The research project initiative of 2025 is a stipend-supported activity hosted by the Future of Work Faculty Academy. The intent and purpose of the initiative is to foster collaboration between the thirty regional colleges/universities working as a consortium to address the challenges of workforce development.

The research teams that form in April/May of this year are asked:

  • To consist of no more than four researchers including one team lead
  • To embrace a transdisciplinary, holistic approach that is innovative, creative, perhaps non-traditional, and out-of-the-box. As a framework, you may recall the “rethink and unlearn to embrace the future” concepts presented at last year’s Education Vanguard Conference in November.
  • To have four team members, each representing a different partner school (given the number of faculty from partner schools, this could adjust).
  • Attend all three days of the May 19-21 Spring Forum to talk to business/industry partners on research topics, to finalize teams, and submit the research proposal. The first stipend payment will occur at the end of this event to the formed research teams.

The ultimate goal is to arrive at either:

  • Practical, applied research that results in innovative and new preparation for students and/or facilitates the development of a workforce of the future;
  • Or, theoretical research that could have an economic impact on higher education classrooms of the future or business/industry’s workplace of the future.

Either research outcome could have an opportunity to continue in 2026.

The Faculty Academy has provided the following categories of project opportunities over the last two years:

  1. Innovation and Industry
  2. Leading Edge Tech in the Classroom
  3. Collaborations Around Workforce Preparation
  4. Future of Technology
  5. Technology and Ethics
  6. Human Connectedness and Sustainability

Research Opportunity List

These research opportunities were pulled from the activities of Faculty Academy members over the last year, as well as from Southwestern Pennsylvania business/industry surveys and the Pennsylvania State University Academic Portfolio and Program (APPR) review. Some topics have been developed more than others.

These are opportunities only and are offered as a starting point to guide the 2025 Future of Work research project thinking.

The top hard skills in demand across SW PA Counties are:

  • Information security
  • Structured Query Language
  • Python
  • Agile
  • Computer Programming/Coding
  • Finance
  • Presentation
  • Teaching/Training, Job
  • CRM
  • Java
  • Teaching/Training, School
  • Oracle
  • Data Analysis
  • Marketing Sales
  • Manufacturing
  • Nursing
  • Home Health Care
  • SAP
  • Mathematics
  • Banking
  • Long-Term Care
  • English
  • Sales/Salesforce
  • Personal Computers

Capability Development Opportunities

  • What opportunities are there for the development of the above capabilities in higher education classroom pedagogy? Academic programs? Continuous education programs? Digital Foundry at New Kensington (or like facilities) workforce programs? Etc.
  • Generalized, adapting college education to workforce need: exploring new solutions to current/past problems with reorganized approaches to education through quantitative analysis and qualitative focus groups
  • Reimagining the higher education system in SWPA to make education free: including socio-technical considerations, think-tank identifying new types of facilities, support systems, how tech creates changes, stakeholder management, multiple perspectives, humanistic factors, and the such. What does a reimagined future of work look like? What is enjoyable learning through tech platforms? What are the design requirements for a VR meta world?
  • Industry is asking for a workforce with increased Emotional Intelligence (EI/EQ) and we want to leverage AI to reduce the deficit created by COVID. Use AI to create connectedness through activities that develop EI in students. Need to develop use cases to improve EI in students.
    • How to use technology to develop EI/EQ in students
    • Using stories to connect technology to humans
    • Every student comes to class excited
    • What if faculty encourage students to learn collaboratively
    • Interactive technology where students could share thoughts and ideas
    • What if each faculty member used EI/EQ to connect with students
    • Use AI to track student attendance/performance
    • Use AI or other technology to allow students to creatively design what they are learning
    • Use AI to foster practice opportunities to develop social skills. Think *Pair (with AI) *Share
    • Use AI to better connect with the audience to improve communication skills
  • What does the future classroom look like? What does the schedule look like?
    • Societal shifts
    • Adult students
    • IP-schools’ output leverages for better AI, used for various societal purposes
    • Mission of higher education pivots to AI literacy, societal impact/usage, and embracing current AI deficiencies as ‘gifts’ to be evolved
    • Emotional well-being
    • No constraints (i.e. Did you bring your supplies?)
    • Immersive experiences–can the classroom be ‘moveable’? Virtual Reality
    • Flexible floor plans
    • Tech-based
    • Where do students sit? Not limited by dedicated space such as old-school student desks and seating arrangements
    • Support neurodiversity (i.e. such as the use of fidgets for the learning challenged, etc.)
    • What if the students did experimental learning (i.e. improved the community through water testing-community partnership)
    • What if we tested the standards
  • What is the role of higher education in society? How are students using their higher education?
    • Preparation of students for careers
    • Lifelong learning
    • How to adapt
    • How to learn
    • Ability to change
    • Who supports
  • Who will bear the cost – not just dollars? New costing model. The student of the future will be:
    • 40 years old
    • Will come from the working population
    • Interest-based education
    • Interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary
    • Rate of return (i.e. students of engineering versus non-STEM students)
    • Government dollars versus the public
    • Private sector bearing the entrepreneurial costs to stay around
    • Incurring costs with AI assuming a high level Bloom’s taxonomy
    • Industry subsidizes learning but what is the return on investment
  • How do we enable educators with advanced manufacturing skills? Or, advanced technology skills?
  • How do we develop curricula that are responsive to fast-changing market conditions and that are aligned with near-term industry needs?
  • How can we provide access to persistent and consistent labor market data to understand which skills and credentials would prepare students for high-opportunity jobs, rather than mere anecdotal evidence from individual employer relationships?
  • There is an oversaturation of credentials and certifications in advanced manufacturing that makes it difficult to know how to align student-facing curricula. How do we address this problem?
  • Can higher education facilitate/provoke fundraising for high-cost robotics and advanced manufacturing equipment for hands-on training that mirrors the modern manufacturing workplace?
  • Employers may need researched knowledge on how to leverage advanced technology, like robots and AI tools, to improve their operations.
  • Employers may want to determine how to allocate time during the workday for training on new skills in lieu of work: online learning/training; in-house; college/university; skilled worker training facilities (such as the Digital Foundry); apprenticeships; internships; job shadowing; leader shadowing; etc.
  • Employers are facing high financial barriers to adopting robotics and other advanced technologies and paying skilled workers higher wages to operate them. How can higher education help mitigate this?
  • Employers have a need for more data-driven workforce upskilling strategies, such as understanding which workers have high potential for career growth, based on their career interests, performance, and skills, which may be “adjacent” to new skills needed by the firm. Can higher education work with employers to facilitate and match this understanding with student development?
  • Employers would like to build workplace cultures that are welcoming and supportive of a new generation of workers and an increasingly diverse workforce. What opportunities could higher education find here to synchronize with business/industry?
  • Employers would like to invest in human capital and upskilling when the U.S. tax code incentivizes businesses to invest in physical capital through low capital investment rates, rapid rates of depreciation on PPE (Property, Plant, and Equipment) and R&D tax credits. Is there an opportunity for theoretical and statistical research into regional economics to partner and help employers address this?
  • Military bases are beginning to train and develop talent in the community and some bases now face problems with retention. They struggle to retain talent that they trained and developed because government compensation is less than industry. This is a business/industry pipeline for talent and students. What is higher education’s role in serving military students? Is it time to rethink the problem and inform change?
  • Unions are struggling to educate workers on what technological and resultant workplace changes they should expect to see in the near- and medium-term and involving them in the technology-deployment process. Is there an opportunity for higher education research initiatives to support technology growth and changes impacting union workforces in the region?
  • Unions would like to integrate new safety standards and protocols with the introduction of new technology and tech-related processes in the workplace. Is there an opportunity for STEM-related and/or industry-related higher education training/learning initiatives that could assist or alleviate this problem?
  • Unions would like to see a cultural change occur that changes the narrative on manufacturing and skilled trades as a good economic path forward. Is there an opportunity for higher education research initiatives to support community, societal, government, business/industry, or higher education engagements/activities that could move the needle on changing cultural mindsets?