Raw data for D1.1: Inventory of skills and competencies

Raw data for the manuscript entitled: European Agrifood and Forestry Education for a Sustainable Future - Gap Analysis from an Informatics Approach

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate how well European agrifood and forestry Masters program websites use vocabulary associated with the NextFood Project ‘categories of skills’.

Methodology: Web-scraping Python scripts were used to collect texts from European Masters programs websites, which were then analysed using statistical tools including Partial Least Squares Regression and contextual relation analysis. A total of fourteen countries, twenty-seven universities, 1303 European Masters programs, 3305 web-pages and almost two million words were studied using this approach.

Findings: While agrifood and forestry Masters programs used vocabulary from the NextFood Project ‘categories of skills’ in most cases equal to or more often than non-agrifood and forestry Masters programs, we found evidence for the relative underuse of words associated with networking skills, with least use among agriculture-related Masters programs. 

Practical Implications: The informatic approach provides evidence that European agrifood and forestry Masters programs are for the most part following the educational paths for meeting future challenges as outlined by the NextFood Project, with the possible exception of networking skills.

Theoretical Implications: This text-based, informatic approach complements the more targeted approaches taken by the NextFood Project in studying the skilling-pathways, which involved focus-group interviews, surveys of stakeholders, interviews of individuals with expert-knowledge and literature reviews.

Originality: A text-based, web-scraping informatic approach has thus far been limited in the study of agrifood and forestry higher education, especially relative to recent advances made in the social sciences.