Shortly after the start of the project, the CHAISE partnership launched its research activities to gather blockchain skills intelligence. Under the lead of the DHBW’s research group NextEducation, the research results will build the foundation for the upcoming CHAISE activities

Over the next six months, the goal of the research activities is to describe the Blockchain labour market, determine the current demand for Blockchain skills, identify the supply of existing Blockchain training opportunities and draft a mismatch report that shows the gaps between Blockchain skills supply and skill demand in the EU.

Based on this research, CHAISE aims to create an open, inclusive Blockchain skills governance system to address skills gaps and provide appropriate training, information provision and mobility solutions tailored to the needs of the sector. This research will also set the basis for the European Blockchain Skills Strategy to be developed at a later stage of the project.

A first step of the research was the preliminary development of the “Research Methodology to gather labour market intelligence and identify skills mismatches”, which was published in January 2021. The research strategy offers a broad triangulation of methodologies, perspectives and data sources to gain a greater depth of understanding of what capabilities are needed to advance the European Blockchain field. The methodology is comprised of 12 categories, which are led by three teams and cover the work of more than 28 partners. The research will result in the following deliverables:

  • Study on Blockchain labour market characteristics
  • Registry of Blockchain online job vacancies
  • Study on Blockchain skill demand
  • Study on Blockchain skill supply
  • Study on skills mismatches in the Blockchain sector

This part of the CHAISE project therefore sets out a robust and valid research strategy that will involve a multi-stakeholder panel of individuals, experts and stakeholders from the business and the public sectors, and from research and policy.

The research activities are led by the NextEducation research group of the Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University (DHBW) in Karlsruhe, Germany, under supervision of Professor Dr. Ulf-Daniel Ehlers. The research group has joined the CHAISE initiative to contribute with cutting edge skills research methodology development in order to design the Blockchain Skills Agenda of the Future in European countries. Prior to joining CHAISE, NextEducation published seminal and groundbreaking research on Future Skills in Higher Education (www.nextskills.org).