The world is changing in unprecedented ways; the digital transformation, the climate emergency, the pandemic, wars and many other unpredictable events coincide to generate a highly volatile environment. We need people, organisations and societies able to come up with creative solutions, to put them into practice, to learn from the results and to react quickly. Today’s skills will not serve for tomorrow’s jobs and these new skills may also become obsolete rapidly.

Traditionally work is done within an established timetable, in a single place and with specific colleagues. But this conception is changing: digitalisation enabling us to work anywhere, any time, the trend towards working in teams on temporary projects, society’s expectations of work/life balance and personal flexibility also challenge the traditional way of coordinating and organising work. In this new way of working, how can we be efficient and foster people’s engagement?  Flexibility at work can also be fertile ground for job insecurity. serious inequalities and reduced social benefits, in particular for migrant or low-qualified workers.

With a declining population, we need more women in science and industry, we need more men to do care work and we need qualified, integrated migrants. How can we do this?  With less young people and working life getting longer, organisation have increasingly ageing workforces including three generations with very different needs and values in terms of work.