Researching the Future.
Designing the Pathways.
About the Center
The Center for the Future of Higher Education and Work (CHEW) is a strategic innovation hub within Northeastern University that advances applied research, systems design, and cross-sector collaboration to build the future of dynamic, adaptive lifelong learning pathways.
Rooted in Northeastern’s leadership in experiential learning and workforce alignment, CHEW supports the development, implementation, and scaling of core educational enablers—such as competency architecture, microcredentials, relational and experiential learning models, and real-time data analytics. Through partnerships with faculty, practitioners, and employers, the center builds evidence-based strategies to transform how learners access, navigate, and benefit from education throughout their lives.
CHEW’s work bridges research and practice, synthesizing insights across pilots, institutional innovations, and external collaborations. The center serves as both a convener and a catalyst—curating learning networks, producing toolkits and exemplars, and advising on scalable models for aligning education and work. CHEW’s efforts directly support and inform the educational innovation agenda of Northeastern’s College of Professional Studies and Graduate School of Education.
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Core Enablers
Experiential Learning Research
As the research arm of Northeastern’s 124-year experiential learning legacy, we leverage the institution’s global leadership in co-op education and work-integrated learning to combine operational scale (13 global campuses, 255K+ alumni) with methodological rigor to deliver solutions tested in the world’s largest living laboratory of work-integrated education.
Competency Architectures
Competency architectures and skill-driven systems drives our research on aligning learning, work, and hiring through clearly defined, measurable skills. We are researching how competencies can structure more transparent, equitable pathways—from curriculum design to career progression—and how institutions can embed these frameworks to better serve diverse learners.
Microcredentials
Drawing on the university’s deep industry engagement and global campus network to design and test stackable, industry-aligned microcredentials our research in this area is grounded in real-world application and built for scale, our badges, certificates, and credentialed pathways are developed in partnership with employers to validate competencies, expand access, and drive mobility in a rapidly evolving labor market.
Data Infrastructure
Part of our focus is on developing the data infrastructure needed to measure, evaluate, and scale innovation. Our work includes designing a modular analytics framework—integrating data collection, dashboards, and reporting tools—that supports each pilot project with real-time insights and actionable evidence for learners, educators, and employers.