Designing work-relevant geosciences programs

Geoscience-based jobs in the oil and gas industry are changing; thus, the education students receive must adapt to maintain work relevancy. In Norway, the confluence of changing industry needs to meet net-zero emissions and increased interest in carbon storage combined with decreased student admission in oil and gas education programs prompted the establishment of a research project to investigate the current and changing competence needs in the Norwegian oil and gas industry and to map competence development within the MSc in Energy, Reservoir, and Earth Sciences, offered in the Department of Energy Resources at the University of Stavanger, Norway. The research project, Defining Future Subsurface Education Needs in Collaboration with the Energy Industry (SUBSET), is supported by the Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills and collaborates with 5 energy companies and 2 trade unions. We applied a multi-method approach to determine the current and future needs within the Norwegian oil and gas industry. Through analysing interviews with company representatives, surveys with the workforce, discussions with trade unions, and workshops between companies and academia, we created a list of 28 thematic topics and competences. We compared this list to the learning outcomes of a master’s degree program and the courses contained therein to determine which competences were addressed and which were not. The study program is equivalent to 90 ECTS of coursework, consisting of 8 core courses and 4 elective courses, and a 30 ECTS thesis. Students are not obligated to the program electives; however, most students concentrate on the program electives. 27 competences were addressed by between 1 and 9 courses, whereas communication skills are addressed by 10 courses in some manner. Only 1 competence – financial management – was not addressed in the program; however, students could take a non-program elective to meet this competence. According to the competence mapping, the master's degree program contains a high-level of work relevant skills development. In this presentation, we discuss the methodological approach applied and the detailed competence mapping of the master’s degree program with a critical look at the content.