Welcome back to The Co-Lab Brief. If you missed Volume 6 on Designing Future Ready Universities: Sub-Saharan Africa, you can read and respond to the edition here.
The Co-Lab Brief is intended to be a dialogue, which means we want to hear from you on what you think about the topics we’re exploring. You can also share trends, insights and other experiences that will be featured in upcoming editions by visiting our site.
For this edition, we are exploring the following question:
How can university leaders prepare learners for employability now, for work that does not yet exist, and for lives that will continue to change long after graduation?
This question sits at the center of one of the most pressing design challenges facing higher education worldwide. Employability has become a primary measure through which the value and legitimacy of universities are assessed, by students, families, employers, and public partners alike. Addressing it directly is not optional; it is central to sustaining trust in higher education as a public good.
Yet this question is asked without a reliable map. Much of the contemporary conversation assumes that the central challenge is one of anticipation: that if universities could better forecast the future of work, curricula could be designed to keep pace. The challenge today, however, is not simply rapid change, but the normalization of uncertainty itself. The very roles learners are told to prepare for may disappear, transform, or lose relevance within a single decade. As a result, employability cannot be treated as a narrow or short-term problem, nor as a choice between meeting urgent workforce needs and cultivating long-term capacities for learning.
In this issue of the Co-Lab Brief, we approach employability as an ‘and’ question. How might universities organize themselves to prepare learners for today’s labor market while also fostering the mindset, skillset, and toolset required for lifelong learning? From this perspective, employability becomes less a problem of foresight and more a question of orientation.
What is at stake is not whether universities can accurately predict what comes next, but whether they can cultivate forms of learning that remain meaningful amid continuous transformation. Preparing learners for uncertainty requires a shift away from self-referential models of authority and toward more adaptive, porous, and reflexive institutional practices—without relinquishing the university’s role as a public good.
This month, we begin with a thought piece by University Design Vice Chair and Managing Director Minu Ipe and Nicole K. Mayberry, which asks what it means to prepare learners for work and life in conditions where uncertainty is no longer temporary. From there, we highlight several approaches that have, let’s say, caught our attention.
Curiosity as Infrastructure: Rethinking Workforce Readiness at the Level of Learning
Michael M. Crow on the Master Learner and the Future of Workforce Readiness
Much of the employability debate begins with skills: which ones matter, which ones are obsolete, and which ones can—or cannot—be automated. Yet this framing risks missing a more foundational question: what kind of learning enables people to adapt when skills themselves are in flux?
In this featured conversation, Arizona State University President Michael M. Crow explores the idea of the master learner. Crow calls for a fundamental redesign of higher education: away from training students for fixed roles, and toward building post-disciplinary environments where general education, interdisciplinarity, and real-world problem-solving converge.
Working Backward from Need: University–Industry Partnerships in Vietnam
University-industry partnerships fueling Vietnam’s skilled workforce
Much of the employability debate assumes that universities determine what matters on their own, often designing programs without sustained input from the labor markets graduates are expected to enter. In Vietnam, emerging university-industry partnerships offer a different starting point.
Across Vietnam, institutions such as Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City and Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry are partnering with industry at scale to close skills gaps and strengthen national competitiveness. These collaborations demonstrate how cross-sector engagement can align education with labor market demand while preserving the university’s role in shaping, not simply responding to, change.
Further Learning:
> A recent Australian–Vietnamese report highlights this shift.
> Vietnamese policymakers are betting heavily on this model.
30+ joint research and technology transfer projects
at Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City*
2,300+ enterprise partnerships
at Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry*
*Universities and Businesses in Vietnam Are Forging Strong Cooperation, Investing Billions in Training and Research, to Bridge Skill Gaps and Equip Students with Industry-Relevant Expertise for Economic Growth.” Saigon News, 2025.
Layering, Not Replacing: Microcredentials Inside the Degree
Embedding microcredentials across the curriculum in the University of Texas System
Embedding microcredentials across the curriculum in the University of Texas System
Microcredentials are often framed as alternatives to traditional degrees or as peripheral add-ons that sit awkwardly alongside them. The University of Texas System’s Texas Credentials for the Future initiative takes a different approach.
Rather than positioning microcredentials as substitutes, the UT System embeds workforce-aligned credentials directly into undergraduate degree programs at scale.
This layered approach reflects a broader shift in thinking about employability. If preparation requires both depth and adaptability, the challenge is not choosing between degrees and credentials, but designing systems in which each strengthens the other. The degree remains intact, but it is no longer asked to carry the full burden of workforce readiness alone.
Further Learning:
> The UT System is already testing this at scale.
> Workcred and ANSI outline what integration actually looks like.
