“The Education and Competence Studies (ECS) Group is a research and education unit (chair group) at Wageningen University’s Department of Social Sciences, Division Business, Consumer and Company Studies.
It provides academic education and conducts scientific research on the identification of competence needs within the agri-food complex, the design of competence-based education, and the analysis of effects of competence-based learning on pupils, students, citizens, consumers, workers, managers, entrepreneurs, organizations and the agri-food complex as a whole. The central theme of ECS research is competence development within Wageningen University and Research Centre’s key domains of healthy food and the living environment.
At ECS group, competence is defined as “the capacity necessary for effective performance”, and the group’s key research questions include:
What are the important competencies that develop in a changing society?
What are the inspiring competence-based learning environments in which competencies are developed?
What are the effects of these competence-based learning environments?
Research is performed by several different target groups: students in the green sector of education, students in higher and scientific education, citizens, employees and seniors in companies and institutions and entrepreneurs.”