Preparing the University for Generation Alpha: A Research Agenda for the Digital Transformation of Higher Education

Generation Alpha, a cohort growing up with smartphones and generative AI as ordinary features of everyday life, will soon enter a higher education system that is itself undergoing profound digital transformation. We argue that the central challenge of this transformation is not technological alone but human and that it is shaped by three fundamental tensions: upskilling vs. deskilling, autonomy vs. dependence, and individualization vs. collaboration. Developed by an interdisciplinary Community of Practice at the University of Bern (UniBE), we introduce the BRIDGE model, which conceptualizes the university as an ecosystem of three interdependent groups: students, academic (researchers and lecturers) and organizational support staff whose psycho-social, health, well-being, and performance competencies must be understood across the trajectory from school to working life. Building on this model, we propose a two-phase research agenda: systematic identification of competencies, expectations, and institutional processes through a multi-year, longitudinal research program spanning all three groups, followed by collaborative transformation of higher education through empirically evaluated interventions. This agenda provides what digital transformation in higher education currently lacks: an empirical basis for deciding where digital tools strengthen learning, work, and well-being--and where they undermine them--and tested interventions to shift that balance. It thereby operationalizes UniBE's Digitalization Strategy 2030 and responds to national as well as international calls for evidence-based, human-centered digital transformation.