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Despite being widely promoted in higher education curricula and institutional frameworks, the generic competences of interdisciplinarity, innovation, and social responsibility are rarely measured rigorously or examined in terms of what they actually entail, how they are operationalized in assessment instruments, and whether they share common underlying elements. This study addresses that gap through a systematic review of instruments used to assess these three competences in higher education, analyzing articles published between 2020 and 2025 across Web of Science, Scopus, and ERIC databases. Following PRISMA guidelines for systematic literature reviews, 17 empirical studies were selected and analyzed in terms of their psychometric properties and the operationalization of each competence. Results reveal significant methodological heterogeneity in validation procedures, with innovation and interdisciplinarity showing stronger psychometric evidence than social responsibility. More importantly, through a qualitative thematic analysis of instrument items guided by the Tuning Project's generic competence framework, selected for its internationally recognized classification of generic competences and its extensive application in higher education contexts, we identified four transversal skills shared across all three competences: problem-solving, communication, creativity, and decision-making. This finding suggests that interdisciplinarity, innovation, and social responsibility should not be treated as isolated competences but rather understood as complex constructs built upon a common foundation of more basic skills. Recognizing this shared base has direct implications for competence assessment, curriculum design, and institutional policy in higher education.
Martín et al. (Fri,) studied this question.