AGRIFOODSKILLS
Preparing veterinary education for emerging skills needs
AGRIFOODSKILLS brings together work on emerging skills needs and the education required to meet them across the agri-food and veterinary sectors. EBVS contributes a veterinary perspective, connecting changes in professional practice with the development of future training.
Connecting veterinary priorities with European action
EBVS’s veterinary foresight pilot sits within a wider programme linking evidence about skills needs with education, professional development and policy.
The wider Agrifood Pact for Skills Observatory
The European Observatory brings together industry, education providers, researchers, social partners and policymakers to examine skills needs and coordinate responses.
Its eight working groups cover monitoring, skills intelligence, communication, long-term planning, quality and certification, foresight and policy, microcredential design, and training resources.
Within this wider context, the EBVS pilot tests a veterinary-specific method: using literature and research funding signals to explore emerging competencies and professional roles.
Turning skills priorities into learning opportunities
AGRIFOODSKILLS plans to organise microcredentials into lines of competence, spanning vocational and higher education levels. European skills terminology and quality assurance frameworks support this work.
For EBVS, the immediate veterinary focus is the clinical educator and clinical researcher. These profiles provide a basis for defining what professionals should be able to do and developing learning that supports those capabilities.
The connection between skills intelligence and education is practical: identify an emerging need, validate its relevance, define the required competencies and use those competencies to guide training and assessment.
Looking ahead through Policy Forum 2050
Policy Forum 2050 supports the Observatory’s long-term thinking through scenario analysis and expert policy discussion. It provides a route for considering how wider changes could affect skills and education.
For the veterinary contribution, this creates an opportunity to connect emerging professional needs with discussions about the future workforce and the education required to prepare it.
Building continuity beyond the project
The Observatory is intended to sustain collaboration beyond the funded project. Its work includes planning for long-term operation and developing a shared repository of training resources.
The veterinary pilot contributes a method that can be evaluated and refined as evidence develops. Continued professional engagement will be essential to keep its interpretation of skills needs relevant to practice.
Project documents and outputs
Read the consortium’s published guidance on stakeholder analysis and its report on the Observatory’s structure, working groups and activities.
Browse project documentsNews and project developments
Follow consortium updates, newsletters and events covering the Observatory, Pact for Skills activities and wider project progress.
Follow AGRIFOODSKILLS updatesWhy a skills observatory matters
Education takes time to develop. A skills observatory provides a continuing view of how professional work is changing, helping education providers recognise emerging needs and decide where to invest. Its value lies in connecting evidence about change with practical decisions about training.
Recognise change earlier
Identify emerging demands on veterinary professionals as technology, services and societal expectations evolve.
Test what matters
Bring evidence to practitioners, educators and other stakeholders to assess its relevance, urgency and implications for professional work.
Inform education
Translate priority skills needs into occupational profiles and learning outcomes that can guide curriculum and training development.
Work Package 3
From skills intelligence to training priorities
Our approach combines a digital foresight observatory with national and European stakeholder discussions to identify and refine priorities for veterinary education.
Building a digital foresight observatory
The observatory is being developed to bring together evidence about emerging skills needs and changes in professional practice. It will support a continuing process of identifying signals, examining their implications and updating priorities as new evidence becomes available.
For veterinary education, the central question is what professionals will need to be able to do, and how education should prepare them. The observatory provides the evidence base for exploring that question with the people who deliver, supervise and use veterinary services.
Validating priorities nationally and across Europe
National and EU-level focus groups provide a structured way to test the emerging skills intelligence against professional experience. Participants can challenge the findings, identify gaps and assess which needs should become priorities for training.
National discussions bring local workforce and education contexts into view. European discussions help identify shared needs and consider where a common occupational profile could support education across countries.
This validation process is intended to refine both the choice of profiles and the competencies each should describe.
Developing the veterinary occupational profiles
Four emerging occupational profiles were initially identified for consideration. The veterinary work now takes forward two: the clinical educator and the clinical researcher.
The clinical educator
Developing the capabilities needed to support learning in clinical practice, including supervision, feedback, assessment and the design of effective learning experiences.
The clinical researcher
Developing the capabilities needed to investigate questions arising from practice, critically evaluate evidence and translate research findings into improvements in veterinary care.
These profiles describe areas of professional capability to inform training development. They do not confer EBVS specialist recognition.
Work Package 5 · Training design and development
From adult learning principles to practical training
EBVS has contributed two connected outputs: a methodology for designing effective adult learning and a short learning package that helps educators apply it. Together, they support the move from identifying skills needs to developing learning activities and meaningful assessment.
Task 5.1: A methodology for adult learning
EBVS led the development of the training design and delivery methodology, with ICOS as co-lead and contributions from ACTFOOD and INRAE. The document provides a shared educational foundation for training across AGRIFOODSKILLS.
It addresses how adults learn, how their existing experience can inform learning, and how programmes can develop professional capability. It also examines how artificial intelligence changes learning, assessment and the evidence needed to support claims of achievement.
Design around the learner
Connect adult learning principles with learner readiness, prior experience and the demands of different qualification levels. Use blended design and Universal Design for Learning to support varied learning needs.
Build professional capability
Translate occupational profiles into competencies, learning outcomes and purposeful activities. Practical guidance connects curriculum design with lesson planning and learning pathways.
Assess meaningful achievement
Select assessments that provide useful evidence of what learners can do. Distinguish feedback that supports learning from judgements about mastery in an AI-informed learning environment.
Evaluate and recognise learning
Connect evaluation and quality assurance with evidence of performance, then consider how achievements can be represented through credentials and recognised learning.
The methodology is intended for educators, curriculum developers and training providers across vocational education and training, including those supporting veterinary professional development.
Read the training methodology (PDF)Task 5.2: Putting the methodology into practice
As its contribution to Task 5.2, led by ICOS, EBVS created a learning package using Universal Design for Learning and microlearning principles. It makes the methodology accessible through short, focused sessions that educators can explore and revisit.
The six sessions connect adult learning, professional capability, learning activities, assessment and microcredential design. Each focuses on a practical educational decision.
1. Ready for independence?
Foundations of adult learning and blended design: considering how learners can take increasing responsibility for their learning.
2. From learning outcomes to professional capability
Connect stated learning outcomes with the capability a learner needs to demonstrate in professional practice.
3. From content coverage to learning activity
Design activities that require learners to engage with and apply ideas.
4. Assessment in an AI-informed learning ecosystem
Examine assessment where AI forms part of how people learn and work.
5. Writing MCQs that produce useful evidence
Develop multiple-choice questions that reveal understanding and support meaningful assessment decisions.
6. Microcredential design
Explore microcredential design for vocational education and training in the context of evolving European credential frameworks.