HSG provides the basis for a circular economy of competencies

The Swiss labour market is facing major challenges. Demographic change threatens to make skilled workers increasingly scarce and at the same time, existing competencies are rapidly becoming obsolete due to digitisation and automation. In addition, matching skills and profiles is becoming increasingly challenging: conventional CVs list job titles, but do not accurately reflect the competencies that skilled workers have actually acquired in projects or through informal learning. 

The aim of the SCESC research project, launched in 2022, was therefore to create a data-driven, learning-centred ecosystem for lifelong learning that systematically links the requirements of the labour market, educational opportunities and individual competence development in a “circular economy of competences”.

A digital skills certificate for Switzerland

SCESC created the basic knowledge that can now be used by digital platforms to provide more tailored offerings in executive education, create individual learning coaches and improve the matching of skills profiles with job vacancies. For example, project partner Work-ID AG is developing the “Work-ID” based on the results. This is intended to function as a digital skills certificate for the Swiss labour market. Individuals can use it to compare all their skills with job profiles from across Switzerland.

HSG plays a key role

The Institute of Information Management (IWI-HSG) and the Institute of Business Education and Educational Management (IWP-HSG) at HSG were involved in SCESC. Prof. Dr Roman Rietsche and Dr Andreas Janson from IWI-HSG played a leading role in the project: They were responsible for the overall scientific management of the project and coordinated the collaboration between the five participating universities and the implementation partners from industry and associations over the three-year project period. In addition, they led the “Digital Coach” sub-project, in which an AI-supported learning companion was developed to help users achieve their individual learning goals. The coach is based on large language models and can therefore respond to personal competence gaps in dialogue and suggest appropriate next steps. In another sub-project, the “NarrativeNet” framework was developed, which combines knowledge graph technology with generative AI to make scattered educational resources findable and structure them for new learning opportunities.

Prof. Dr Bernadette Dilger and Marco Strate from the IWP-HSG were involved in developing the competence-oriented foundation of the project. They developed the scientific and conceptual basis for modelling competences, which served as the basis for the AI-based solutions in the project. Their report, article, or piece also shows how formally and non-formally acquired competencies can be documented and validated on digital platforms. This creates the central prerequisites for matching competencies with offerings in executive education and/or job vacancies in a targeted manner and presenting them to third parties in a transparent and comprehensible way.

Flagship project of Innosuisse

SCESC was funded by Innosuisse with around 4.3 million Swiss francs (CHF) and had a total budget of around CHF 6.6 million. In addition to HSG, it brought together numerous renowned institutions. Scientific partners included the University of Zurich (UZH), the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), the Swiss Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (EHB) and the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW). The project was implemented in practice through close cooperation with important associations such as Swissmem, Swiss ICT and Arbeitgeber Banken.