At the beginning of march, IfaS invited corporate partners to an exclusive network meeting. In the first round of presentations, Trier University of Applied Sciences was introduced as the most sustainable university in Germany and the Environmental Campus Birkenfeld with its pioneering range of environmental science courses. The Zero Emission Campus concept with its innovative technologies was brought to life through a technical tour in bright sunshine. During this tour, the participants gained insights into the “Fuel Cell” competence centre with its research focus on hydrogen technology, the AI real laboratory and the mechanical engineering pilot plant with state-of-the-art robot technologies. In a second round of presentations, the focus was on the practice-oriented, English-language master’s degree program “International Material Flow Management (IMAT)”, which was launched by IfaS in 2004, is aimed at students from all over the world with its interdisciplinary module design and trains the managers of tomorrow in the field of international material flow management. The participants agreed that the shortage of skilled workers in companies is already clearly noticeable and that the need for qualified specialists will continue to increase in the future due to transformation processes such as decarbonization. Against this background, cooperation opportunities for corporate partners were examined to better adapt the qualification of young talents to operational requirements and labour market needs in the future. Through a more intensive connection between science and business, academic knowledge and applied practice, strategic educational partnerships are to be promoted that not only improve the career opportunities of our students, enable international students to make the transition into the job market and thus offer them prospects of staying, but also retain qualified employees in the long term and thus counteract the shortage of skilled workers in Germany. We can look back on an exciting event, which was rounded off by a constructive exchange with the participants from different industries and offers great potential for joint projects in the future.
