Transversal skills and competences (TSC) — such as communication, teamwork, and problem-solving — are essential for students’ academic success, employability and personal growth. They also enable collaboration across disciplines and cultures, which is central to the mission of EUGLOH, the European University Alliance for Global Health.

Despite their importance, existing frameworks across Europe and internationally use overlapping and inconsistent definitions. This lack of clarity makes it difficult to teach, assess, and recognize TSC coherently across institutions.

As representatives of the EUGLOH Alliance at the University of Alcalá, we are developing a unified framework that addresses these gaps. The framework is aligned with established European references, particularly the ESCO taxonomy (European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations) and draws on complementary initiatives such as DigComp and LifeComp. This ensures consistency, supports comparability of learning outcomes across partner universities and makes students’ skills more visible and transferable in both education and the labor market.

Developing this shared framework will have meaningful benefits. Educators will be able to design courses and assessments that embed TSC systematically. Career services will gain a clear language to describe graduates’ strengths in ways that employers understand and value. Students themselves will be better prepared to communicate their abilities when seeking jobs or further study within Europe. Moreover, the framework will strengthen collaboration among EUGLOH partners by creating a common foundation for exchange programs, micro-credentials, and innovative learning pathways. Over time, this will reinforce the vision of a truly integrated European campus.

The framework has already been tested in two Living Lab co-creation workshops at Universidade do Porto and University of Alcalá. Feedback from these sessions confirmed its relevance and usability and the results will be further consolidated. The framework will be officially presented at the EUGLOH Alliance meeting in September 2025.

Keywords: Transversal skills, transversal competences, competence framework, EUGLOH.