It’s a wrap: Insights from the TRANSVAL-EU Research Conference in Paris – Spotlight on the TRANSVAL-EU Panel

From April 18-19, 2023, more than 60 participants joined us for the TRANSVAL-EU Research Conference in Paris to learn more about the current and ongoing discourse on the validation of transversal competences in and across Europe. The Research Conference offered a great setting for researchers experts in the field to discuss recent developments in the sphere of validation.

The TRANSVAL-EU panel offered insights from all stages of the project, the rationale for the application, the research phase all the way to the currently closing field trials. Karl Andrew Müllner from Austria’s Agency for Education and Internationalisation (OeAD) and lead coordinator of the project noted that the secret to the success of the TRANSVAL-EU project lay in the exceptional cooperation in the project partnership consisting of 16 full partners and 11 associate partners and the efficient involvement of the governance side and political authorities as well as other stakeholders through all stages of the project to secure the implementation of sustainable results of the project.

Janet Looney, conference organizer, director of the European Institute of Education and Social Policy (EIESP) and lead author of the European State-of-the-Art Report, the desk research phase of the TRANSVAL-EU project, summarized her core take-aways from the project: She noted the importance of measurability of transversal skills and the awareness that there is not one definition of transversal skills but they are manyfold and always context-specific.

Prof. Maurice de Greef from the Free University Brussels (vub) and lead in the research evaluation of the TRANSVAL-EU project shared first insights and results from the Field Trials. He noted that in total 78 practitioners and 250 candidates participated in the research evaluation of the project, which marks a significant result. First insights showed that the Field Trials did have a multitude of effects on both practitioners and candidates. For instance, the research results showed a significant increase in the competency level in transversal skills and also in providing guidance and assessment during the validation process. More insights from the research phase of TRANSVAL-EU coming soon as part of the European Research Report!

In an aim to anchor those promising preliminary project results on a policy level, the TRANSVAL-EU project is currently organizing a European Policy Conference in Stockholm, Sweden to bring together policy makers from across Europe to discuss the future of the validation of transversal skills in Europe.

Click here to learn more about the upcoming policy conference or to register.