17 companies and 6 universities on the first EELISA Stakeholder Workshop

2022. május 25.

EELISA universities invited their external partners to discuss and share their experiences and best practices on an online workshop.

On the first online EELISA Stakeholder Workshop, held on 12 May 2022, representatives of 17 companies and 6 universities took part from 5 countries. The uniqueness of the workshop was not only the presence of the large number of external partners, but also the interactivity of the session. The primary goal of the workshop was to introduce the concept of EELISA to the external business partners, and get them acquainted with the opportunities inherent the Alliance.

The event kicked off with the welcoming words of Dale A. Martin, President of EELISA, who spoke about the significance, and the aims of EELISA and also highlighted the purpose of the workshop:

 “One of our aims is to be a valuable international European higher learning institution, offering our students a broad multicultural experience and educating well-qualified engineers. EELISA at the same time offers international outreach for its external partners to nine universities in seven countries.”

The next speaker was Prof. Yolande Berbers, former president of SEFI, and member of the EELISA Evaluation Committee shared her presentation about the European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI), its activities, and the challenge-based learning, to which SEFI is dedicated.

Then Prof. Emrah Acar, Associate Professor of Istanbul Technical University presented on EELISA Communities and drew the attention of the invited external partners, to why it is worth joining EELISA.

The last speakers in the plenary session were the Global Electrolux Talent (GET) Program Coordinators of Electrolux, Anh Nguyen and Ardian Widjaja, who talked about the international internship program of Electrolux and its experiences.

After a short break, the workshop continued in three parallel breakout rooms, where the attendees participated in the discussions led by section moderators actively. The moderators made the collaboration more interesting with Menti questions and the use of Miro board, while the external partners shared interesting and useful information about their own company’s best practices, and their own opinions with each other and with the EELISA representatives.

In the three rooms, the following topics were discussed:

– internships, traineeships & summer schools

– employee’s & employer’s expectations

– EELISA communities

The workshop ended with a closing plenary session where the section moderators summarized the conclusions of the workgroup discussions and shared some interesting details with all attendees. Tamás Lovas, associate professor from the Faculty of Architecture, BME concluded his section as follows:

“Participants of the employee’s/employer’s expectations sessions discussed what corporate values do the recently graduated employees appreciate the most, and what kind of workplace would they select. Mostly required soft skills and company onboarding processes were also surveyed in the session. The group reviewed the potential cooperation methods between universities and industrial partners and concluded how such collaboration supports EELISA’s goals.”

 László Gergely Vigh, Institutional Coordinator of EELISA from BME and the leader of the EELISA WP6 closed the workshop with a short conclusion.

The workshop was held in a good mood and ended with a lot of experience for both parties, the EELISA partner universities and the external business partners alike. The organizers hope that, as a result of the workshop and of learning about EELISA’s activities, in the future more and more external partners will join EELISA, enrol students involved in EELISA’s activities in internship and traineeship programs and participate in supporting the activities of the EELISA Communities.

Rector’s Office Communication Unit

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