NN43, February 2010
A World of Reports? A Critical Review of Global Development Reports with an Angle on Education and Training
Peter Grootings in Memoriam
By Sören Nielsen, European Training Foundation (ETF)
Email: Sören.Nielsen@etf.europa.eu
On Friday 3 July 2009, ETF lead expert Peter Grootings died at the age of 58 after a long and courageous battle against a fatal disease.
Peter was a key asset for the ETF with a unique ability to combine the roles of concept developer, expert, coach and team player, and he will be greatly missed by all who were lucky enough to have known him. He was responsible for shaping the ETF’s development and establishing the Foundation’s reputation as an international centre of expertise.
Peter led the development of ETF expertise publications, and in 2003 he initiated the first Editorial Board and introduced the ETF Yearbook as an instrument for international debate on policy learning and developments in the field of education, training and active labour market initiatives. With the Yearbook, Peter opened an opportunity for talented, young staff to write expert contributions on an equal footing with senior writers.
His own writings encompassed all dimensions in his field of expertise, from the early days in CEDEFOP in the early 80s over the years as a consultant mainly in Eastern Europe, to his work in ETF.
Peter’s last years in ETF were particularly productive, and increasingly with an interest in development and aid issues and an emphasis on education for poverty alleviation.
I worked closely together with Peter in ETF since 2002. He was one of the most original thinkers of his generation with a strong capacity for using his sociological imagination to analyze and combine concepts in new ways, develop an argument, and with a unique ability to create a direct correspondence between his thoughts and his writing.
Peter was not only an outstanding expert, his heart was always with our colleagues out there in the periphery in partner countries under the pressure of international donor agencies; this was the rationale behind his thinking on policy learning. He will be remembered as a very compassionate expert with high ethical standards. From Ljbubljana to Bishkek, from Gdansk to Cairo the reaction to Peter’s death has been the same: “I have lost a close personal friend”. He gave so much of himself in his efforts to help people help themselves by always fighting to create not ‘human resources’ but resourceful human beings that he will have a final resting place in the hearts and minds of our colleagues as long as they live.
In ETF we will always remember our charming and irresistible Peter, the shine in his brown eyes, his eager voice and the movements of his hands when new, creative ideas were being born.