Skills over the Lifecycle – Leibniz ScienceCampus Essen

What shapes people's skills – and how do these skills shape their lives? The Leibniz ScienceCampus "Skills over the Lifecycle" investigates these questions from an interdisciplinary perspective, focusing on cognitive and socio-emotional skills such as self-regulation and persistence.

The research programme combines two perspectives. The first concerns the determinants of skills: how do targeted programmes, educational reforms and family investments affect skill formation? To this end, interventions such as mindfulness training or structured goal-setting are developed and evaluated for children, adolescents and university students, complemented by natural experiments. The second concerns the effects of skills: which skills matter for educational success, income, health and well-being? Here, the Campus analyses longitudinal and register data from Germany and other European countries.

The Campus is rooted in the Ruhr area, a structurally disadvantaged region where these questions are particularly relevant. Findings are translated into policy briefs and discussed with local stakeholders from policy and practice. In the long run, the Campus aims to provide sound empirical evidence for deciding which interventions should be scaled up.