The fact that school administrators, teachers, students and their parents are participating in the new NEPS is crucial in order to create a unique data basis. This can provide important insights for science as well as educational practice, administration and politics with important findings for the further development of education in Germany. For this purpose, the educational trajectories of the participants from several hundred schools will be monitored over many years by means of surveys and competency tests. In addition, the study "Education for the World of Tomorrow" provides a possibility to connect to the IQB education trend, which regularly surveys the extent to which students in Germany achieve the educational standards that are binding in all federal states and where there is a need for action. The link with the data already available from the NEPS offers a long-term perspective on educational trajectories from secondary school onward, which is internationally unique.

The study "Education for the World of Tomorrow" is part of the large-scale NEPS "Educational Trajectories in Germany", also known as the "National Educational Panel Study". Since its launcing twelve years ago, the NEPS has been the largest long-term survey on education in Germany with around 60,000 participants of all ages and an additional 40,000 people from their environment. It records the development of competencies and educational trajectories in various sub-studies from early childhood to old age. Responsible for planning and coordinating the study is an interdisciplinary consortium of renowned research institutes headed by Prof. Dr. Cordula Artelt, Director of the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi) in Bamberg.