Global sustainability challenges are reshaping regional labour market needs and intensifying demands on higher education. Higher education institutions across Europe and beyond, are expected to qualify students to actively shape sustainable transformation in business and society, while also responding to climate change, social inequalities, digitalisation and sustainability transitions. In this context, the development of competencies has become a central concern of curriculum reform and pedagogical innovation. 

Transformative skills are the key competencies required to address societal challenges of a social-ecological, economic or democratic nature. These competencies enable individuals to become aware of complex challenges, to develop visionary solutions, and to have the confidence and agency to mobilise others around these ideas.

The competency set includes ambiguity competence, sustainability competence, systems competence, innovation competence, visionary competence, and resilience. This framework builds on work developed by the Stifterverband in collaboration with McKinsey & Company and is widely used in the context of higher education and future-oriented skills development.

Recent research and policy discussions therefore increasingly emphasise transformative competencies and skills as future-oriented capabilities that foster agency, innovation, and sustainability. These skills enable learners to understand complex systems, engage constructively with uncertainty, and develop forward-looking and responsible solutions to complex societal challenges

Despite their prominence in strategic documents and policy frameworks, transformative skills remain difficult to operationalise in everyday teaching, assessment and curriculum design. Lecturers and programme coordinators often face practical challenges in identifying effective pedagogical approaches, appropriate assessment for learning outcomes and the institutional conditions that enable, or constrain, competence development.

This online workshop creates a structured space for scholarly dialogue, reflective analysis, and hands-on co-design. It connects practice-oriented insights from applied sciences and regional transformation contexts with EADI’s international perspective on higher education and development.

Workshop Objectives

The workshop provides practical entry points for higher education professionals to critically review existing competence approaches and to design feasible, context-sensitive strategies of embedding transformative skills into teaching and curricula.

Participants will:

• develop a critical understanding of transformative skills in higher education, and examine their alignment with institutional missions, societal responsibilities, and sustainability goals. 

• apply a Competence Radar to map transformative skills and their demands and reflect on their own teaching or programme contexts.

• co-develop a context-sensitive and feasible concept for integrating transformative competencies into practice.

• identify enabling conditions and immediate next steps for implementation, including student support and academic staff development.

Workshop Format and Methodology

The workshop is an interactive online format combining short conceptual inputs with structured collaborative and reflective working phases. It is designed to provide entry points for participants in translating transformative skills into feasible teaching, assessment and curriculum development options.

Call for applications

We invite university lecturers, curriculum designers, MA and BA programme coordinators, educational developers to apply to participate here by 15 March 2026. The number of seats is limited to 20 participants. 

Workshop (Online)  Transformative Skills – Fill in form