Reto Steiner: We would like to accompany our students throughout their entire working lives. To do this, we must be able to tailor the education we offer to their specific needs and ensure that it is compatible with their different life situations. It is precisely here that our lifelong learning strategy comes into play. This breaks with the tradition of universities drawing a strict distinction between undergraduate teaching and continuing education. Through our lifelong learning strategy, we are setting out to create a university where the values and content of our undergraduate studies and those of our continuing education complement one another, thus contributing to a social culture of lifelong learning. People’s careers today are much more varied than they were 20 or 30 years ago. This reflects the rapid change that has come about on the job market and in job profiles. But this rapid change also constitutes an opportunity. We want to respond to people’s specific needs and facilitate their professional advancement through customised and flexible educational programmes, whether they wish to pursue their interests, close gaps in their education, go into what they have learned in greater depth or follow a specialisation. “It’s the ideal time to adopt a new look on Switzerland’s education market”: Reto Steiner, Head of the ZHAW Education Unit and Director of the School of Management and Law in the video interview. As a scientifically-based, practically-oriented university we need to have an idea of which knowledge and skills we want to impart to our students, and how we can best do this, so as to ensure that they can develop further in their working environment and take on responsibility in society. Through our lifelong learning strategy and our integrated Education Unit, we want to make sure that, ten years from now, ZHAW will still be a university that prepares people for their professional lives and provides them with individual encouragement and support over the full length of their career. “We consistently aspire to integrate the latest scientific findings in our education programmes.” Reto Steiner, Member of the ZHAW Executive Board and Head of the Education Unit As an education partner, we aim to enable them to act in an entrepreneurial manner, to play an active role in shaping current social challenges and to develop appropriate solutions. We consistently aspire to integrate the latest scientific findings in our education programmes. The most important aspect is the verifiability of the competences a person acquires during their studies. We attach great value to employability. I think the most important skill needed is the ability to acquire new knowledge rapidly and independently and develop the competence to act on this basis. Knowledge has a very short half-life today. This makes it essential for people to actively acquire new knowledge in the course of their careers and generate fresh momentum in this way. Interview Thomas Schläpfer