1 Introduction

The many accomplishments of our modern society such as an interconnectedness of the world both digitally and physically, the increase in wealth and health and the ability to produce and consume in large quantities have introduced a range of new and pressing societal challenges such as climate change, resource shortage, pandemics, or ageing of society. As these great and complex problems permeate all domains of our life, it seems clear that economy, politics, science, and civil society must work together to overcome these challenges and perform the much-needed transformation of our world (e.g., Domanski & Kaletka, 2017; Suessenbach et al., 2021; United Nations, 2023). To do so requires a range of distinct skills, tools, and mindset, subsumed under the umbrella term Future Skills (e.g., OECD, 2023; Suessenbach et al., 2021).

These Future Skills include competencies which allow individuals to partake in a digitized world, enable awareness and understanding of transformative challenges, foster innovative thinking, planning, development of products to implement transformation, promoting and utilizing open science and open innovation. A sharp increase in publications on Future Skills in the past decade reflects the rising efforts in Future Skills education—especially in higher education (Ehlers, 2020). The Stifterverband organization has contributed to this effort with several programs funding Future Skills education, creating networks between various stakeholders in- and outside academia as well as a multitude of analyses and other publications. The Stifterverband is well suited for this endeavor as it is the only organization in Germany advising, funding, and connecting stakeholders in a wholistic approach at the intersection of education, science, and innovation.

Based on our Future Skills work, this chapter will provide insights, learnings, and examples relevant to institutional policy makers in higher education to help them implement Future Skills education. First, we will introduce the Stifterverband’s two Future Skills frameworks which underpin our programmatic work. Second, we will introduce the Stifterverband’s Entrepreneurial Skills program for sustainable entrepreneurship education. Here we present the Entrepreneurial Skills Charter including eleven theses on how higher education institutions can successfully teach entrepreneurial thinking and action. Third, we present the Data Literacy Education program which—with its Data Literacy Charter—laid the groundwork to develop the first uniform data literacy framework. Here, learnings from working in data literacy networks are discussed. Fourth, we will provide insights on our large-scale project Curriculum 4.0.nrw supporting a range of Future Skills relevant to digitization. Here we provide an overview of obstacles as well as supporting factors when integrating these skills into existing study programs. Finally, we leave the reader with some concluding remarks and three practical recommendations from our programs to support Future Skills development in higher education.

2 Future Skills Frameworks by Stifterverband and Partners

The Stifterverband’s Future Skills work is based on two Future Skills frameworks—Future Skills 2021 (Suessenbach et al., 2021) and Future Skills for Openness (Hoffmann et al., 2021) —which have been developed with partners McKinsey & Company and the innOsci forum, respectively. In this section, we will present the frameworks’ key definitions, briefly outline how each of these frameworks was developed, as well as provide an overview of the two frameworks showcasing a range of selected Future Skills central to the funding programs in the following sections.

Future Skills are broadly defined as a set of competencies that will gain importance within the next five years across all industries and disciplines. Added to this general aspect, each framework targets the specific needs in a certain field: Future Skills 2021 is aimed at the labor market and the competencies employees and (self-)employers need now and even more so in the future. Future Skills for Openness is aimed at academics in science and business and their competencies needed for open science and open innovation. The timeframe of five years was selected to anticipate future demands but at the same time provide reasonably robust predictions given rapid technological advances and other unforeseen global developments (e.g., a pandemic). Our understanding of competencies is based on Boyatzis’ definition as an effective mix of motives, traits, skills, aspects of one’s self-image or social role, and of body of knowledge used by an individual (Boyatzis, 1982; Weinert, 2001a). It also comprises Erpenbeck and Heyse's (1999) understanding of competencies as self-organization dispositions. Thus, Future Skills go beyond passive knowledge and abilities but empower and encourage individuals to act (cf. Seidl et al., 2018). In short, Future Skills in our frameworks are conceptualized as action-oriented competencies based on an interplay of knowledge, skills/aptitude, and attitude (Hoffmann et al., 2021; Suessenbach et al., 2021).

2.1 Future Skills 2021

The Future Skills 2021 framework is an update to the Stifterverband and McKinsey’s first Future Skills framework from 2018 (Kirchherr et al., 2018). The latter is a result of a workshop with a wide range of stakeholders in business, education, and politics, expert interviews with human resource officers, as well as focus groups of experts in business and education from Stifterverband and McKinsey (more details in Kirchherr et al., 2018). The updated framework includes feedback from stakeholders in business and education having put the first framework to the test as well as from many exchanges with experts in both fields. Again, focus groups from Stifterverband and McKinsey analyzed the current needs of the labor market but also distilled and added on relevant bits from other Future Skills frameworks, for example, by the United Nations (2015), OECD (2023), World Economic Forum (2021, more details in Suessenbach et al., 2021). The 2018 and the 2021 framework were each validated in representative surveys of CEOs and human resource officers in 607 and 500, respectively, businesses and public administration institutes across Germany. These surveys included questions about the importance of each Future Skill for the development of the respective organization now and in five years, how many employees currently have these skills and how many will be needed.

The Future Skills 2021 framework consists of 21 Future Skills in 4 skills dimensions: classic, transformative, digital, and technological (see Fig. 15.1). Classic skills refer to competencies which have been important in the past but increasingly so in the future across all domains of professional life such as creativity or Entrepreneurial Skills. Transformative skills refer to competencies needed to comprehend transformative challenges such as climate or demographic change, find innovative solutions and be able to convey them. Digital skills refer to the basic and more advanced digital competencies required at almost any workplace and key to participate in the digital world. Technological skills refer to specialist IT competencies such as data analytics & artificial intelligence needed for technological progress and innovations (see Table 15.1 for a selection of Future Skills 2021 relevant to the following funding programs).

Fig. 15.1
A pyramid diagram of Future Skills 2021. The 4 skills are technological in the top-half, digital in the bottom left-half, and classic and transformative skills in the bottom right-half. The top and the bottom have a briefing.

Illustration of the Future Skills 2021 framework containing 21 competencies across 4 skill dimensions: classic, transformative, digital, and technological

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Table 15.1 Selection of Future Skills from the Future Skills 2021 framework relevant to the Stifterverband’s programs: Entrepreneurial Skills (ES), Data Literacy Education (DLE) and Curriculum 4.0.nrw (C4)
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2.2 Future Skills for Openness

The development of the Future Skills for Openness framework was based on the question, “which competencies do academics in science and business need to be able to operate successfully in a working world, characterized by open science and open innovation?”. At the beginning, data answering this question were collected in structured discussions of a network of 11 academic experts in these fields from both scientific and commercial institutions. This was supplemented by a literature review of 26 key publications on Openness, open science, and open innovation. This data was then clustered in focus groups consisting of the Stifterverband and said experts, upon which several Future Skills were identified and compiled into a framework (see Hoffmann et al., 2021 for more details).

The Future Skills for Openness consist of 20 competencies in three dimensions: tool set, skill set, and mindset (see Fig. 15.2). Competencies in the tool set relate to open practice methods as well as (legal) knowledge needed for open science and open innovation, such as open-mass collaboration, open-technology in- and outsourcing, or the knowledge of collaboration tools and platforms. The skill set dimension consists of psycho-social and social-communicative competencies enabling the use of the above methods, such as the ability to communicate, conflict-resolution skills and integration skills. Mindset competencies lay the foundation to establishing a culture of openness in which the above skills and tools can thrive; these include empathy, openness as a personality dimension, and tolerance for ambiguity (see Table 15.2 for a selection of Future Skills for Openness relevant to the following funding programs).

Fig. 15.2
An illustration of the future skills for openness. It includes mindset, toolset, and skillset with ideation, inspiration, and implementation between them.

Illustration of the Future Skills for Openness framework containing 20 competencies across 3 dimensions: tool set, skill set, and mindset

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Table 15.2 Selection of Future Skills from Future Skills for Openness frameworks relevant to the Stifterverband’s programs: Entrepreneurial Skills (ES), Data Literacy Education (DLE) and Curriculum 4.0.nrw (C4)
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3 Entrepreneurial Skills

The first program to foster the development of Future Skills in higher education we would like to introduce here is called Entrepreneurial Skills. Entrepreneurship describes the ability to seize opportunities, develop ideas and turn them into added value for others. This added value can be financial, cultural, or social (European Union, 2018). Entrepreneurship Education encompasses a variety of Future Skills that promote entrepreneurial thinking and action such as Creativity, Entrepreneurial Skills, Dialogue and Conflict Management, Change Competencies and Openness to experience (Suessenbach et al., 2021).

3.1 Entrepreneurship as Action-Oriented Future Skills

Entrepreneurial Skills are cross-sectional and include the ability to perceive opportunities, creativity, visionary thinking, sustainability skills, the ability to mobilize resources, to motivate oneself and others, and economic competencies. In addition, Entrepreneurial Skills include leadership, judgment, problem-solving, and reflection skills, as well as the willingness to take risks, seek collaborations, and work in interdisciplinary teams and take entrepreneurial responsibility (Suessenbach et al., 2021). Entrepreneurial Skills are thus action-oriented and promote a hands-on mentality, self-initiative and experiencing self-efficacy. These are key competencies for solving current and future challenges and actively shaping a sustainable future under the influence of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). The development of Entrepreneurial Skills promotes an understanding of the future working and social environment and empowers people to recognize, develop and implement entrepreneurial opportunities offered in daily life, society, and the workplace (Mccallum et al., 2018).

3.2 The Entrepreneurial Skills Program

The “Entrepreneurial Skills” funding program is a collaboration program between Stifterverband, Dieter Schwarz Foundation, Campus Founders and Allianz SE. The aim is to anchor Entrepreneurial Skills as key Future Skills in the curricula of higher education institutions and offer students from all faculties and disciplines the opportunity to acquire key skills in the field of entrepreneurship during their studies. All 423 German public and private higher education institutions were invited to apply for the Entrepreneurial Skills program with a specific challenge they faced when implementing Entrepreneurial Skills teaching and learning concepts. Based on the challenges submitted by 69 higher education institutions, the 16 most interesting challenges were selected by a jury of experts and brought together in a network for the first funding phase. The call for proposals was deliberately kept open, on the one hand to provide a broad overview of the challenges faced by the higher education institutions, and on the other hand to allow the participating higher education institutions to formulate their challenges as individually as necessary. That’s why this network was characterized by a broad range of challenges. During the first funding period, the 16 selected higher education institutions worked collaboratively for several months on their self-defined challenges and were supported through so-called curriculum workshops. The content of these curriculum workshops was prepared and conducted together with entrepreneurship experts. As a result, the higher education institutions developed peer-reviewed solutions. This collaboration has proven to be very productive and beneficial, as many higher education institutions face similar challenges. During the workshops, all 16 higher education institutions refined, revised, or developed their concepts and applied for the second funding phase, for which five received financial funding to implement their concepts.

3.3 The Entrepreneurial Skills Charter

Starting from the challenges identified by the more than 50 participants of the Entrepreneurial Skills program, and the solutions and approaches they developed on how Entrepreneurial Skills can be structurally integrated into universities as cross-sectional or Future Skills, the Stifterverband and Campus Founders initiated the Entrepreneurial Skills Charter.Footnote 1 With the support of numerous higher education institutions representatives from the Entrepreneurial Skills funding network and an additional co-creative process with a diverse group of other entrepreneurship education experts, eleven theses for the development of successful, sustainable entrepreneurship education were developed. They serve as a guideline to support teachers and administrations of higher education institutions in designing their entrepreneurship education formats and was published July 4th 2022. The Charter aims to contribute to making the relevance of Entrepreneurial Skills visible. In this way, the role of Entrepreneurial Skills can be strengthened in the higher education policy debate and at the same time, the Charter can provide orientation for higher education institutions to further develop their own entrepreneurship education programs.

In these eleven theses, the Entrepreneurial Skills Charter formulates how higher education institutions can successfully teach entrepreneurial thinking and action:

  1. 1.

    Entrepreneurship Education encompasses a variety of competences relevant to the future

  2. 2.

    Entrepreneurship Education needs an impact-oriented and data-based scientific monitoring

  3. 3.

    Entrepreneurship Education is practical, evidence-based and uses holistic methods

  4. 4.

    Entrepreneurship Education is oriented towards the needs of the target group

  5. 5.

    Entrepreneurship Education must be further developed in a subject-specific manner

  6. 6.

    Entrepreneurship Education must be comprehensively anchored in the organizational structure

  7. 7.

    Entrepreneurship Education must be developed as an intersectional topic in relation to transfer, research, start-up services and the economy

  8. 8.

    Entrepreneurship Education needs a cultural change at higher education institutions

  9. 9.

    Entrepreneurship Education must be structurally anchored in the curriculum

  10. 10.

    Entrepreneurship Education is interdisciplinary and cooperative

  11. 11.

    Entrepreneurship Education signifies education for social responsibility, sustainability, and future viability

By the time of publication in January 2023, 62 higher education institutions have committed themselves as signatories to implementing the Charter and strengthening Entrepreneurship Education at their institutions. Other interested higher education institutions and organizations can decide to sign at any time and be added to the list of signatories. These theses can also give orientation for further developing educational profiles in higher education aimed at promoting Future Skills.

The signatory higher education institutions and organizations of the Entrepreneurial Skills Charter for successful Entrepreneurship Education will take measures to disseminate this understanding of entrepreneurship education and to integrate the associated competences structurally and in curricula. They call on other actors to do the same in their sphere of influence.

The next program we would like to present—Data Literacy Education—is in many ways similar to Entrepreneurial Skills in that it also concerns a narrow set of Future Skills and in that our work culminated in a Charter setting educational standards.

4 Data Literacy Education

“Data is the new oil!” This phrase—which exists in many different variationsFootnote 2—was perhaps the first global metaphor for the digital age (Spitz, 2017). Although the metaphor has since been criticized as data, unlike oil, can be used multiple times to extract valuable information (better: Data is the new soil; Voß, 2020), the metaphor still captures the increased relevance of data in a global society and the importance of enabling students to use data responsibly as a “raw material of the twenty-first century” (Merkel, 2018). Being able to evaluate and manage data critically—which can be subsumed under the Future Skill Data Literacy (see Table 15.2)—also acts as a catalyst to other Future Skills concerning the competencies to evaluate transformative challenges or to analyze complex data (see the skills Judgement Abilities and Data Analytics & AI in Table 15.1). Hence, Data Literacy ranks very high among the Future Skills.

Data Literacy is the ability to collect, manage, evaluate, and apply data in a critical manner (Ridsdale et al., 2015). It comprises the data competencies that are important for all people in a world shaped by digitalization (Schüller et al., 2021a, b). But Data Literacy “is often misunderstood as a set of technical skills, limited to data management and analysis and to the development and application of algorithms. However, data and AI literacy as a Future Skill of the twenty-first century serves to promote autonomy in a modern world shaped by data and its application as well as new technologies like AI and is therefore important for all people—not only for specialists” (Schüller et al., 2021b). In this sense, Data Literacy provides a fundamental understanding of the world of data which is essential to everyone to get along in our future world (Morrow, 2021).

Critically, Germany and most other countries have not yet established a comprehensive, uniform and framework-based data culture which recognizes the value of data and fully guarantees the security of data and data providers (Ebeling et al., 2021). Hence, the need for Data Literacy education permeates all sectors of society—private, public, political, social, and economic. Thus, Data Literacy plays a particularly prominent role in the Stifterverband's Future Skills Initiative addressing a multitude of stakeholders. One of the program’s initiatives has been the Data Literacy Education network which—with the publication of a Data Literacy Charter—laid the groundwork to develop an initial uniform data literacy framework.

4.1 The Data Literacy Education Network

The Stifterverband’s “Data Literacy Education” funding program wants to ensure that students across all universities and subjects acquire data literacy. As a first step, a data literacy education network was established. All members of the network worked on the question of how to integrate data literacy education into university teaching across all disciplines. In this network, representatives and experts from more than 25 German universities were working on the question of how data literacy can be integrated into the curriculum and how it can be implemented as broadly as possible in different learning settings. For this purpose, existing study programs were being revised and new learning opportunities created. Higher education institutions have been supporting each other in this network and benefitted from mutual exchanges.

Beyond tackling the curricular integration of Data Literacy, network members discussed other topics and challenges relevant to Future Skills education on a broader scale such as digital teaching methods, lecturer qualifications or data ethics. With the digital transformation of our world, new opportunities and requirements have emerged which pose new challenges such as the systematic reflection and negotiation of the values associated with data-related processes, technologies, and practices. A cross-university example of the network's work is the Data Literacy Charter.

4.2 The Data Literacy Charter

Developed in cooperation with numerous partners, the Stifterverband’s Data Literacy Charter seeks to draw social and political attention to the topic of data literacy (Schüller et al., 2021b). The full charter can be accessed here: https://www.stifterverband.org/data-literacy-charter. Since its publication in January 2021, signatories of the charter have expressed their common understanding of data literacy in the sense of comprehensive data literacy and its overall importance in educational processes.

To gather support from as many institutions and people as possible, the charter needed to include as many different perspectives on this common theme as possible. This prerequisite for any charter was necessary to make sure future action and work would be based on a common understanding. Five guiding principles of Data Literacy Education emerged from this work which characterize the importance and role of data literacy as a key Future Skill. They create a common basic understanding and serve as a stimulus to jointly shape educational processes in a future-oriented way:

  1. 1.

    Data literacy must be accessible to all people.

  2. 2.

    Data literacy must be taught throughout life in all areas of education.

  3. 3.

    Data literacy must be taught as a transdisciplinary competence across all subjects from three perspectives (application-oriented, method-oriented, socio-culturally-oriented).

  4. 4.

    Data literacy must systematically cover the entire process of insight and decision-making with data.

  5. 5.

    Data literacy must include knowledge, skills, and values for a conscious and ethically sound handling of data.

Following the Data Literacy Charter, the Stifterverband is now committed to the development of an international “Standard for Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Literacy, Skills, and Readiness”. Under the institutional umbrella of the IEEE Standards Association,Footnote 3 both international data literacy experts and German experts from the Stifterverband's data literacy network will take part in this work. The development of the Data Literacy Charter has provided many valuable lessons which may help others to implement and further data literacy education.

4.3 Lessons from Working in Data Literacy Networks

Decision-makers, particularly at universities, may not be aware of the importance of Future Skills like Data Literacy. This is because Future Skills address prospective needs some may struggle to grasp in the present. This work inevitably moves in a field that remains unpredictable despite all the forecasts on which there can be different justified opinions. Particularly when it comes to institutionally integrating Future Skills into higher education or including them in the curriculum, it is of great importance to have a convinced representative in the institution. Achieving this is by no means self-evident or trivial. Especially in higher education institutions, various topics compete for special consideration of the university management at the same time. A charter that articulates the will of education policy is highly promising for this purpose, especially if it has already been signed by many other universities and institutions and thus signals that a topic is currently of great importance for society and other universities.

Setting up Data Literacy education in an institution or organization can be supported through external incentives and networking. People interested in fostering Data Literacy may benefit from applying for external resources through funding programs such as the Stifterverband’s Data Literacy Education to offset initiation costs. With the growing importance of data education, in general more funding opportunities will arise. In addition to financial support for individual projects, networking is equally important. The exchange of ideas leads to synergy effects that make the integration of Future Skills such as Data Literacy much more effective.

To support the cultural change towards a greater focus on data education in general and Data Literacy education in particular, proponents of Data Literacy must not only work on theoretical issues but also contribute to Data Literacy promotion in practice. This includes conferences, publications, and online communication, for example, via social media. These aim to create a social and political awareness for Future Skills and Data Literacy and set a nourishing and enabling environment for Future Skills education.

Somewhat different to Entrepreneurial Skills and Data Literacy Education, the next program we would like to introduce concerned a wider range of Future Skills and their integration on a larger scale.

5 The Curriculum 4.0.nrw Program: Learnings from Large-Scale Integration of (Digital) Future Skills into Curricula

The increasing digitisation of industries and work environments has led to a shift in the skill set higher education graduates need to acquire. These skills include highly specialised technical skills such as Data Analytics and AI or quantum technology but also a broad range of digital skills such as Digital Literacy, Digital Learning or Digital Collaboration that empower students to work in digital environments. Especially new forms of collaboration and individual responsibilities that evolve from working in interdisciplinary teams require an emphasis on skills such as Social Problem Solving & Resiliency. However, study programs are only rarely structured to teach these skills systematically. Hence, in its Curriculum 4.0.nrw Program, the Stifterverband in cooperation with the German state government of North Rhine-Westphalia supported universities in adjusting their curricula to the students’ need for competencies in a digitized world.

For this, 39 projects have been funded with up to 300.000 € over up to three years during which people involved in the projects were also part of a supporting peer network. Projects involved reforming modules and study programs within existing frameworks to avoid potentially restrictive and time-consuming accreditation processes. Most of the projects focused on a first introduction of Digital Literacy, Digital Learning and Digital Collaboration into the curriculum which in most cases was combined with repositioning Classic skills as defined in the Future Skills 2021 framework (see Suessenbach et al., 2021). Generally, projects in the network covered a diverse range of subjects such as computer science, mathematics, sport science, material science, architecture, medicine, child pedagogy, teaching and many more. Structurally, the program was equally diverse as 22 projects reformed single modules within a study program and 16 projects addressed the whole degree. Twelve projects have been developed at universities of applied sciences and 27 at universities. However, despite these differences, the projects faced similar obstacles and supporting factors.

5.1 Eleven Clusters of Obstacles and Supporting Factors When Integrating Future Skills into Curricula

These obstacles and supporting factors were discussed during a poster session in September 2021, which was open to all project participants and anyone else who was interested. Thirty-seven of 39 programs contributed posters; 11 clusters were identified (see Table 15.3). Interestingly, the three largest clusters consisted of obstacles as well as supporting factors showing both their importance during the curricular development process as well as how certain aspects such as communication can be both strength and weakness depending on their functionality. This presents the opportunity to not only overcome obstacles, but to transform them into supporting factors. The following section will describe these three largest clusters in more detail and outline our learnings from them as well as provide brief insights into the other clusters.

Table 15.3 Number of obstacles and supporting factors in eleven clusters during the process of including Future Skills into the curricula in the Curriculum 4.0.nrw program
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The cluster Communicate and Coordinate reflected the interdisciplinary nature of many of the projects that sought to integrate Future Skills into their curricula. Consequently, academic personnel from two or more institutes or even faculties needed to be coordinated. This posed an organisational challenge on the one hand while also implying the need to establish new networks of collaboration and even bridging professional cultures. However, as stated on the supporting side, interdisciplinary exchange, once facilitated, was an important success factor. To turn this obstacle into a supporting factor, including structural elements to facilitate interdisciplinary exchange such as working groups and project teams as well as enabling room for exchanges via teaching compensations was important. As coordination may not only be necessary internally but also with external partners such as schools or businesses, a variety of arrangements needed to be considered.

Closely linked to the above was the cluster Participation which was seen as an important supporting factor as the reforms seemed to depend on co-creation and individual commitment by lecturers. This, in turn, was seen to increase acceptance of the reforms and allow both, lecturers and students, to design the courses according to their specific interests and needs. However, facilitating participation could be challenging. Possible solutions involved addressing students’ needs by offering a variety of open teaching formats, such as inverted classrooms, self-checks, and personally selected micro-modules, most of which may be offered online.

The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic as a (hopefully) exceptional event shall be discussed only briefly. The pandemic delayed planning and developing in several instances and rendered some on-site teaching formats impossible. On the other hand, reforms that were geared toward digitising teaching benefited from the steep learning curve and increased acceptance of online formats.

The six obstacles in the cluster Assessing and Accrediting were mainly related to the development of suitable credit point assignment methods and the assessment of Future Skills such as Creativity. The two major obstacles in the Redesigning cluster were the difficulty in restructuring a study program and the negotiation process of what to keep and what to kick involved when only partially redesigning. Heterogeneity in students' and lecturers' knowledge of the subject matter was a challenge in interdisciplinary projects, especially in computer science and programming. Legal aspects, especially licensing and copyright, and data privacy concerns were obstacles in projects related to Open Educational Resources. Structural support, Cultural support, and Conceptual Clarity were all crucial in supporting curricular reforms, while continuous evaluation and an agile development approach was a key factor in the success of the Procedural Approach.

Work in the Curriculum 4.0.nrw program has shown many successful projects to integrate Future Skills into existing or new curricula. As we hope this integration will happen more and more often, these 11 clusters of obstacles and supporting factors should contribute to aid curricular developers by including Future Skills more easily in the future.

6 Concluding Remarks and Practical Recommendations

The demand for Future Skills increases in all domains of our lives. They are not only essential to ensure social participation and future employability but also to tackle transformative challenges and turn them into societal progress. Higher education institutions play a central role in teaching these skills. By sharing the rich experiences from funding programs and initiatives, Entrepreneurial Skills, Data Literacy Education, and Curriculum 4.0.nrw to foster Future Skills education, the Stifterverband hopes to aid others in their implementation of Future Skills education. We leave the reader with three practical recommendations from these programs.

Future Skills in Practice: Our Recommendations

Besides motivated individuals, successfully reforming study programs to incorporate Future Skills relies heavily on a rich and functioning ecosystem within the organization. While this is true for most curricular reforms, due to increased agility and uncertainty inherent in Future Skills education, these supporting structures are even more important. Providing this may be easier for larger institutions. However, if considered in the early stages, members of smaller organizations may be able to outsource some support or calculate additional personnel.

To effectively impart Future Skills to all researchers, students and young academics, higher education institutions must structurally anchor and integrate Entrepreneurship Education as a cross-cutting topic in the curriculum. Thus, entrepreneurial thinking and action is not only relevant for founders, but is also needed by employees to successfully meet the present challenges of the economy and society.

In addition to the technical integration of Future Skills into the curricula, a cultural change is needed—a cultural change across higher education institutions making clear that: there are Future Skills relevant to students of all subjects! Therefore, we must take care of these Future Skills together as an institution. Thus, we recommend to actively promote this cultural change. Our Data Literacy Charter and the framework conditions outlined in this chapter have paved the way for this.