Skills for Innovation

This strand of the Innovation Strategy in Education and Training aims to identify the skills required for innovation-driven societies and how education stakeholders can foster them.

The research literature on skills for innovation shows that innovative societies require a broad mix of skills.

These skills have to be well used. 

Innovative workplaces typically support individual and organisational learning and training and give discretion to their employees.

Education for Innovation  

At the individual level, we define “skills for innovation” as: technical skills (knowledge and expertise or know-how in a field); skills in thinking and creativity (critical faculties, imagination, curiosity); and behavioural and social skills (self-confidence, energy, passion, leadership, collaboration, persuasion).

We explore (1) whether countries foster simultaneously and with the same degree of success the skills for innovation; (2) whether certain forms of teaching and assessment are associated with a higher level of skills for innovation than others; and (3) the contribution of arts (see the publication Art for Art's Sake: The Impact of Arts Education), STEM and entrepreneuship education to the development of skills for innovation.