1. Introduction

This Brief presents the MERge model for professional development in the following sectors: industry, academia and the first sector. The MERge model encompasses three meta-professions—management, education, and research—in which, as we propose, every practitioner should acquire in order to gain a comprehensive understanding of his or her professional environment as well as improve the accomplishment of his or her organizational role. Sometimes, some aspects of these meta-professions are referred to as soft skills; indeed, though soft skills and meta-professions do have some common characteristics, meta-professions are wider and encompass a set of soft skills that together enable the practitioner to adopt an additional, holistic, and more global angle at his or her profession on a higher level of abstraction.