Flexpertise for a sustainable, inclusive future

Flexpertise is the ability of professionals to deal with changing demands for expertise.

Centre of Expertise Global and Inclusive Learning

In a society transitioning toward sustainability and inclusion, organizations and professionals face complex challenges with unpredictable solutions. Across all roles, employees are essential in realizing these transitions. Yet what is expected from them constantly evolves.

The expertise needed to make these transitions successful changes continuously - driven by new insights, legislation, partnerships, and (technical) innovations. As a result, professionals must upskill (perform at a higher level or solve more complex problems), reskill (stay current in their field or acquire expertise in another domain), deskill (unlearn outdated ways of working), or apply their expertise in new roles.

For some, these changing needs offer opportunities for renewal. For others, they create temporary barriers to contributing meaningfully to the evolving labor market. Our research team explores how to strengthen flexpertise through innovative Human Capital solutions.

What is flexpertise?

Flexpertise is the ability to respond to and anticipate a changing demand for expertise. Labor market trends show that this adaptability is increasingly essential across nearly all occupations and sectors. The PhD research of Dr. Lonneke Frie, which earned her the Best Dissertation Award 2024, explores what flexpertise entails and what enables professionals to continuously adapt and develop. This ability enhances both individual employability and the value professionals bring to their organizations.

Building on this research, Dr. Frie and her Flexpertise Research Team focus on how flexpertise can be fostered at the individual, team, and organizational level. Their work is grounded in three research themes and approached through a system dynamics lens.

Accelerating Sustainability Transitions with Flexpertise

Systemic transitions—such as the energy, food, and circular economy transitions, as well as the shift toward an inclusive society—require collaboration among professionals from various disciplines. These transitions demand the (co-)development of new expertise and the ability to apply it meaningfully across networks of organizations, regulators, and social institutions. Yet these processes often evolve more slowly than stakeholders would prefer.

Flexpertise Strategy Scan

To accelerate transitions, enhancing the flexpertise skills of all involved is essential. We’ve developed and successfully implemented the Flexpertise Strategy Scan to help organizations accelerate their internal sustainability transitions by fostering flexpertise.

In the shift toward sustainability, employees often need to acquire new knowledge and skills to remain valuable contributors. Flexpertise, the capacity to adapt to changing expertise demands, is a key skill in this context.

The Flexpertise Strategy Scan identifies 16 organizational factors that promote flexpertise, including a clear transition vision, autonomy, a supportive culture/mindset, and insight into future expertise needs. The tool provides actionable insights into which areas an organization should prioritize, and offers science-based interventions to strengthen them. To maximize the impact of our research, we are currently translating the method into an open-source practical guide to be released in autumn 2025. This will help organizations empower employees to actively and effectively contribute to sustainability.

Interested in using the Flexpertise Strategy Scan to accelerate sustainability in your organization?

Pre-order: Flexpertise Strategy Scan

A career as a (fl)expert in the North Sea

In 2024–2025, this project is being carried out with funding from the LLO-Katalysator (Building Block 2) and in collaboration with a consortium including Vonk (vocational education provider), MSG Strategies, the Port of Den Helder, Element NL, NedZero, and additional partners.

The energy transition in the North Sea is driving a transformation in the labor market. Professionals will need to move more easily between sectors due to growth and decline in different parts of the energy system (e.g., gas production, offshore wind, carbon capture and storage, and hydrogen production). This requires upskilling, deskilling, reskilling, and the transfer of expertise.

In this project, we are developing:

A North Sea Expertise Map outlining the technical knowledge required for the offshore energy transition and corresponding development paths

A Flexpertise Dialogue Tool to assess the development needs for flexpertise in the offshore energy sector—for new entrants, current employees, and career switchers

Lifelong Learning (LLO) Concepts to promote the development of expertise and flexpertise

Follow ‘Flexpert at the North Sea’ on LinkedIn.

Flexpertise for everyone – Creating neuro-inclusive conditions

The labor market increasingly expects workers to upskill and reskill in order to stay relevant in a constantly evolving context. Our research shows that flexpertise involves six types of adaptive behavior, not all of which come naturally to everyone.

Flexpertise requires the ability to deal with uncertainty, to let go of deep-rooted routines, and to be aware of one’s own strengths and weaknesses. This also assumes that individuals are capable of and willing to take charge of their own development and adapt independently. For some people, this is not an innate talent. They need support.

We aim to explore how we can make flexpertise development accessible to everyone, by creating neuro-inclusive work environments that enable individuals to engage their unique talents. This approach ensures that human capital within organizations is not left untapped and that those currently on the margins of the labor market can unlock their potential.

Flexpertise in Higher Professional Education (HBO)

Students are the professionals of the future and they will work in a world where change is constant. The disciplines they study and the organizations they aspire to join are continuously evolving. What you learn today may be outdated tomorrow.

That’s why developing flexpertise during Bachelor’s and Master’s programs is crucial. At The Hague University of Applied Sciences, we offer practical flexpertise tools for education.

Flexpertise in education starts with teachers who continually update and adapt to provide students with relevant, future-proof curricula and to foster flexpertise in their students. We provide hands-on tools for both educators and students to support this process.

Leadership and flexpertise

Research shows that leaders play a critical role in fostering flexpertise. We investigate when and how leaders can best support employees who struggle to meet evolving expertise demands.

Leaders are key in creating safe learning environments where people can make mistakes while developing new skills. They also help make employees’ value visible, and create opportunities for them to grow beyond their current roles, encouraging the development of a unique ‘expertise cocktail’.

This requires leaders to renew themselves as well, and our research also addresses what that process entails.

Cultural differences in flexpertise

Different cultures vary in how they recognize and value expertise. This relates to cultural preferences for individual versus collective recognition, and to the degree in which expertise is seen as performance-based versus shaped by reputation, status, or networks.

Within this research theme, we explore how our dynamic model of flexpertise can be applied across different cultural contexts.

Interested in collaborating?

If you are interested in contributing to our flexpertise research in Human Capital Innovation, please contact Dr. Lonneke Frie at [email protected] or +31 (0)6 24097385.