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Skills Monitor
What is the Skills Monitor?
As part of the European Social Innovation Campus, we conduct research on what educational institutions should teach to better prepare individuals for careers in the social innovation sector and to foster the development of social innovations. The findings of our research are presented in the annual Skills Monitor.
To support our literature review, we have initiated a yearly questionnaire aimed at students, educators, and professionals in social innovation. This questionnaire seeks to identify the competencies needed now and in the future in the social innovation field. An interactive visualisation of the Skills Monitor, based on the results from the 2025 questionnaire is showcased below.
In the questionnaire respondents have been asked to rate how relevant the 35 competencies (identified in the ESIC framework) are for their role in social innovation. Starting from their current situation before moving the reflection to the next five years.
Students performed a self-assessment of how much a course or programme helps them build each social innovation competency.
Educators assessed how important each competency is in the course or programme they teach or manage.
Practitioners assessed how relevant each competency is for their role in social innovation practice.
Explore the data
Filters
Countries
Respondent type
Gender
Educational level
Competency profiles
Competency profiles NOW
Mean values for current competence levels across respondent types.
Competency profiles FUTURE
Mean values for expected future competence levels across respondent types.
GAPS
Expected change
Mean future value minus mean current value for each competence and respondent type.
Top 10
Top 10 Practitioner – Educator gaps (NOW)
This chart shows the 10 competencies with the largest gap between practitioners and educators based on current competence levels.
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The ESIC team has removed all directly identifying information from the public datasets. This includes IP addresses, timestamps, email addresses, referrer URLs, and all open-text responses. Synthetic respondent identifiers (respondent_id) are used instead of LimeSurvey internal IDs.
Country of residence, primary language, age, gender, and education level are retained to enable meaningful analysis of diversity and equity. For most research purposes these variables are not identifying on their own, but users should nonetheless avoid attempting to re-identify individuals, especially when working with small subgroups or combining ESIC data with other sources.
By downloading and using these data, you agree to respect respondent confidentiality and to report only aggregate results (for example, not publishing statistics for extremely small cells that could inadvertently reveal identities)
Background
Research Methodology
The European Social Innovation Campus project seeks to understand how a comprehensive social innovation curriculum can be developed and implemented across nine European countries over a four-year period. To support this ambition, our research lays a firm foundation for such development by conducting an exhaustive structured literature review to better understand which competences and frameworks have been well established (or not) in the relevant literature. The review focuses on identifying established and emerging competences and curriculum frameworks related to social innovation. The search strategy—shaped collaboratively by researchers and expert panels—yielded 450 articles, with a third of those analysed in depth based on academic impact, author prominence, and relevance. Following this phase, integrated AI-assisted search methods were applied to enhance the structured literature review, reducing time and cost while maintaining academic rigour through appropriate oversight.
To complement the literature review, our research adopts a robust qualitative strategy spanning 2024 to 2027. Research committees in four European regions, involving 15 project partners, will lead efforts to gather diverse perspectives across countries and cultures. This phase includes approximately 60 semi-structured interviews in 10 countries, alongside 30 focus group discussions and 50 workshop sessions. Participants will be drawn from higher education institutions, academia, and the public sector, with a strong emphasis on ensuring socio-cultural diversity. Interviews, conducted in native languages by local partners, will explore themes around social innovation, competences, and curriculum design. All data will be translated and centralised to allow for cohesive analysis across regions.
The project also incorporates a rich mix of secondary data to triangulate findings and strengthen theoretical development. Focus groups will explore key themes such as essential competences for social innovation, pedagogical approaches, curriculum development processes, and evolving market dynamics. By combining inductive reasoning with an iterative methodology, ESIC aims to build a shared European knowledge base that supports the development of relevant, forward-looking educational frameworks. The outcome will inform educators, students, policymakers, and practitioners, helping to shape the future of social innovation education in Europe.