The relevance of Development Studies as a field of study is increasingly being questioned in the context of decolonial thinking and shrinking development aid budgets. However, Development Studies through its critical stance and wide range of interdisciplinary research methods has much to offer to solve the current global challenges. Against this background and in the age of AI, it is now more important than ever to be explicit about the skills and competences that Development Studies graduates possess or can be expected to possess in the future. To this end, the working group will contribute to the development of key framework elements for transformative and transferable skills to support students and other learners in development-related fields to strengthen their transformative capabilities and employability. The framework will help identify and structure these capabilities and explore how they can be strengthened through teaching and learning.

Core Topic:

Interdisciplinary research on transformative and transferable skills in development studies

Aims of the Working Group:

To advance interdisciplinary research on the role of  transferable and transformative skills in enabling individuals, institutions, and communities to address complex development challenges and contribute to just, sustainable, and inclusive futures and explore how these skills can be conceptualised, developed and embedded into t development research, education and practice.  The Working Group aims to:

1. review and co-develop conceptual and normative foundations
2. review relevant skills, competences, values and attitudes frameworks
3. analyse and synthesise existing concepts and frameworks
4. co-create pedagogical and evaluation methods in order to apply the framework

The working group may examine how transformative and transferable skills relate to broader normative and educational frameworks such as global citizenship and Education for sustainable development (ESD). The concept of global citizenship provides a normative and ethical dimension that complements transferable and transformative skills, especially in development research. ESD on the other hand, provides an educational perspective focused on enabling learners to critically engage with sustainability challenges and take action towards societal transformation. More recent frameworks include the Inner Development Goals as well as regenerative education, which is shifting the focus from passive knowledge transfer to active relationship-building, systems thinking, and planetary stewardship. The WG would also create a unique platform for examining how universities/programmes can foster not only employability, but also agency, social responsibility, and transformative action, including in pursuit of macro and micro developmental goals, including  SDGs, national developmental plans, and community development goals.

A useful way to think about the relationship between the key concepts could be:

• Transferable skills = What people can do
• Transformative skills = How people can create positive change
• Global citizenship = Why and for whom they create that change