FORWARD

About RMIT FORWARD — The RMIT Centre for Future Skills and Workforce Transformation.

Work is changing.

Questions like What kind of work will we do in the future? What skills will be needed? Where do we work? How will the way we work change? Who will work? and, arguably, Why do we need to work? are on the minds of everyone from the corporate CEO, the mid-life career-changer to the government policymaker.

All of these questions — and more — are part of a massive landscape of tectonic plates, all shifting, sometimes in concert and sometimes rubbing up against each other, that collectively make up what is often called ‘The Future of Work’.

Our role is to explore that landscape.

Funded by the Victorian State Government’s Victorian Higher Education Strategic Innovation Fund (VHESIF) and sited in RMIT’s College of Vocational Education, we aim to act as a system catalyst, helping the College, RMIT’s research centres, our workforce partners, and our other stakeholders prepare for the future.

We have a team of talented and experienced development partners — and an ecosystem of over 30 industry Fellows worldwide — with experience in domains from the creative industries to tech startup land; they have interests in anything from indigenous ways of knowing to blockchain; they are working on projects that, at least on the surface, couldn’t be more diverse — from governance in distributed autonomous organisations, how technology can reimagine and reinvigorate societies and guilds and how to build modern, adaptive, leadership programmes, through to building conversational AI skillsets, strategies for growing digital talent, exploring and applying the skills that underlie creative practice, the role of durable skills in learning and work, and models of collaborative skills acquisition.

We use a range of methodologies and tools — ideation strategies, applied research methods like ethnography or design thinking, innovation metrics, value proposition design, and more — all in the context of our own agile-infused way of working that allows us to rapidly identify problems with pinpoint accuracy and work to ideate and iterate towards solutions.

We’re working with partners for whom these are real and pressing issues — who want to understand the series of new normals of hybrid working, who want to know how to upskill and reskill their people effectively and build the future-proof digital technologies to do that, who want to predict what those skills might be, and those — in sectors as diverse and health and social care, sustainability and construction, finance, technology and the creative industries — who just want to know what’s next for work and skills.

What connects all of these people, projects, and partnerships is a deep interest in the skills that people need to participate in society and the economy, how those skills can be developed, and how industry and society can benefit.

There are lots of ways to engage with us: by partnering on a project where we can bring value to the issues you are facing around skills, workforces and technologies, by becoming part of our growing ecosystem including by joining our group of Industry Fellows — or by simply reading and reacting to our stories and telling us what’s on your mind as your organisation faces into the future.

If you’d like to learn more, please contact director Peter Thomas (peter.thomas@rmit.edu.au), visit our SkillsCast podcast or find us on Vimeo.