In order to address the grand social challenges, stakeholders from different sectors need to collaborate. This insight has now been adopted in innovation policies. In addition to the institutional implementation of these approaches, the qualification of professionals is increasingly coming into focus, because collaborative and co-creative cooperation requires new skills and competencies. What needs accompany this realignment within innovation ecosystems has hardly been systematically investigated so far. The starting point of the study presented here is therefore the research questions:

1. Which transversal competencies are in demand by industry in research and development? and
2. Which of the required competencies do scientists already possess?

To answer these questions, I first analyzed the literature on topics such as 'future-oriented competencies', 'future skills' and 'education for sustainable development' and typologized the competencies listed therein. Based on the typology, I then developed a tool, the Competence Wheel for Mission- and Innovation-Oriented Transfer, which provides the conceptual framework for two quantitative surveys (Johannsen et al. 2021).

In the surveys, I used the competencies of the Competence Wheel and converted them into constructs based on the literature (Erpenbeck et al. 2017). Next, I transformed these constructs into questionnaire items, which I took from the literature and in some cases adjusted the wording. The items' wording, respectively, is designed for the target respondents and differs because the survey of industry professionals asks which competencies are important from the perspective of executive management or R&D department heads, whereas the survey of scientists focuses on self-assessment.

The analysis of the data gathered in this way permits a description of different competence profiles and a comparison of these profiles with one another. In particular, it is possible to compare specific competence profiles between individual sectors and to compare these profiles of competencies in demand with actual profiles of the competencies of scientists.

I conducted the literature analysis as a scoping review (Sturma et al. 2016; Daudt et al. 2013; Arksey and O'Malley 2005). In addition, I considered ongoing research projects as well as white papers and used a snowballing approach to include additional literature sources. Theoretically, the starting point is Weinert‘s (2002) conception of competence. On this basis, I clustered the surveyed competencies and grouped them into fourteen types (Kluge 1999, 2000). The definitions of these types are derived from the reviewed literature. Taking the definitions of the fourteen types of competencies as a basis, I converted these into questionnaire items. For this purpose, I used validated items from empirical research and, if necessary, adjusted the wording of individual items in accordance with relevant rules and guidelines (Porst 2019). Subsequently, I conducted a pretest. One version of the questionnaire addresses medium and large enterprises that have a R&D department and operate in the automotive, chemical, mechanical and electrical engineering sectors. The other version of the questionnaire surveys scientists regarding a self-assessment of their competencies. In order to survey the needs for transversal competencies in industry, I interviewed executive managers or heads of R&D departments. To this end, I conducted 200 computer-assisted telephone interviews (Weitkunat and Crispin 2000). In order to assess which of the competencies in demand by industry are available to actors in universities and non-university research institutions, I surveyed 1000 doctoral candidates, postdocs, professors, and other academic staff from the areas of engineering, law, and social sciences in a web-based survey. In order to interpret the data gathered, I used the software PSPP for analysis of statistical data. For the visualization I resorted to Microsoft Excel.

In the result, the gathered data can be distilled into competency profiles. These profiles can be differentiated according to a number of variables, e.g. allowing the needs of large, highly innovative enterprises to be compared with those of small and medium-sized enterprises that rely on traditional business models. The sample of the study consists of German enterprises and scientists from German institutions only. Although this is a limitation inherent in the data set, the results are also highly relevant and may be of considerable importance for Europe-wide curriculum development due to the inter- and transnational nature of collaborative research, for example within the Horizon Europe Programme, as well as the size of the enterprises in the study (Medium and Large Enterprises) and their international orientation in the industry. The study identifies and empirically validates transversal competencies that, first, industry needs in its innovation processes and, second, that scientists already possess. The resulting Delta, i.e. the difference between the need of industry and the id est of science professionals, can be addressed in a strategic way in higher education programs in order to qualify professionals in such a way that they are able to contribute to the solution of the grand societal challenges.

Publication bibliography Arksey, Hilary; O'Malley, Lisa (2005): Scoping studies: towards a methodological framework. In International Journal of Social Research Methodology 8 (1), pp. 19–32. DOI: 10.1080/1364557032000119616. Daudt, Helena M. L.; van Mossel, Catherine; Scott, Samantha J. (2013): Enhancing the scoping study methodology: a large, inter-professional team's experience with Arksey and O'Malley's framework. In BMC medical research methodology 13, p. 48. DOI: 10.1186/1471-2288-13-48. Erpenbeck, John; Rosenstiel, Lutz; Grote, Sven; Sauter, Werner (Eds.) (2017): Handbuch Kompetenzmessung: Schäffer-Poeschel. Johannsen, Thies; Kiprijanov, Konstantin S.; Muschner, Antonia; Schütz, Florian; Ruhrmann, Henriette; Karahan, Marc (2021): Missionsorientierung im Transfer. Strategische Verankerung und praktische Umsetzung auf Grundlage des Research to Mission Frameworks. Center for Responsible Research and Innovation des Fraunhofer IAO; Technische Universität Berlin. Berlin. Kluge, Susann (1999): Empirisch begründete Typenbildung. Zur Konstruktion von Typen und Typologien in der qualitativen Sozialforschung. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Porst, Rolf (2019): Frageformulierung. In Nina Baur, Jörg Blasius (Eds.): Handbuch Methoden der empirischen Sozialforschung. Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, pp. 829–842. Sturma, Agnes; Ritschl, Valentin; Dennhardt, Silke; Stamm, Tanja (2016): Reviews. In Valentin Ritschl, Roman Weigl, Tanja Stamm (Eds.): Wissenschaftliches Arbeiten und Schreiben. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg (Studium Pflege, Therapie, Gesundheit), pp. 207–221. Weinert, Franz E. (2002): Vergleichende Leistungsmessung in Schulen – eine umstrittene Selbstverständlichkeit. In Franz E. Weinert (Ed.): Leistungsmessungen in Schulen. 2., unveränd. Aufl., Dr. nach Typoskript. Weinheim: Beltz (Beltz Pädagogik), pp. 17–31. Weitkunat, Rolf; Crispin, Alexander (2000): Computergestützte Telefoninterviews. In Journal of Public Health 8 (2), pp. 106–113. DOI: 10.1007/BF02962633.