The Business Sector Wants Graduates with Core Expertise and Digital Savvy
Digital skills have become more in demand in the business world when recruiting new employees. Therefore, educational institutions need to ensure that the next generation of professionals is equipped with digital competencies.
By Jan Guldager J酶rgensen, Vice Dean of Education at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Southern Denmark, and Christian Kronborg, Head of Studies for the Economics and Mathematical Economics program at the Faculty of Social Sciences.
Denmark is among the most digitized countries in the world. Digitalization has transformed organizations, businesses, and the private sphere, and the demand for graduates with clear digital skills is prominent in the job market.
Integrating digital competencies into social science education is not a choice, but a necessity. Digitalization is also a social science discipline. At the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Southern Denmark, we believe that systematically incorporating digital skills into our programs will better equip our graduates to contribute to solving the complex challenges that businesses and public organizations face. Social science programs have historically been good at bridging different fields of expertise. But without an understanding of digital technology and its significance, as demanded by businesses and the public sector, we risk losing ground.
A report prepared in 2020 by the consulting firm HBS Economics for the Confederation of Danish Industry (DI) shows that 43% of all job postings aimed at social science graduates in the private sector call for a digital profile. It is no longer just IT specialists who are expected to drive digital transformation, but increasingly also generalists with a solid social science foundation who can act as digital integrators, working at the intersection of technology and social science disciplines such as political science, economics, law, and management. International companies like Carlsberg, specifically mentioned in the report, confirm a growing need for graduates who are both digitally competent and possess a commercial mindset. These graduates do not need to be technical experts, but they must be able to ask the right questions about companies' and organizations' development in relation to digitalization, automation, and data. A representative from Carlsberg expressed that such graduates with business and customer insight combined with a digitally oriented profile are hard to find.
Artificial Intelligence as a "Push Factor"
In November 2022, a major player emerged when OpenAI made the chatbot ChatGPT publicly available. This development became a global "game-changer," not least for higher education institutions. It places demands on institutions to formulate new guidelines and on students to navigate a new digital reality. Teachers must also consider how to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into their teaching to enhance students' understanding of it. This is a challenging task as technology evolves rapidly.
Let鈥檚 be clear: Digital skills entail more than just artificial intelligence (AI). However, the development shows that technology is crucial to the competencies we want to provide our graduates. The consulting firm HBS Economics, which incidentally coined the term "digital integrators," also emphasizes that artificial intelligence can perform coding tasks, but stresses: "It places demands on students to be aware of how to use data and 鈥� most importantly 鈥� what precautions need to be taken." The Danish Business AI Coalition released recommendations on AI in 2024. These recommendations are based on the analysis that there will be a need in the future for graduates who understand the ethical and democratic dilemmas AI presents. On this basis, the coalition recommends conducting a "digitalization/AI check" of all educational programs.
We Must Develop Education to Shape the Future
Critical thinking, problem-solving, and "learning to learn" are classic core competencies in social sciences. Their importance becomes even more apparent at a time when digitalization, including artificial intelligence, plays such a significant role in the daily lives of students at universities, employees in the workforce, and citizens in society.
It is a core task to ensure that our graduates create value for and with society. As educational leaders at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Southern Denmark, we are constantly working to adapt our programs to society's needs. We have intensified efforts to support the integration of digital skills across all our undergraduate programs. Specifically, a committee, based on research-based knowledge, is working on proposals to design an introductory course module for all our (new) upcoming undergraduate students. This module will equip social science students to connect insights into data and technology with their specific fields within economics, political science, business administration, law, and journalism. In this course, we will build on experiences from the project "The Education of the Future." Here, so-called nano-modules 鈥� short learning sessions such as podcasts, videos, texts, and quizzes 鈥� serve as the basis for student learning.
In a survey conducted by Deloitte (Deloitte Global 2024 Gen Z Survey) among Danes in Generation Z (children and young people born from 1996-2012), 22% of the young people who chose not to pursue higher education responded that they do not see higher education as an opportunity to gain knowledge about rapidly evolving technologies. With this op-ed, we want to emphasize that students with us will experience that digitalization and technology are an integral part of their education. Therefore, we are highly committed to ensuring that this happens.
This op-ed was published in JYSK Fynske Mediers Erhverv+ on March 20, 2025.