We invite universities of applied sciences leaders, the entire community of professional higher education, European businesses, public institutions and European students’ representatives to attend the Annual Conference to share their experiences and learn about trends, models and inspiring practices. The Conference will focus on five main topics:

• Addressing labour market needs: Europe faces skills gaps in many different professions, varying between countries and regions. This is one of the main reasons for the 2023 European Year of Skills, and education is being prioritised in many Recovery and Resilience Programmes. Higher Education Institutions need to be more innovative and flexible to respond to these needs, including short cycle courses, in-firm training and lifelong learning. Contributions are welcomed in cooperation with businesses and governments to identify skills needs and strategies for upskilling and reskilling.
• Future skills and competences: We know that many future jobs don’t currently exist, but we know that a range of horizontal skills or ‘competences’ will be vital to enable students to adopt new methods and technologies in the workplace and their lives more broadly. Contributions are welcome that show how higher education can provide the human capabilities of tomorrow and how these are needed to address grand challenges such as climate change and ageing.
• Regional dimension: The ‘world is not flat’, and industry 4.0 is emerging in different ways depending on the economic structure of cities and regions. Skills intelligence is vital to ensure regions remain competitive and resilient, and cooperation between education, business and government is needed to develop and retain talent. Examples of such cooperation and skills intelligence are particularly welcome under this thread.
• Digitalisation: This thread covers everything related to the digital transition, from edtech solutions to digital skills. Contributions are particularly welcome that show how higher education institutions are helping to implement the EU’s Digital Education Action Plan.
• Research and innovation competences: Analytical skills and capabilities to use new technologies in the workplace are becoming increasingly important across sectors, not only for research professionals. This track seeks contributions on how applied research and innovation are being developed within institutions and graduates.

The Conference Programme committee will select the contributions with more impact in their communities, and the winner will be awarded the PHE Star title in each of the five themes.

The PHE Star awards aim to showcase individuals, the PHE community, and businesses working hard during these challenging times to take PHE to the next level.

We welcome to submit:

• Breakout sessions: Each interactive parallel breakout session would be attended by about 30 participants. The breakout sessions should be organised interactively as workshops to encourage discussions between the participants. The structure can e.g. include an overview followed by group discussions. We expect to accept about eight proposals for next year’s Conference. The length of the proposal: is 45 minutes.

Presenting at EURASHE’s Annual conference allows you to reach a broad audience and give you visibility before and during the Conference. In addition, chosen contributions will have a reduced fee to attend the Conference.

The deadline to submit your contribution is 28 February.

Plese note that you won’t be able to save your responses half-way through the survey, so please have your answers ready.