Future Skills as new currency for the world of tomorrow

Abstract

In a rapidly changing world, the discussion on Future Skills is one of the most topical in educational research. While higher education institutions have been doing well on teaching existing curricula, they struggle with preparing students for life-challenges. The discussion on Future Skills has been going on for some time, is often intangible due to conceptual ambiguity about what skills actually are, and often only refers to digital literacies in a reduced way. The research presented here is based on an empirical approach taken in the multi-method, multi-part NextSkills studies. The intention of the research is to explore the demand from employers for specific Future Skills in more detail and then, in a second step, to ground them in educational theory.