The Center for Professional Competencies and Organizational Development (PKOE) primarily deals with questions of adult teaching/learning processes in the continuing education society. Among the key focal points are individual, organizational, and global aspects of lifelong learning as well as professional action of those working in continuing education and counseling. In this context, the center addresses current challenges such as successive digitalization, the shift from a service society to a knowledge society, demographic changes, and increasingly inclusive work environments (Work 4.0). Concrete fields of research are particularly current aspects of the counseling sciences as well as the development of professional and work-related competencies, quality/organizational development in national and international contexts, the design of flexible learning cultures/architectures/instrumentalities and/or innovative work processes.
Since 2006, the certification body CERT NÖ, which is located at the PKOE, has been documenting the transfer of research and teaching into practice. This certification body is especially aimed at continuing education providers who want to optimize their internal processes as well as their market positioning. The goal was and is to define and establish a quality and action framework that considers the diversity in adult education and at the same time supports the organizations' further development. The special features the continuing education landscape demands are reviewed through an ongoing process of adaptation, as are the requirements of a modern quality management system.
The center is supported by four advisory boards, which support the team's activities in research and teaching.