The Future-AP project is a comprehensive, global comparative survey that looks at employment and working conditions in academia. Researchers from 43 countries across six continents—Asia (10 countries), Africa (5 countries), North America (2 countries), South America (5 countries), Europe (20 countries), and Australia (1 country)—will undertake the study. With a unique scope among its member nations, Future-AP seeks to promote comparative survey research on employment and working conditions in teaching, research, knowledge transfer, and governance in the worldwide academic profession. Examining how academic values relate to employment and working situations globally, as well as how these values represent important societal issues (such as the Sustainable Development Goals), is a special focus of Future-AP. 

The current INCHER workshop in November 2025 will support a thorough, superior worldwide survey by: 

• arranging a feedback and revision process that involves key actors of the survey design process (the four survey design groups, the survey methodology group, the concept group, the overall coordination and management group, and the advisory board), 

• facilitating discussion on the complementarities and overlaps of the different survey sections to integrate the subsections into a common questionnaire.

Dr. Nicolai Götze will head subgroup 4 for survey design, which deals with the topics of knowledge and technology transfer/engagement/external activities as well as governance and management. Dr. Christian Schneijderberg (INCHER) will coordinate the overarching conceptual group. 

The Future-AP survey is a follow-up to the international surveys "The Academic Profession in Knowledge Societies (APIKS)" (2017–2021), “The European Academic Profession (EUROAC)” (2010–2012), “Changing Academic Profession (CAP)” (2007–2008), and the “Carnegie survey of the academic profession” (1992). International comparative higher education research has been greatly influenced by the aforementioned projects. INCHER was a key player in all of these surveys. 

An overview of the publications on APIKS and CAP can befound at the following links (https://www.cipes.pt/publications-apiks-data?language=en;   https://www.uni-kassel.de/forschung/incher/forschungsschwerpunkte/projekt-archiv/apiks-academic-profession-in-knowledge-societies-abgeschlossen-2020.html; https://link.springer.com/series/8668).