustainable growth: promoting a more resource efficient, greener and more competitive economy.  – Inclusive growth: fostering a high-employment economy delivering social and territorial cohesion.  EU headline targets:  – 75 % of the population aged 20-64 should be employed.  – 3% of the EU's GDP should be invested in R&D.

4.  It is important to have at least mid term forecast for the demand and offer of the labor market (Prepared by the Ministry of Economics in Latvia)  To change the development model towards knowledge and innovation based added value production economy  Identified and set priority fields for economic recovery in midterm perspective (prepared by the Ministry of Economics and approved by the Cabinet of Ministers 10.11.2009) (electronic and telecommunication devices, pharmacology, devices for the radiological etc diagnostics, medical devices, chemical materials, instruments etc as well as several services)

5.  It is important to ensure the education of the specialists, necessary for the fields important for the economic recovery  State financed budget plases in the priority fields – natural sciences, mathematics, engineering, IT, building and construction, agriculture, health, environment, transport, creative industries

6. Students of 19 state HEI 84 816 (66%) Students of 15 private HEI 33 718 (26%) Students of state colleges 5605 (4%) Students of private colleges 5364 (4%) Full time students 74 381 (57%) Part time students 55 122 (43%) Students financed by state 30 179 (23%) Studying for the fee 99324 (77%)

7.  For development of innovation, both, highly qualified human capital and competitive research, are necessary  Several important tasks:  First of all, to assure the governments to recognize even in crisis that education is public responsibility  Improvement of the quality of education to acquire better skills and competences  To enhance the collaboration between educational establishments and employer organisations

8.  To motivate the students choose the study disciplines in respect with the state needs  To develop lifelong learning system to allow to keep the competences online with fast changing needs of the globalised economy and labor market  It is necessary to increase the regional and international cooperation!!

9. Latvia University of Agriculture

10. EDUCATION Providing both higher academic and proffesional education in all 9 faculties:  Agriculture  Veterinary Medicine  Food Technology  Engineering  Forest  Economics  Rural Engineering  Social Sciences  Information Technologies

11.  Encouraging first year students  Supervision of the final thesis for bachelor, master and doctoral studies  To help to students – young mothers  To promote students research  To promote professional carrer

12. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!