To meet the demands of a rapidly evolving world, universities need to ensure that their teaching staff possess the necessary competencies to address challenges such as climate change, energy literacy, biodiversity conversation, digital literacy and sustainability. In addition to content knowledge, it is important that university teachers are equipped with innovative didactic approaches that promote active, experiential and interdisciplinary learning. By applying such strategies, university teachers can engage students more deeply, encourage critical and systems thinking and empower them to co-create solutions for a sustainable future.

The INOVUP ULTRA (Strengthening Learning and Teaching for a Sustainable Society of the Future) project at the University of Ljubljana, as part of the ongoing project ULTRA (University of Ljubljana for Sustainable Society), aims to develop these competencies through targeted training for university teachers. In order to design the training programs effectively and support professional development of university teachers, a comprehensive needs analysis was conducted using an online questionnaire. The questionnaire collected data on staff attitudes towards lifelong learning, participation in professional development, preferred training formats, and thematic areas of interest. The questionnaire was distributed to 5,600 university teachers of the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.The presentation provides a valuable insight into how university teachers perceive lifelong learning and what motivates them to engage in professional development. University teachers recognise the importance of lifelong learning for both personal and professional development in general, with key motivators including the desire to improve teaching, respond to societal challenges and enhance career prospects. However, further analysis revealed major differences between university teachers in terms of the importance they attach to their teaching and research competencies.

Barriers such as lack of time, rigid schedules and insufficiently relevant training opportunities are limiting factors for non-participation in the programs offered. An important factor influencing how often and which training courses university teachers attend is related to the different assessment of achievements in the areas of research and pedagogical field when it comes to promotion. Expected areas of interest include innovative didactic approaches, student engagement and how sustainability and digitalisation topics can be systematically integrated into curricula. These findings will support the development of well-structured training programs that are better aligned with university teachers needs, institutional goals and sustainable society.

Keywords: Lifelong learning, professional development, didactic innovation, sustainability education, university teacher training.