SEED: Transnational Meeting Kozani
The SEED research project (Sustainable Energy Education) aims to optimize vocational education in the field of renewable energies. It brings together universities, training institutions, and companies from Finland, Greece, Spain, the Netherlands, and Germany to improve and share best practices in vocational education across borders. Each region also develops a strategy to enhance the training of young workers and adapt it to meet the requirements of companies through innovative approaches and collaborations.
Within the SEED project, another Transnational Meeting took place. Researchers from the laboratory, Michelle Hoffmann and Nora Abel, along with Prof. Dr.-Ing. Semih Severengiz, traveled to Kozani, Greece, to the University of Western Macedonia (UOWM). The UOWM and the Cluster of Bioeconomy and Environment of Western Macedonia (CLUBE) hosted the Transnational Meeting from February 20th to 22nd, 2024. The main themes of the workshops were the Regional Development Plan, governance models, and good practices.
Regional Development Plans have been developed in each region to define and implement the goals of the regions. This aims to improve education in renewable energies in collaboration with regional companies and stakeholders. In Kozani, previously established sub-goals, key performance indicators, and risks were transformed into concrete actions. Each region in SEED will establish a Center of Vocational Excellence (CoVE), for which a Memorandum of Understanding will be developed and signed with the stakeholders. Various governance models such as cooperation agreements, foundations, cooperatives, and private companies were discussed at the meeting.
The Sustainable Technologies Laboratory led a workshop on the good practices represented in the project. The goal is for each region to implement a new best practice from another region by the end of the project. To get closer to this goal, project partners were asked in advance about their particular interest in good practices. Based on this, the following good practices were selected: Public Private Partnerships and Higher Level VET programs from the Netherlands, Solarleap from Finland, the cooperation between the University of Western Macedonia and the Hellenic Electricity Distribution Network Operator from Greece, and Sustainable Energy Impact and the EnergyHub from Bochum. Further information about each good practice can be found on the official SEED website.
During the workshop, the World Café method was used, with each good practice allocated its own table and time slot. This allowed partners to present their own good practices, gather feedback on the improvements made, and ask questions to obtain information for implementation. This information forms the basis for deciding which new good practice to implement. The next Transnational Meeting in April 2024 in Bochum will build upon this.
In addition to further opportunities for international exchange and promoting collaboration, there was an opportunity to learn more about the University of Western Macedonia, the city of Kozani, and the region of Western Macedonia. The partners visited various laboratories at the university, gained insights into student project studies, and attended presentations from regional companies and clusters in the field of vocational education. Through strengthened international cooperation and significant substantive progress, the Transnational Meeting in Kozani was successfully concluded, paving the way for further collaboration.
- Funding Program: Erasmus+
- Grant number: 101056147
- Funding body: European Commission
