Boosting the Telecommunications Engineer Profile to Meet Modern Society and Industry Needs Erasmus Project

Project Title

Boosting the Telecommunications Engineer Profile to Meet Modern Society and Industry Needs

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Capacity Building in higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics:

Project Summary

Despite ICT being one of the fastest growing sectors in the European economy, Universities in the Western Balkan (WB) region have experienced a sizeable decrease in the number of students enrolled in telecommunication engineering programs over the last years. According to partners’ experience and preliminary analysis, the major reason is that the deep and fast changes experienced by the telecom industry created a mismatch between the skills provided by university programs and the ones needed by industry. The telecom engineer currently needed by telecom firms needs to be trained in the broad ICT domain and should have both technical and market-oriented skills to actually contribute to the techno-economic society challenges. The overall objective of the BENEFIT project was to reduce the previously described mismatch by working on three main pillars: A) The cooperation between Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and the private sector (i.e. telecom industry) to modernize the study program in telecommunication engineering. This was mostly part of WP1 and WP2. B) The adoption of modern teaching methodologies and tools, the upgrade of the infrastructure, and the creation of six joint university-industry labs in the WB universities; this was part of the WP3 activities.C) The implementation of training of both teachers and students. This was part of WP4.To increase the level of cooperation, visibility and exploitation opportunities, the project developed an integrated e-platform and repository. In this way, BENEFIT ensured accessibility of e-learning tools, communication about training/internships opportunities in WB, contacts of relevant universities and companies, employment opportunities, events of both technical nature and accessible to the general public. Teaching material is available via e-platform through books, lecture presentations, description of laboratory sessions and video materials. All in all, the body of knowledge developed in the field of telecommunications found an appropriate repository and is currently accessible also in the perspective of a further development and modernization of study programs in the field of telecommunications.Continuous monitoring of project activities and outcomes was implemented as part of the quality management process (WP5) through the aid of collected surveys and questionnaires used to poll the target audience (students, teachers, practitioners). A number of dissemination activities (WP6) was successfully realized through open events, webinars, special sessions and presentations in conferences organized in the region. A yearly newsletter was prepared and at project completion a booklet with an extensive description of project activities and tangible outcomes was also published and distributed. Management and coordination activities (WP7) were carried out efficiently through a well-defined management structure, regular monthly conference calls and a number of project meetings which strengthened the cooperation. The advent of the Covid-19 pandemic challenged the project in its last year. Nonetheless, BENEFIT has proved to be extremely resilient and all the main last year-results were achieved despite the circumstances. Thanks to the development of a contingency plan, the remaining events were mostly implemented virtually, activities were re-planned and completed with an extension period of only four months, which also allowed the delivery of the modernized study programs to a larger number of beneficiaries.Therefore, BENEFIT has contributed to shape a modern profile of graduates in telecom/ICT engineering bridging the gap with the job market needs, which is a concrete action in response to the recently announced programmatic goals by WB countries.

Project Website

http://www.project-benefit.eu

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 967265 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITAET KLAGENFURT & Country: AT

Project Partners

• UNIVERZITET U BANJOJ LUCI
• UNIVERZITET U SARAJEVU
• UNIVERZITET U NISU
• JAVNA USTANOVA UNIVERZITET U TUZLI UNIVERSITAS STUDIORUM TUZLAENSIS
• UNIVERZITET U BEOGRADU
• ERICSSON NIKOLA TESLA D.D.
• SVEUCILISTE JOSIPA JURJA STROSSMAYERA U OSIJEKU FAKULTET ELEKTROTEHNIKE, RACUNARSTVA I INFORMACIJSKIH TEHNOLOGIJA OSIJEK