European Green Deal (EGID) aims to transform the EU into a fair and prosperous society with a modern, resource-efficient, and competitive economy. The goal is to achieve zero net greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union by 2050. To achieve this goal new sustainable and carbon-neutral practices, products, and services are needed. Knowledge transfer (KT) professionals and their soft skills will play an important role as the European Union pursues the green transition.
KT professionals work at the interface between academic and business sectors. They often navigate complex negotiations between research, business, and community organisations fostering co-working and innovations. Strong set of soft skills are essential in this work.
The problem is that comprehensive training for knowledge transfer professionals is not available. Individual courses exist, but they only focus on strengthening one or two soft skills such as negotiation and communication skills.
Aleksanda Dobrego, Community Manager of Terkko Health Hub, Hub for Health & Life Sciences Entrepreneurship, has discovered that soft skills have shaped significantly her career. She realized the importance of soft skills when she moved from research to work with entrepreneurship and innovation.
“I feel like soft skills are actually a very big part of the job in the knowledge transfer field. While working in academia, you really feel like soft skills are not what it takes, and that it is all about hard skills. There are a lot of things that you absolutely cannot do without certain soft skills” says Aleksanda Dobrego, the community manager of Terkko Health Hub based in Helsinki Finland.
KT SoftSkills toolkit is a concrete step towards green transition and sustainable development goals
KT SoftSkills project develops training that will enable knowledge transfer professionals foster co-working between business and academia creating new innovations and positive change. The tool kit will be available for the public by the end of 2025. The project has identified several soft skills that are essential for creating a sustainable society and the green transition.
These same skills are important for the success of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. KT SoftSkills project is committed to goals number 17 (Partnerships For the Goals) and 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure).
Currently the KT SoftSkills project is developing a self-assessment framework that measures to what extent KT professionals own and use soft skills. The interviews have been fruitful and stimulated reflections on how to assess soft skills.
Innovation ecosystem developer Chiara Facciotto has recognised the importance of soft skills in practice. As a pitch coach and science communication trainer, Facciotto has excellent communication skills. But even she didn't know her own strengths before her current job.
“Connecting people is something I have always done, but it was only when I started my current role that I realised this could also be a work skill”, says Facciotto who works between academia and business, fostering the innovation culture in the field of life sciences at the University of Helsinki.
Kt SoftSkills is a collaborative project co-funded by the European Union, that aims to improve the soft skills needed for sustaining fruitful collaboration between academia and the business world by providing KT professionals with a comprehensive set of soft skills to build and manage cooperation partnerships. Partners are the University of Bologna – ASTP - Netherlands, Helsinki Think Company - Finland, Jagiellonian University - Poland, Netval - Italy, and SOPU Academy - Finland.
CO-FUNDED BY THE EUROPEAN UNION
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
IN COLLABORATION
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