ANNUAL
REPORT 2012|13
ANNUAL REPORT 2012|13 Board of European Students of Technology Avenue Roger Vandendriessche 18 1150, Brussels Belgium www.BEST.eu.org info@BEST.eu.org www.facebook.com/BESTorg www.ickr.com/photos/BESTorg www.twitter.com/BESTorg Coordinator: Alla Berlova Designer: Katarzyna Skoczylas Photos: BEST archive Authors: Agnieszka Zastepa Alexia Spyridonidoy Alina-Gabriela Negoita Alla Kliushnyk Athina Patsia David Sanz Gert Willems Joao Andrade
Koen Triki Magdalena Mrozowska Marija Gogic Mario Nzualo Mateusz Treder Mihai Tociu Milica Nerlovic Natalia Mazur
Patricia Diaconu Piotr Skoracki Stefan Vintila Tadej Stepisnik Perdih Ursa Hribernik Wieke Villerius Zane Zondaka
Text editors: James Salmon Maria Ioana Pastrama
Oya Merve Duman Polytimi Frangou
Radovan Zvoncek
Welcome word from the Board Dear Reader, On behalf of BEST, we would like to wish you a warm welcome to the Annual Report of BEST 2012/2013. This report is the outcome of the challenging endeavour of presenting the yearlong work of our vibrant organisation in just few pages. In BEST, we are passionately committed on having a meaningful impact on the development of European students of technology. A year has passed and our outreach is bigger. We not only have established local groups in new countries, but also made all our activities available to more students. A year has passed and our outreach is smarter. We have developed new and better services after listening to the feedback of our stakeholders. We also have improved our internal processes in order to provide more value with fewer resources. During this year, we opened a new page in our history book as we began our 25th anniversary celebrations. Today, we have more and better complementary education, career support and educational involvement thanks to the impressive work of the present and past generations of BEST members. As we turn the page we realise that our work is still not over. Yet we have absolute trust that the upcoming generations will continue to succeed at tackling the big challenges related to cultural understanding and professional development of technical students. We wish you a pleasant read and hope that this Annual Report is just the start of a long and fruitful relationship with BEST. Yours truly, XXV International Board of BEST Mario Nzualo, President Mateusz Treder, Treasurer Magdalena Mrozowska, Secretary Wieke Villerius, Vice-President for External Services Piotr Skoracki, Vice-President for Internal Support Gert Willems, Vice-President for Local Group Support
CONTENT ABOUT BEST 6 WHAT IS BEST Structure of BEST International Management of BEST Profile of BEST members LOCAL BEST GROUPS MEMBERS AND STATISTICS HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR Growth of BEST BEST Anniversary Project Public Website Market Research Knowledge Management FINANCIAL OVERVIEW
INTERNAL ACTIVITIES
7 8 9 9 10 12 13 13 14 14 15 16 17
18
WORKING METHODS 19 TRAINING SYSTEM 20 Knowledge management in the Trainers' Community 21 IT SYSTEM 22 Private Area 22 Virtual International Plenary 22 INTERNAL EVENTS 23 Presidents’ Meeting Timisoara 23 General Assembly Valladolid 24 International Projects' Forum Ghent 25 ALUMNI NETWORK 25
SERVICES SERVICES OF BEST BEST COURSES Student testimonials Relation with universities: testimonials COMPETITIONS EBEC Final Zagreb 2012 EBEC Project & Final Warsaw 2013 BEST CAREER SUPPORT BEST Career Centre BEST Career Day EDUCATIONAL INVOLVEMENT Event on Education Vienna 2012 Testimonial from Austrian Ambassador from UNESCO
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EXTERNAL RELATIONS
26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 34 35 36 37 37
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EXTERNAL RELATIONS YOUTH IN ACTION FEANI BEST IN 40TH SEFI ANNUAL CONFERENCE
39 39 40
"ENGINEERING EDUCATION 2020: MEET THE FUTURE"
40 41 42 42
PARTNER NGOS EUROPEAN YOUTH FORUM ROUND TABLES BEST AND EUGENE ACADEMIC NETWORK: SUCCESSFUL COOPERATION
PARTNERSHIP WITH PROVIP Testimonial from PROVIP PUBLIC RELATIONS OF BEST PARTNERS
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ABOUT EST
What is BEST? What is BEST exactly? We like to think that BEST is many different things: BEST is an independent international student organisation, neither for profit nor political since 1989. We are from Europe. We are here for students and we are students. We are far more than the sum of our 95 constituent groups and our work impacts students, partners and universities in 33 European countries. We are more than 3 300 young, vibrant and competent young engineering students who believe in technology and different ways of thinking. We know that engineering is the future and we want to contribute it. We are about adding value to the environment we are part of - putting European universities on the map, connecting students with our partners and closing the gap between companies and universities. We understand that the world is changing and we are trying to adapt to those changes as it is challenging and helps us to to fulfil our purpose. What’s more, we are not standing idle but we are looking on what we can still do together. We are all about developing students, opening possibility to students gain valuable insights in different cultures and mindsets and ever improve their soft-skills through our activities and work in international environment. That’s why our vision is Empowered Diversity - providing complementary education by bringing significant added value to education provided by universities through our main activities such as BEST courses and European BEST Engineering Competitions (EBEC). Students have the opportunity to work actively on their career by using the BEST Career Support service
or to increase their awareness of student issues related to engineering education and improving engineering education through their input in events happening in collaboration with one or more partners, projects or individuals. Many European engineering students took the opportunity to visit one or more than one of our many annual local and national job fairs or visited companies with us through events provided by 93 local groups and our international teams. For the inspiration of our actions we are thankful to our flexibility as we seek the ability to make changes and deal with changing conditions and our spirit of friendship; we build good relationships in which people help, support and care for one another. We seek for improvement: to continuously strive to improve the standards in everything we do and we combine fun with learning by experience as we gain skills and therefore enjoyW everything we do. This is why each and every one of us grows, and can learn the skills and expertise needed, as a project manager, an event organiser, a specialist in negotiation, in fundraising, in public relations, in software-development and server-administration, in quality management, in marketing and design, in our interpersonal-skills and many more skills. It has been almost a quarter of a century since BEST came to existence. What we have accomplished until now is only the beginning of what we are eager to achieve and we are not afraid of stepping forward. We want to design the future for engineering students, starting from today.
About BEST
7
Structure of BEST Covering 33 countries and reaching 1,3 million technical students, BEST has grown into a substantial pan-European organisation. There are 95 Local BEST Groups, spread around Europe, forming the basis of this organisation. Each group is present at exactly one university and has its own local board, its own practices, traditions and culture. Like pieces of a puzzle, each of them has its own shape and place in BEST. The connection between all of them is the common values of BEST which they all endorse as their own. This connection empowers BEST to be a strong organisation providing services for European students of technology.
to Career Support - grants applications to training and knowledge management. The biggest international teams, the BEST Committees, can be seen as an equivalent to corporate departments. There are six committees of BEST and each has a distinct area of expertise. These areas are the Educational, Financial, External Events, Training, IT and Marketing. Each of them is led by a coordinator who ensures the coherence of the activities with the other bodies of BEST. At the top level, BEST has an International Board that represents BEST, ensures good communication between the different bodies of BEST and facilitates the global development of programmes and activities. It consists of the President, Secretary, Treasurer, Vice-President for External Services, VicePresident for Internal Support and Vice-President for Local Group Support.
Building on the basis of local groups, we have several international teams working to smoothen the communication between the groups and to provide support to them. Spread over the international teams of diverse size and aim, approximately 15% of our active members are working in all sorts of domains from marketing to IT, from educational involvement
INTERNATIONAL BOARD
RA
ITC RA
TiGro
RA
BAP
RA
KM
COMMUNICATION
RA
EduCo
RA
RA
mT
RA
MR
GWG
PWS S
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EduCo- Educational Committee ITC - Information Technology Committee mT - Marketing Committee TiGro - Training Group fT - Financial Team EEC- External Events Committee LBG - Local BEST Group
Board of European Students of Technology
SMALL
COMMITTEES
LBGs
RA
EBEC
CT JE
EEC
RA
O PR
RA
PROJECTS
fT
EBEC- European BEST Engineering Competition GWG - Grants Working Group BAP - BEST Anniversary Project KM - Knowledge Management PWS - Public Website MR - Market Research RA - Regional Adviser
International Management of BEST In 2012-2013, the following members of the International Board and coordinators led the organisation:
Mario Nzualo - President Mateusz Treder - Treasurer Magdalena Mrozowska - Secretary Wieke Villerius - Vice-President for External Services Piotr Skoracki - Vice-President for Internal Support Gert Willems- Vice-President for Local Group Support Zane Zondaka - Educational Committee Coordinator Joao Andrade - Information Technology Committee Coordinator Marija Gogic - Marketing Committee Coordinator Stefan Vintila - Training Group Coordinator Koen Triki - Financial Team Coordinator Athina Patsia - External Events Committee Coordinator
Profile of BEST members Any student of technology from a university with a BEST group can become a member of BEST. However, not just any student has the ability to be a member of this organisation. BEST does not follow a policy of membership fees or other forms of financial commitment, but relies on the responsibility and the eagerness of students to continuously challenge their limits and develop themselves. BEST members exhibit a constant awareness of their development and how it brings the organisation forward at the same time.
Through teamwork and the typical project-based approach, skills such as time management, project management, leadership and communication among others reach a higher level due to the handson experience and the real-time opportunities that BEST provides. By working in an international environment next to university life, they learn how to work with different personalities, how to handle deadlines and become skilled in online communication methods as they are with their personal communication skills.
As BEST exists due to its members, the organisation develops as they do. They are very much aware of that this aspect brings responsibility, but at the same time enables their creativity and empowers any member to make things happen.
Together, these aspects develop BEST members into engineers with well-developed soft skills and a high level of awareness of personal development and responsibility for their own actions. They are leaders and experts and have shown to be able to make a difference and make themselves noticed as future engineers.
This has only been possible through the nature of the activities organised by BEST and the kind of students these events attract as well as the support measures developed and maintained for its members over the years.
About BEST
9
LOCAL BEST GROUPS PRESIDENTS AND UNIVERSITIES List of LBGs (map) with presidents and Unis LBG Aalborg
Edwin Peters
Aalborg University
LBG Almada
Sofia Cavaco
New University of Lisbon
LBG Ankara
Aylin Aydin
Middle East Technical University
LBG Athens
Frosso Koutsonikoli
National Technical University of Athens
LBG Aveiro
Ana Topete
University of Aveiro
LBG Barcelona
Guillem Orpinell
Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya
LBG Belgrade
Marko Lukic
University of Belgrade
LBG Brasov
Dan Cernaianu
“Transilvania” University of Brasov
LBG Bratislava
Petra Lutterova
Slovak University of Technology
LBG Brno
Lenka Bokisova
Brno University of Technology
LBG Brussels
Bart Vouche
Free University of Brussels (VUB)
LBG Brussles ULB
Flavius Ivan
University of Brussels (ULB)
LBG Bucharest
Georgiana Nenciu
POLITEHNICA University of Bucharest
LBG Budapest
Tamas Bordas
LBG Budapest
LBG Chania
Konstantinos Argyropoulos
Technical University of Crete (T.U.C.)
LBG Chisinau
Aliona Cotuna
Technical University of Moldova
LBG Cluj-Napoca
Irina Drasovean
Technical University of Cluj-Napoca
LBG Coimbra
Pierre Barroca
University of Coimbra
LBG Copenhagen
Marie Rasmussen
Technical University of Denmark
LBG Delft
Daniel Boonman
Delft University of Technology
LBG Eindhoven
Mike Krom
Eindhoven University of Technology
LBG Ekaterinburg
Natalia Klyueva
Urals State University of Railway Transport
LBG Ekaterinburg, UrFU Liliya Bogdanova
Ural Federal University
LBG ENSAM
Mael Samy Pidjou Kamgang
Arts et Meiers ParisTech
LBG ENSTA ParisTech
Paul Dorbessan
ENSTA ParisTech
LBG Faro Algarve
Tiago Santos Silva
University of Algarve
LBG Gdansk
Przemyslaw Knas
Gdansk University of Technology
LBG Ghent
Mathieu Vandenberghe
Ghent University
LBG Gliwice
Piotr Drosdzol
Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice
LBG Gothenburg
Iuliia Kosulko
Chalmers University of Technology
LBG Graz
Stephan Keller
Graz University of Technology
LBG Grenoble
Olivier Rynne
Grenoble Institute of Technology
LBG Helsinki
Vili Auvinen
Aalto University
LBG Iasi
Valerica Motoc
“Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iasi
LBG Istanbul
Berkan Nuri Durmus
Istanbul Technical University
LBG Istanbul, Yildiz
Cem Cetintas
Yildiz Technical University
LBG Izmir
Vural Aslan
Ege University
LBG Kaunas
Marius Jurkus
Kaunas University of Technology
LBG Kiev
Dmytro Arbuzin
National Technical University of Ukraine “Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”
LBG Kosice
Michal Dic
Technical University of Kosice
LBG Krakow
Justyna Karasinska
AGH-UST - University of Science and Technology
LBG Leuven
Pieter Journee
KU Leuven
LBG Liege
Antoine Maisse
University of Liege
LBG Lisbon
Pedro Cardoso
Lisbon Institute of Technology
LBG Ljubljana
Gregor Cerne
University of Ljubljana
LBG Lodz
Marcin Jedynak
Lodz University of Technology
LBG Louvain-la-Neuve
Francois Clerens
Catholic University of Louvain
LBG Lund
Kristin Davidsson
Lund University, Faculty of Engineering
Faro
LBG Lviv
Ann Ustinova
Lviv Polytechnic National University
LBG Lyon
Faycal Bitous
INSA Lyon
LBG Madrid
Marcos Calle Jaen
Polytechnical University of Madrid
LBG Madrid Carlos III
Pablo Garcia
Carlos III University of Madrid
LBG Maribor
Klemen Krulec
University of Maribor
LBG Messina
Giuseppe Sgro
University of Messina
LBG Milan
Paola Paruta
Politecnico di Milano
LBG Moscow
Roman Petrenko
Bauman Moscow State Technical University
LBG Nancy
Maxime Bortolin
University of Lorraine
LBG Naples
Raffaele Orefice
University of Naples “Federico II”
LBG Nis
Tijana Zivic
University of Nis
LBG Novi Sad
Ivana Staka
University of Novi Sad
LBG Paris Ecole Centrale
Reda Dbab
Centrale Paris
LBG Paris Polytechnique
Lucas Gerard
Ecole Polytechnique
LBG Patras
Chris Christakis
University of Patras
LBG Porto
Ricardo Couto
University of Porto
LBG Prague
Petr Vala
Czech Technical University in Prague
LBG Reykjavik
Daniel Eldjarn Vilhjalmsson
University of Iceland
LBG Riga
Laura Libiete
Riga Technical University
LBG Rome
Ardita Pemaj
Sapienza University of Rome
LBG Rome Tor Vergata
Francesca Brusciotti
University of Rome “Tor Vergata”
LBG Saint Petersburg
Maxim Lyubavskiy
Saint Petersburg State Polytechnical University
LBG Skopje
Ivana Chapalova
University “Ss. Cyril and Methodius”
LBG Sofia
Nedyalko Nedyalkov
Technical University of Sofia
LBG Stockholm
Alexandra Nordin
Royal Institute of Technology
LBG Supelec
Karim Vindas
Supelec
LBG Tallinn
Cathleen Heimberg
Tallinn University of Technology
LBG Tampere
Edda Nommela
Tampere University of Technology
LBG Thessaloniki
Dimitris Karanassos
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
LBG Timisoara
Oscar Marginean
“Politehnica” University of Timisoara
LBG Trondheim
Marte Bondo Augdal
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
LBG Turin
Matteo Daniele
Politechnic of Turin
LBG Uppsala
Robert Ginlund
Uppsala University
LBG Valladolid
Alba Bajo
University of Valladolid
LBG Veszprem
Mercedesz Fodor
University of Pannonia
LBG Vienna
Andras Makai
Vienna University of Technology
LBG Vinnytsia
Vova Yatsyk
Vinnytsia National Technical University
LBG Warsaw
Damian Wrzesien
Warsaw University of Technology
LBG Wroclaw
Radek Czahajda
Wroclaw University of Technology
LBG Zagreb
Domina Mary Bogdanovic
University of Zagreb
LBG Zaporizhzhya
Valeria Sova
Zaporizhzhya National Technical University
Baby LBG Erlangen
Maximilian Friedle
Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg
Baby LBG Las Palmas
Mario Lemes Medina
Las Palmas of Gran Canaria University
Baby LBG Mostar
Nermina Baljic
University of Dzemal Bijedic Mostar
Baby LBG Podgorica
Matija Ratkovic
University of Montenegro
Baby LBG Trento
Roberta Dainese
University of Trento
Baby LBG Valencia
Alexis Osca Verdegal
Polytechnic University of Valencia
Observer Aachen
Stefan Sussmaier
RWTH Aachen University of Technology
Las Palmas
MEMBERS & STATISTICS
BEST MEMBERS
3080
2 1 20
MALE VS FEMALE 58%
2362 2011
3 294 3 1 0 2
42%
STUDY FIELDS 6% Electronic/ 5% Industrial Electrotechnical Engineering Engineering 6% Computer Engineering
COUNTRIES
5% Civil Engineering
6% Russian Federation
5% Economics/ Business Administration/ Marketing
7% Mechanical Engineering
4% Telecommunications/ Electronics
9% Computer Science/ Automatic Control/ Informatics
4% Physics/ Physics Engineering
9% Romania 9% Poland 10% France
6% Spain 6% Turkey 5% Italy 5% Portugal 4% Ukraine
Others Others
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR Growth of BEST One of the values of BEST is diversity. This is why BEST is constantly growing. New universities in our organisation ensure constant development and improvement. Every year interested groups have the chance to join BEST, by showing their motivation and introducing their university.
able to easier reach students in this country and that our services will reach an even bigger audience. Germany, as one on the most economically developed countries in Europe, was target of BEST for many years. Now, the first students from German universities will be able to benefit from all our services.
This year, BEST established a strong and sustainable new group in Germany. This means, that we will be
14 46 31 LOCAL BEST GROUPS
64
80 95
1989 1994 1999 2004 2009 2013 COUNTRIES 12 18
20
26
30 33
About BEST
13
BEST Anniversaries Project Starting from April 2013, our organisation is entering a very special year full of celebrations. In August, we will organise the 5th edition of European BEST Engineering Competition final round, in September we will celebrate 10 years of competitions and last but not least, April 2014 will mark the 25th anniversary of BEST. In order to mark all these special moments and leave something for the future generations, we started the BEST Anniversaries Project. The main aims of the project are to create awareness and understanding of the identity of BEST, motivate our members and bring all bodies and levels of the organisation close together and strengthen our relationships with partners or even establish new ones.
The first steps towards fulfilling our goals were initiating the work on three booklets (for Competitions, Courses and Career Support) that will help us better present our services and their importance. Moreover, we evaluated the past edition of the History Book and made an action plan in order to publish an updated version of it over the next year. Additional activities such as an exhibition of photographs that present the important milestones of our organisation, history quizzes and so on took place during The General Assembly and EBEC Final Round. Finally, all the promotional material will include the 25th anniversary BEST logo which was especially designed for this occasion by our members.
Public Website The World Wide Web started in the early ‘90s by being a simple set of hypertext documents accessible by browsers; now websites have a substantial impact on the institutional image of an organisation. In BEST, the website is also the main point of contact for students to interact with the services we provide. Due to these factors and the feedback from our stakeholders, the creation of a new website for BEST has been considered a strategic priority for the organisation for the period 2012-2015. For this endeavour, we have decided to stick to our culture of developing projects in-house by
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Board of European Students of Technology
harnessing the technical knowledge we possess along with our network of alumni with professional experience in the area of web design. This year, we focused on understanding the needs of the users of the website and on designing the user experience. All levels of the organisation have been involved in this design effort through multiple surveys and working sessions. Now we have a set of structures that will set the foundation for the work to be developed during the upcoming year - the graphic design and technical implementation. We plan to launch the new BEST official website in May.
Market Research BEST provides its activities and services to students of technology in Europe. Through internal evaluation, BEST services are continuously monitored on their performance and quality. In spring 2013, BEST conducted a market research to establish the perspective students of technology in Europe have of BEST activities. The main purpose of the research was to explore the experiences of students in certain fields in which BEST is active and to evaluate whether the services BEST provides in their current shape are still fit for its target group. Between 20th of February and 25th of March 2013 the Students' Survey powered by BEST was distributed actively among BEST universities and beyond. After active promotion of the survey through several kinds of media 2922 responses were gathered, with a balanced geographical spread over the whole of Europe. The sample was considered representative and taken to a higher level by assessing answers not only on a European scale and university level but also on a more regional level where differences within the European continent could be identified. Some examples of conclusions drawn from the results of the survey are: • Students see an international career opportunity as an added value to their personal and professional growth. • There is a big interest and opportunity to provide more possibilities for students to provide their
•
•
opinion on educational matters on European engineering education. Students are interested in broadening their scope, through interdisciplinary projects when it comes to complementary education as well as deepening their knowledge in their own field. There is a high interest of students towards the involvement of companies in engineering competitions, both in providing the task as well as judging the students’ performance during the evaluation phase.
The results of this research will form the basis for future development of the services of BEST and identification of specific areas of improvement. After the conduction period had been closed, the analysis of the results was started. This analysis will be used internally to derive concrete actions and improvement measures for the benefit of BEST services. A secondary result of the amount of data retrieved through the survey and the knowledge that lies within this data, is the rich content of it. Through the Students’ Survey a specific image of today’s students of technology in Europe can be derived. BEST is an organisation led and developed by students and is targeted towards students and it has used its position to get even closer to its target group through the Market Research project. This happened with only one goal in mind; to make BEST better.
About BEST
15
Knowledge Management Board of European Students of Technology has been around European students, universities and companies for 25 years. During this quarter of a century, BEST and its members have acquired and maintained the knowledge needed for the organisation to function properly. Since change is ever present, both in BEST and in the outside world, the need for knowledge and the way it is managed has also come to a change. The need for high quality Knowledge Management has been recognised inside the organisation and thus it has become one of the key areas in the BEST Long Term Strategic Plan for 2012-2015. This year, the objective was to create a Knowledge Management Strategy whose fulfilment would result in a Knowledge Management System which satisfies the needs of BEST members in this respect. Thorough research was conducted, both inside and outside of the organisation, regarding theoretical background for Knowledge Management, key knowledge vital for the organisation’s function and
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Board of European Students of Technology
weak points in the current practice. The place where it all came together was the Knowledge Management Workshop in Riga, March 2013, where BEST members with different backgrounds and experience created the future of the organisation regarding knowledge. The foundations of a system, designed to ensure a proper flow of knowledge inside BEST, were set. The concrete outcomes of the Knowledge Management Workshop are 24 different projects, defined to tackle certain aspects of the Knowledge Management System, in order to improve the current practices or create new ones. These projects are expected to be completed by the finalisation of the Long Term Strategic Plan for 2012-2015. The implementation is currently underway. Being an active organisation in Europe, BEST has changed and evolved to suit the needs of its stakeholders better. Improving its management of resources such as knowledge to bring about a stronger, healthier BEST with more to contribute to the outside world.
FINANCIAL overview Every European student organisation with a similar size and a range of activities such as BEST needs an adequate budget to ensure proper coordination and quality of its work. To fulfil our vision of empowering diversity and to provide complementary education, career support to our students and to ensure the sustainability of BEST, we need to organise many internal and external events and run several projects, all of which cost money. This money is spent on assuring the development of the organisation towards the future - enabling BEST members to travel, develop and maintain our IT tools, design our own marketing materials and host the statutory meetings where important decisions about the organisation are made.
Therefore, in order to manage the organisation and keep it sustainable, BEST is closely cooperating with industrial partners, universities and European institutions. The most significant part of the income comes from Career Support Partners, followed by the contributions from the European Commission (under a 3 year Framework agreement, part of the Youth in Action programme of the European Union) and University Partners. Considering the status of revenue and expenses, we can conclude that our organisation is in a good financial position. The status and details of the finances can be followed and checked by each member in the accounting tool available in our intranet. Moreover, since 2013, BEST has made it compulsory for its finances to be audited by an external auditing company.
REVENUES Event Partners 15%
Framework Agreement 27%
Supporters 5% University Partners 4% Project Partners 3 % Career Support Partners 44%
Administration 12%
Others 2%
EXPENSES International Management 24%
Marketing materials 3% Company trips 4 % Educational Events' Coordination 2% External Relations 2%
Unexpected Expenses 2% Internal Training 5%
International Teams 12% Competitions Coordination 2%
Internal Events Support 32%
About BEST
17
ACTIVITIES
NTERNAL
Working methods BEST exists to provide services to its stakeholders to achieve its mission as an organisation. These services are our core activities and without them the organisation would cease to exist. However, beyond this there is a powerful machine of 3 300 students collaborating, generating and sharing ideas every second of the day. Organising and using the effort of so many young and energetic people in the most efficient way is a challenging task, especially given the geographical spread of our members across the entire European continent. The working methods of BEST members have substantially developed throughout the past 25 years. In the early 90s, the requirement towards each local group to own a fax device would constitute an image of a cutting-edge technological organisation. As the future of engineering in Europe, we embrace new solutions that enable improvements in our daily work and dynamically adjust to them. In 2013, we take the great advantage of ubiquitous internet access that provides new opportunities in terms of
online collaboration, knowledge management, task management and communication. BEST members make good use of many common tools such as Skype, Gmail or Dropbox, but the most remarkable power of our online working methods lies in the intranet. Built fully from scratch and solely with self-provided resources and developed in a programming framework created by our members, BEST Private Area is unquestionably a unique system among not only student-based, but all voluntary Non-governmental organisations across the world. Despite excelling in virtual communication, BEST members do meet in person. Besides countless local events which aim at individual development of local groups, Internal Events create an opportunity for the international teams of BEST to work in an even more efficient manner. More than fifty such events per year contribute to the development of the internal support activities and eventually the quality of our services.
Internal Activities
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Training system BEST - a story of success for close to 25 years. An organisation inspired by change, yet always driven by the same unquenched element: BEST members. These are unique individuals that strive to acquire and develop useful skills in order to be effective in the organisation and later on in future endeavours. The body of BEST responsible for such development of skills is the Training Group. Being one of the six committees of BEST, Training Group’s mission is to provide adequate coordination between the needs of Local BEST Groups for training and the trainers who are able to satisfy those needs and deliver the required sessions. The structure of Trainers’ Community comprises two elements: Trainers’ Community Represented by an impressive number of more than 400 trainers, who are also BEST members. Trainers’ primary role is to deliver training. Apart from this they continuously share knowledge and materials between each other, support, give feedback and advice to each other. This knowledge management guarantees that BEST trainers never stop their professional growth and improve themselves through cooperation. Training Group members 48 members of BEST who provide the coordination
of training to BEST members in order to ensure they can contribute to the organisation in an effective way. “How do you want to make a dent in the universe? Once you can answer this bold question, you’re ready to start strategising”. Training Group’s universe revolves exclusively around BEST members, as its mission is to ensure coordination of training in BEST. The particularities of this focus may be observed in some specific aspects of Training Group's strategy for 2012-2013: 1) the main priority is to develop and assure training towards BEST members. In this respect Training Group is working on several fields: • Quality of content: Preparing, gathering the needs of the participants and creating a session that builds on learning and interactive activities. TiGro is actively pursuing the continuous improvement of the quality of its content via several projects aimed at gathering new knowledge, evaluating the content of current training sessions and developing new ones. • Quantity of sessions: Training in BEST is accessible to all Local BEST Group. Training Group has also developed specific working teams inside the committee.
MORE THAN
145
MORE THAN
4 000 HOURS DELIVERED
7
TRAINSHOPS
20
ACTIVE TRAINERS
12
EVENTS AIMED AT TRAINING THE BOARDS OF LOCAL BEST GROUPS
Board of European Students of Technology
One is monitoring the proper response to requests for training. The number of hours delivered has been continuously rising, this year alone passed the 4 000 hours milestone. Another one focuses on large scale events such as TrainShops and training events for Boards of Local BEST Groups, ensuring adequate distribution the time available and of top-notch quality. 2) the knowledge management inside the community of trainers: Training Knowledge Centre: Imagine you are a trainer going to an archive and having to look through different books, drawers, nooks and crannies to find the perfect knowledge for your session. This is where we stand now, with an online version of such a document archive. Now imagine that someone can do the sorting for you, can label it appropriately and with the touch of a button you could print only the essential bits for your session. This is where the future takes us with the Training Knowledge Centre project.
3) the education of trainers: External Relations. Training Group is striving to improve its External Relations in the field of training in order to gain new knowledge and techniques for training and opportunities and inspiration for BEST trainers to broaden their horizons and learn from trainers with different backgrounds. For several years now, meetings between trainers from different nongovernmental organisations have been hosted by BEST, in an effort to share, exchange and develop trainer practices. The year 2012-2013 was the time of implementation and the further development of BEST’s training system. Following our ever present culture of improvement, an increasing rise in the number of training hours delivered and a well-defined mission for the future development of BEST's training system, a path is laid out fuelled by the commitment of the trainers and their motivation for training.
Knowledge Management in the Trainer's Community Generations change very frequently in student organisations such as BEST. The lifetime of an active member in BEST is quite short, around two or three years. Therefore, knowledge management and knowledge transfer have an important role in order to ensure the transfer of skills and information between members. As the number of Local BEST Groups grows, our members need to acquire and develop useful skills in order to be successful and improve themselves in
the organisation. In order to ensure the development of our members, one of committees of BEST, Training Group, has the purpose to provide coordination between the needs of LBGs for training sessions and the trainers who are able to deliver them. Furthermore, Training Group is also responsible for facilitating the communication between and sharing BEST trainers who form part of Trainers’ Community. It is represented by over 400 trainers who deliver
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This year, Training Group has been working on creating a platform called Training Knowledge Center which ensures proper knowledge management and knowledge transfer between trainers. Training Knowledge Center comprises of all training session material that is delivered in BEST as well as the different available materials for the these sessions such as handouts and reports in our training database.
This centralised and user-friendly way of storing training knowledge provides an easy way of accessing knowledge for designing a training session. Furthermore, it gives a good overview of the current knowledge inside Trainers’ Community. Training Knowledge Center not only preserves the knowledge but also ensures that new content is stored and linked to the training content and report details for easier usage of the different report parts.
IT System Private Area The Private Area is the internal information system that is used by BEST. Its development dates back to the mid-nineties and it is the result of the unification of the IT platforms that supported the services of BEST. The Information Technology Committee is the body responsible for its maintenance and improvement. The aim of this committee is to provide a reliable platform that enables BEST to access the needed tools and integrated IT services that are paramount in the pursuit of its mission and vision. Another characteristic of this system is its connection to the Document Archives and Wiki. This way, all the written knowledge of the organisation is properly stored and reachable for the generations to come. Human Resources management is also an inherent part of the system. Through the use of the HR tool,
BEST bodies can easily overview and update the membership progress and skills of their members. Private Area has undergone many development and design phases culminating with its current version, which has the code name ‘Carrot’. Its usability is constantly being improved and new features and tools are systematically planned, designed, implemented and launched. One instance of such a process is the ongoing revamping of the Task Manager. With this project it is intended to allow users to more efficiently integrate their workflow into the system. The design phase was concluded after International Projects’ Forum Ghent and the development phase should start shortly. Stay tuned for further tweaks and improvements!
Virtual International Plenary In BEST, all decisions are taken democratically by all Local BEST Groups. This process is extremely important for the awareness and growth of the whole organisation. In order to establish a more flexible and accessible system and create more time for discussion, a few years ago our members developed the Virtual International Plenary. The tool was implemented in the BEST intranet, which made it possible for every member to follow discussions and form their own opinion. During the first years of its existence only very simple proposals
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were decided on the VIP. Now the tool has developed a lot and has become a very important communication channel in the organisation. Nowadays it is used to discuss all the important matters for the organisation, with the added advantage of faster clarification of any uncertainties and questions by the topic owner than would be possible through traditional virtual means. During this year the most important discussion that could be speed up because of VIP was to move the seat of BEST from Grenoble, France to Brussels, Belgium.
Internal events Despite the core of BEST activities having an external, outward focus, the management of such a huge network requires a solid internal structure. Albeit the fair share of the work is done online, in-person events are an inherent part of the working culture that enables the organisation to function properly. The Internal Events help to develop projects and members, facilitate the discussions and decisionmaking, motivate and help us be more efficient. Last year, more than 70 such events supported the international teams in achieving their goals. BEST sustains one of the most developed internal training systems among the student NGOs across the entire world. One of its cornerstones, BEST TrainShops, gather a selected group of members from local groups to participate in Internal Events during which they get trained on a specific topic related to their current or future responsibilities such as leadership, fundraising or marketing. The annual timeline of our organisation revolves around two summits defined in our Statutes and are known as General Meetings. These are the only Internal Events that gather members from all local groups of BEST and create an environment for them to discuss, make decisions and develop themselves.
In addition, before each General Meeting, a round of 11 Regional Meetings is conducted in order to prepare the delegates for the upcoming General Meeting. As BEST has no official headquarters, the International Board meets on several occasions throughout the year. The strategic decisions and plans happen in selected places where the members of the organisation can have a direct contact with their leaders, ask questions and get inspired. Local BEST Groups are most often the ones providing the services to the external world. However, many supporting activities happen on the international level. The international teams work on developing the knowledge, materials and strategies that later influence the quality of the services we offer to our stakeholders. Committees, project groups and working groups are structures with a large demand for in-person events as people involved in them are spread across the whole of Europe. Such meetings happen periodically to evaluate, plan and motivate, but also ad-hoc in order to address current needs. Since Internal Events are crucial elements of the organisational working structure, BEST supports them with its know-how as well as with financial aid.
Presidents’ Meeting Timisoara Between 15th and 21st, November 2012, the 18th edition of Presidents’ Meeting took place in Timisoara, Romania. Over 160 students from all over Europe, not only BEST members but also representatives of partner NGOs, gathered in the most multicultural city of Romania to discuss about the organisation and its development. Delegates of all Local BEST Groups, committee leaders and project coordinators, the International Board of BEST and the representatives of our partner organisations attended several training sessions, discussion groups, workshops and presentations. Most importantly, they participated in four days of plenary sessions. Presidents’ Meeting made its debut with an Official Opening Day that took place at the luxurious National
Theater of the city, where our partners (Vlerick, Visma, Waterford, Continental, FEANI and Politehnica University of Timisoara) had the chance to interact with the delegates and present their opportunities. Moreover, the participants were delighted by the speeches of our hosts and guests - Professor José Carlos Quadrado and Sara Teuwen and afterwards enjoyed the job fair. A series of training sessions and workshops concluded the day on topics such as: sustainable development, engineering education societies, strategic networking and emotional intelligence in leadership. The event continued with four days of plenary sessions during which the bodies of BEST presented new ideas on the continual development of the
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organisation and their implementation process. Likewise, the delegates had the chance to state their support and provide input on the discussed matters and to approve initiatives that were proposed inside the plenary. Thus, for gathering more input on future projects and for developing the members of the organisation, working groups and training sessions were held during those days. Presidents’ Meeting Timisoara represented an important step forward in the development of
BEST due to the numerous discussions held and decisions made, the relationships with our partners were strengthened once again and many ideas were shaped for a better BEST. For Local BEST Group Timisoara, it had a particular importance because it gave them the honour to organise such an important event in the decision making of BEST, but also because they managed to familiarise people from every corner of Europe with the Romanian culture and lifestyle.
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The XXXI General Assembly of BEST took place between 18th and 26th of April 2013, in Valladolid, Spain. During this event, delegates from Local BEST Groups, Observer Groups and different international bodies gathered together, making a total sum of 250 people participating in this important event organised by Local BEST Group Valladolid.  This has been the pinnacle of Valladolid’s existence and has made their dreams come true.
for the Official Opening Day. The day began with the opening ceremony that was followed by speeches from two companies (P&G and Veolia) and one higher educational institute (EOI), and different workshops where the students had the chance to participate. During the second part of the day, the students gathered with 5 companies and 2 institutions in the Millennium Square of Valladolid to hold an intimate job fair for a few hours.
The event began with the first edition of BEST Career Day | FiBEST International, an innovative approach from BEST towards the career support for students all around Europe. The 250 delegates of General Assembly, together with 60 top students from BEST universities and 100 local students from the University of Valladolid took part in this new concept
During the plenary days that followed, the hot topics of the organisation were approached, decisions were taken and the 2013-2014 Board was elected. Important outcomes of GA 2013 Valladolid were the approval of the moving of the seat of BEST to Brussels and acceptance of the first Local BEST Group in Germany (Erlangen) among others.
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International Projects’ Forum Ghent The international scope of work in BEST is based on projects managed by international teams or the Board. Regardless of their nature or a leader, this is how the on-going development of the organisation is arranged - clustered in small chunks, each with its own goal, human resources and usually a deadline. Most importantly - sooner or later, some project will cross paths with another one, influence it and cause a snowball effect that will push BEST forward. The variety of projects allows any member of BEST to find something for him or herself. The variety of tasks available enables BEST to grow, but also brings a very important side effect - students can develop their skills in the extra-curricular activities such as softskills management, marketing and grants writing. Due to the geographical spread, the collaboration in projects is usually done through virtual communication channels. Nevertheless, some projects require an in-person meeting of the team working on it. On top of this, once per year a very special event takes place to gather all international
BEST in one place to create a platform for them to discuss and work - the International Projects’ Forum (IPF). During the last IPF which took place in February in Ghent, Belgium, more than 70 participants, including Board members, committee members, regional advisers and project leaders met to work on high-priority issues that concerned the whole organisation. Important projects, such as Knowledge Management, Market Research, Public Website redesign, the BEST budget or intranet improvements gained important input and outcomes from more than fifty sessions that happened during the four days of IPF. IPF is more than an important milestone of the BEST year from planning and performance point of view. It is the personification of BEST’s vision and mission, where people from all corners of Europe meet to work voluntarily on developing students, share their passion and grow better tomorrow for the educational engineering world.
Alumni Network BEST has an Alumni Network aimed at maintaining connections among BEST members after they cease to be actively involved in the organisation. This network serves as a platform for professional networking for the thousands of alumni based in hundreds of cities all over the world. Moreover, the Alumni Network also provides a medium through which the former members can provide support to current members. The alumni of BEST use several online channels to keep in touch such as mailing lists and dedicated groups on social networks. Additionally, multiple events are organised throughout the year where former members meet to discuss and network.
Alumni Meetings took place in parallel with General Meetings in November 2012 in Timisoara (40 participants) and April 2013 in Valladolid (80 participants). These events provided an opportunity for alumni to interact with the active members and to exchange experiences in an informal setting. In October 2012, the Alumni Business Camp was held in Barcelona. This event focused on entrepreneurship and had 44 participants. Participants had the opportunity to learn about new methods and trends as well as get feedback about their ideas.
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ERVICE
SERVICES of best During the year 2012/2013 it was calculated that BEST, through its local groups and their universities, reached a target audience of 1,3 million European technical students. It is to all these students that the BEST services and activities are addressed. From the very beginning the main focus of the organisation is to provide students with complementary education through BEST courses and engineering competitions. Next to this, students have the opportunity to work actively on their career by using the BEST Career Support services which consist of the online tools to get directly in touch with international companies and institutions, or through career days where a face-to-face interaction is facilitated. Through the educational involvement programme, students have the opportunity to get a voice in European engineering education and directly provide their opinion on current matters. This can happen through interactive workshops and events on education as well as through participation in surveys of which BEST is responsible for analysing and disseminating the results.
The services bring together all the stakeholders and embody the mission and vision of the organisation. Throughout the years, BEST has been actively working on the development and improvement of each of its activities to bring them to their current level. Continuous internal evaluation methods are used to assure the quality and adequacy of each of the activities to allow them to reach their maximum potential. At the same time BEST is striving to innovate and fit to the behaviour of today’s students. The Students’ Survey powered by BEST is a real-case example of this, aimed at improving BEST services according to the needs and wants of students of today. During the year 2013/2014 BEST is celebrating its 25th anniversary, 10 years of engineering competitions and 5 years of the European BEST Engineering Competition - EBEC. Because of this occasion all BEST activities will be put in the spotlight; without these, there is no BEST.
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BEST Courses BEST Courses are the main service that BEST provides. They are organised on an annual basis by the Local BEST Groups all over Europe and they give the chance for young students of technology to participate and therefore develop academically and personally.
of BEST can easily register an application online, on the public BEST website and through the selection process be chosen to participate on a BEST Course. For a minimal fee, the students can enjoy a course that has a duration between 1 to 2 weeks that has both organised academic and social parts to enrich their knowledge and enhance their soft skills. After successfully participating in a course, students are even able to receive ECTS points from their university.
BEST Courses follow certain standards in the way they are organised, consequently they have a minimum quality standard. Moreover, the academic quality of the courses, which cover topics on technology and career related skills, is something that constantly improves, and both aspects are those which make BEST Courses widely recognised by students, universities, companies and partner associations across Europe.
But above all, BEST Courses are an excellent opportunity for students to meet people all over Europe and build good relationships with them, to challenge their multicultural skills in a diverse environment and to widen their mindset. That is because BEST Courses are the best example where students become acquainted with the BEST spirit.
All students that belong to a university that is part
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Student testimonials
‘‘I loved every moment of Vienna Summer Course. It has really widened my perception and it has given me lots of new stuff to reflect upon. Furthermore, on the personal level it has helped me clear up some doubt and answer some questions about my own future.” Daniel Hillerström, for the event "SecurITy Guide to the Galaxy" organised by Vienna, Austria
‘‘Being together for two weeks with such nice people, of different nationalities, with different hobbies
and from different academical environments, really changed my perception about people in general. Now, I look back and I really miss those times. It’s for the first time, when I really miss people I’ve just met. It was two awesome weeks in Poland, and LBG Krakow made it possible for me. I really want to thank organisers for these moments I’ve lived and I really hope to see them in the future. Definitely, as someone else already mentioned, a reunion would be a great idea!” Cezar-George Agrigoroaei, for the event' See like a cyborg, move like a cyborg, feel like a cyborg!" organised by Kraków, Poland
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Relation with Universities: testimonials
‘‘It
was a challenge for me to teach students from different countries simultaneously. The opportunities that are provided by BEST Courses are very useful for students. They have the possibility to experience a very valuable cultural and linguistic exchange.’’ Professor Natalia Furtuna, Technical University of Moldova, for the event “Discover the wine explore the taste!” organised by Chisinau, Moldova
‘‘I am familiar with the organisation because there’s a pretty active BEST branch in Louvain
for many years. I would like to congratulate the organisers. The organisation of the course was excellent. The attendance was perfect: all students on time, well awake, asking many questions. In the final examination the students got very good marks. That’s the point we appreciated the most, which means that the students had been paying attention and that they had been truly working. It is always nice for a teacher to realise they got their message through.’’ Professor Craeye, Catholic University of Louvain, for the event “Send your BEST vibes out!” organised by Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium
‘‘The BEST team in my faculty of Engineering is very active. BEST Courses are an opportunity for
students to learn new points of view and to do networking. I always encourage my students to participate in these kind of international activities. Therefore, I cannot reject my participation whenever students ask me for a lecture within an international environment.” Professor Javier Pajarews, University of Valladolid, for the event “Artificial Intelligence: Could a toaster pass your exams?” organised by Valladolid, Spain
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Competitions European students of technology follow their education to become the future engineers developing technologies for the future generations in Europe and beyond. They are expected to be skilful, but at the same time to be able to apply their knowledge to the actual situation that occurs. They are expected to communicate on a technological level regarding their innovative solutions. At the same time, on a lower level, they are expected to be able to present their ideas in an understandable way and convince others. They need to be able to adapt to an international environment where different stakeholders have different interests, and where they need to work together with people from other disciplines. Moreover, they need to know how to work under pressure and develop a project from idea to implementation. Engineering competitions challenge students on all these competences which are recurrent both in the future career of students and engineering environments in Europe. In BEST there are 2 types or categories of engineering competitions commonly used: Team Design and Case Study. For both categories students compete in teams of 4. The Team Design category consists of solving a given technical problem in teams within a limited time. The outcome of the competition is a device that has to perform the needed actions to solve the problem. The Case Study category consists of solving a technical or management-related real-life problem with no actual construction of any device or assembly of material, but using the information given to develop hypothetical solutions. In the end the teams give a presentation of the solutions they came up with. Engineering Competitions are an activity of BEST in its complementary education programme for 10 years already. It all started with some European students, members from BEST participating in the Canadian Engineering Competition - CEC organised by the Canadian Federation of Engineering Students - CFES in 2002. From there the idea spread like a virus all over Europe.
The European BEST Engineering Competition - EBEC is the biggest engineering competition in Europe of this kind and had its first edition in 2008/2009. The competition is built up in 3 levels; starting from the university level, towards the national/regional level to the European finals. Students compete through all the levels to be the BEST engineer of Europe. The competition tasks can differ in engineering field and focus. The possibility exists that these tasks are provided by companies, which enables the students to try out a real problem and for the company to receive some new out of the box solutions. EBEC is also remarkable for its international aspect and focus on cultural diversity by bringing students from all corners of Europe together in one place where a synergy of ideas occurs. Furthermore, a mutual understanding among the participants brings added value to this experience. Apart from EBEC related competition events, BEST also organises other competition events. In those events it is not possible for the students to advance in level by going to the next round after winning the first round. Apart from this the intrinsic concept remains the same. Students are challenged in small teams to use their technical knowledge in a different way than that taught at universities by applying it to a real case example. Soft skills such as time management, project management, teamwork, discussion, communication and presentation skills are developed by doing. It is commonly acknowledged that these kinds of learning experiences are an added value to the formal education of European technology students. All of the evaluations from students after participating in EBEC state that their soft skills were developed due to the competition experience as well as as their technical skills. Additionally, on this topic BEST wrote a paper which was presented in the conference on “Project Approaches in Engineering Education� 2013 in Eindhoven, Netherlands. The paper was awarded 3rd place in the student paper competition.
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August of 2012 in BEST was highlighted by its fourth edition of the EBEC Final event. The conclusive round in Zagreb, Croatia hosted 96 finalists from all over Europe. The EBEC project seized 80 top technical universities of Europe within 13 national/regional rounds. The main goal of the event continued its sustainable history by introducing participants into the world of new challenges, collaboration, team work and further learning and development. Over the time span of 8 days, all students had the opportunity to gain new knowledge and implement in real life scenarios the knowledge received during studies at university. The practice provided by the competition brought them closer towards the improvement of the skills and abilities demanded in the their future professional life. The participation of such a large number of finalists gave a great opportunity for cultural diversity and team collaborations, new friendships and learning about our social differences.
category covered three tasks spread over the duration of the event created by BEST, Deutsche Bahn and INA. The fourth edition of the Final was privileged to receive the highest form of support though the patronage of UNESCO. It was granted to demonstrate the organisation’s moral endorsement of this exceptional activity. The event of EBEC also obtained grants from foundations, such as IEEE and Youth in Action.
The EBEC Final event took place in Zagreb, Croatia during the 1st - 8th of August. The total number of days was divided between the working ones, therefore competition days, the official opening and closing days and a day devoted to Croatian culture learning. Competition days were scheduled as follows: the Team Design category was presented with two tasks prepared by the EBEC Topic Group (BEST) and had two day allocated. The Case Study
Every year, the project is an improved version of the previous one, thus we strive to grow bigger and become stronger, to keep on developing and discovering new opportunities we can offer to students from all over Europe. Within the EBEC pyramid, BEST offers high quality complementary education presented through the events of the project.
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The last day of the Final brought to the world new winners of the EBEC project as well as all the finalists of the event that managed to reach the top level of the pyramid through the whole range of lower level competition held throughout that year. All participants received the certificate forms that attested to their knowledge, skills and participation and this could be conveted into ECTS points at their home universities.
EBEC Project & Final Warsaw 2013 The EBEC project is celebrating its 5th anniversary in 2012-2013. Over the whole year BEST has been preparing itself for the 5th Final in August in Warsaw, Poland. This year, the competition reached a record of 83 local rounds at a university level and 15 national and regional rounds providing the competitors for the Final, thus making it the biggest edition of EBEC since its existence. The coordinating body of EBEC in BEST has been putting effort and focus on the evolution over the past years. One of the focus points was enhancing the coherency of the whole project. On one hand, internal structures have been adapted to the current size of the competition. Special attention was given to the development of topics, as well as the marketing of the competition. The website covering the full scope of the project is an example of this. On the other hand, the external recognition of the project was further developed. Similar to the 4th edition in Zagreb, again the patronage of UNESCO
was obtained, as well as from leading institutions in Poland such as the Rector of Warsaw University of Technology, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the Copernicus Science Centre, the Polish Academy of Science, the Mayor of Warsaw and the Faculty of Mathematics and Information Science. For the final event in Warsaw a diverse list of partners and cooperations was set up to make another edition of EBEC come true. For this year, several companies developed a task for the competition. This year all Case Study tasks provided were real life examples from industry brought to the competitors by Deutsche Bahn, P&G, IVECO and GSE. For the first time also Team Design had one task developed by a company: the General Electric and Aviation Institute - Engineering Design Center Poland. Media partners covered the event to ensure the visibility and prestige of the competition among a wide audience.
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BEST Career Support BEST has a great advantage of having a vast network of different universities spread across Europe. This network ensures that we have a broad range of technical students with different backgrounds in the organisation and even more external students are being reached through the promotion of our services. Since our main target group is external students who want to travel after their studies, it puts us in the unique position to connect them with the companies who are looking for students from all over Europe. The collection of all the different ways we use to bring students and companies closer is called BEST Career Support. Students who want to be a part of it can easily subscribe to it by opening an account on our website: www.BEST.eu.org. Afterwards, they fill in their CV with personal data and work information according to the European standard model. Then they can subscribe to BEST Career Support and use all its features provided to them.
engineering fields to give them access to the more than 37 000 students and graduates we have in our database. Since BEST is active all over Europe, we effectively reach all engineering disciplines which also clearly shows in our database. Another advantage of the diversity of students in our database is that it includes both BEST members and external students. The external students come in contact with BEST through the promotion of our services and the associated promotion of our partner companies, thus they are already interested in these companies. Besides, in a close relationship with our partners, BEST members have been developing their soft skills such as teamwork, communication and project management. The Career Support that BEST offers is divided in 2 main categories. The first part is represented by our online services and this is called BEST Career Centre. The other part consists of the in-person events with students through job fairs and competitions.
BEST engages in partnerships with companies in all
BEST Career Centre BEST Career Centre is the collection of all the online recruitment opportunities BEST offers. Here students can find detailed information about the partners alongside the job and internship opportunities they provide. Such information is available to anyone who visits our website, as well. Beside BEST Career Center, there are more online services that BEST can offer. In order to be up to date with all the opportunities, an account on the website and subscription to BEST Career Support is needed. This account also serves as the CV of the students as it collates information regarding their career, educational and extracurricular activities. This not only makes it easier for our partner companies to have an overview of the students in our database, but also enables us to define the appropriate target groups for our services so that
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relevant opportunities can reach only interested subscribers. The most apparent function of BEST Career Service is through our Career Newsletters. These are targeted e-mails that we send out to our 35 000 subscribers and they include career opportunities of a partner. Since these e-mails are targeted, our subscribers receive the newsletter only if they have the necessary qualifications such as language proficiency or educational background. All of the aforementioned online services aforementioned form the BEST Career Centre, and through these BEST is able to offer valuable opportunities to students and recent graduates to start their career in their home country or all over Europe.
BEST Career Day Through Career Support, BEST offers a variety of ways for students to come in contact with companies. These meetings can either be online or in person. The best place to hold the live encounter has always been one of our General Meetings organised in November and April. During these events the leaders of all the local groups and the top of the international departments meet to discuss, decide upon and vote for the future of BEST. As the brightest minds of BEST are gathered in these General Meetings, they are excellent places to bring a large group of more than 250 people in contact with our partners during the Official Opening Day.
This year, however, for the first time, we decided to open up the job fair to external students from all over Europe. Fresh graduates or soon-to-be graduated students from all the universities where BEST is present could apply to attend the BEST Career Day where get the same chances as the BEST participants. Afterwards, we made a pre-selection and the list with the most promising students was transferred to the event partners who could then select the candidates. Through the BEST Career Day, we are able to expand our career service to 100 extra students and bring companies a stronger and more diverse crowd to meet and recruit.
STATISTICS OF BEST CAREER DAY PARTICIPANTS LANGUAGES SPOKEN Spanish
French
English 18%
33%
100%
22% 25%
German
Italian
TOP 5 STUDY FIELD
Mechanical Engineering 24% IT/Computer Engineering 20% Civil Engineering 14 % Chemical Engineering 12% Telecommunications/Electronics 10%
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Educational involvement BEST Educational Involvement is a service that BEST offers to technical students all over Europe. It creates a platform in order to raise awareness of students on educational matters and to provide impartial input of students to the stakeholders of European Engineering Education (EEE). The demand for this service comes from the lack of unbiased student input in the field of engineering education and its rapid development in previous years. How does BEST Educational Involvement work in reality EEE is comprised of many specific academical topics such as curricula development, e-learning, active learning, recognition and accreditation, lifelong learning, student mobility, research in EEE, women in EEE, etc? Information related to educational issues is conveyed to students and their input is provided to the EEE institutions, networks and projects, such
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as the European Commission and European Society for Engineering Education, who work on these issues concurrently. Student input is gathered during Events on Education and via surveys in BEST. The Educational Committee of BEST (EduCo) is currently offering more possibilities on Events on Education, starting with the traditional Symposia and BACo Forums (BEST Academics and Companies Forums). Furthermore, EduCo is involved in educational matters for the sake of delivering this input to the various stakeholders. This involvement includes participation and work with European Thematic Networks and Projects, as well as cooperation with associations involved in EEE. Additionally, the involvement also includes representing BEST in conferences and seminars related to Engineering Education.
Event on Education Vienna 2012 The Local BEST Group Vienna and BEST Educational Committee organised the Event on Education: “Education for Sustainable Development: Fostering the Revolution of Society” in cooperation with the Austrian Commission for UNESCO, SEFI (European Society for Engineering Education), the Technical University of Vienna and OeJAB. It was held at the Technical University of Vienna from 16th to 22nd of September. The BEST Educational Committee strives to raise students’ awareness on educational matters by involving them in different discussions on education. During Events on Education, students have the opportunity to express their opinion on a certain educational topic and discuss it together with professors, experts and company representatives. As one of the ways to make our future more sustainable is to make the current education system more sustainable, the main focus of the Event on Education was “Education for Sustainable Development”. In order to discuss educational matters concerning
this hot topic, around 50 students from different nations, professors and organisations came together in Vienna. Different sustainable development - related disciplines were taken into account: biodiversity, climate change and energy, sustainable urbanisation, sustainable lifestyles, cultural diversity, poverty reduction, water and disaster risk reduction. Various topics on education were discussed within the aforementioned fields, e.g. improvement of current curricula, interdisciplinary and intercultural approach, values of cooperation with companies, teaching methods in sustainable development etc. Participants also visited the Biofuel Factory Gussing and the UNESCO Biosphere Park Neusidler See. The outcomes have been presented at the SEFI Annual Conference 2012 in Thessaloniki, Greece and at the 10th Global Conference on Sustainable Manufacturing in Istanbul, Turkey. In both cases, they were very much appreciated by the audience. Furthermore, the report will be sent to certain UNESCO Commissions and European universities.
‘‘Board of European Students of Technology: Enthusiastic students, taking action to improve education and thriving for a more liveable world for future generations. The BEST Event on Education “Education for Sustainable Development: Fostering the Revolution of Society” was a marvellous initiative to encourage young people to deal with Education for Sustainable Development in their own university environment. The views, ideas and suggestions articulated in various discussions led to a set of ambitious recommendations giving responsibilities to students, universities and policy makers alike. It was impressive to see the professionalism of the organisation team and the creativity of the participants which made the cooperation with BEST Vienna a joyful and memorable experience for everybody involved. I am sure that young people throughout Europe could be encouraged to get involved in shaping education." Mag. Gabriele Eschig, Secretary General UNESCO
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XTERNAL ELATIONS
EXTERNAL RELATIONS The outreach of the activities of BEST has always been a priority concern of the organisation since its foundation. We cooperate with several organisations in order to further increase our visibility, strengthen the impact of our activities and develop our members. BEST cooperates with multiple organisations with different aims, shapes and sizes. BEST works closely with SEFI (sefi.be), IFEES (ifees.net), FEANI (feani.org) and Thematic Networks in matters related to the engineering education and profession. BEST also cooperates with student organisations of similar aims and values such as AEGEE (aegee.org), bonding (bonding. de), CFES (cfes.ca), ELSA (elsa.org) and ESTIEM (estiem.org). BEST is a member organisation of the European Youth Forum (youthforum.org) and the Informal Forum of Student Organisations (ifiso.org). The European BEST Engineering Competition has received support from UNESCO (unesco.org), UNEP (unep.org) and the IEEE Foundation (ieee.org).
Youth in Action The Youth in Action Programme is a specific programme for young people, supporting active citizenship and fostering integration in society. The activities of BEST as a non-profit organisation in the field of youth have been recognised by the European Commission who runs the Youth in Action Programme as contributing to the young people’s active participation and encouraging mutual understanding and cross-cultural cooperation. Therefore, in February 2011, BEST was given the chance for a three-year cooperation with the European Commission body - Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA), under the YiA programme. BEST has put its focus on several key areas to develop in the time span 2011-2013. Every autumn, our detailed action plans and budgets for each of the 3 years are submitted for evaluation to the EACEA.
The financial support from the Commission covers predefined operating expenses of BEST - mostly travel costs of the management, organisational cost of our General Meetings and marketing expenses. In the final year of the partnership BEST received a grant of 50 000 Euro (the maximum amount possible). BEST recognises the Framework Agreement as a very important factor, which fosters our development. Striving for increasing our impact among the technology students in Europe, we believe that this partnership contributes to BEST not only with internal assistance, but also through the positive image it sends in our external relations.
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FEANI BEST and FEANI, the federation of professional engineers, have been in contact since 2006. This cooperation emerged from the need to increase the synergies between present and future engineers. Some landmarks of this 7-year-long cooperation have been joint workshops on topics concerning the mobility of engineering, the dissemination of the work of the engineering card and the exchange of representatives at both organisations’ events. During the present year, this partnership was further strengthened with the transfer of BEST’s headquarters from Grenoble to Brussels under the roof of FEANI. FEANI is a federation of professional engineers that
unites national engineering associations from 32 European countries. Thus, FEANI represents the interests of over 3,5 million professional engineers in Europe. Through its activities and services FEANI aims at facilitating the mutual recognition of engineering qualifications in Europe and strengthening the position, role and responsibility of engineers in society. FEANI is a founding member of the World Federation of Engineering Organisations (WFEO) and collaborates with many other organisations dealing with engineering and technology issues, as well as engineering education. FEANI is officially recognised by the European Commission as representing the engineering profession in Europe. FEANI also has consultative status with UNESCO, UNIDO and the Council of Europe.
BEST in 40th SEFI Annual Conference “Engineering Education 2020: Meet the Future” Strengthening a relationship of over 15 years and establishing a tradition after the first World Engineering Education Flash Week in Lisbon (2011), BEST collaborated with SEFI (European Society for Engineering Education) in the organisation of the 40th SEFI Annual Conference “Engineering Education 2020: Meet the Future”, having the valued responsibility of students’ participation. During the conference that took place between 23rd-26th of September in Thessaloniki, over 250 professors and 100 students from Europe and beyond, were gathered in order to discuss hot topics on Engineering Education. The programme of the conference consisted of various sessions, presentations and discussion groups that students and professors could attend according to their preference and area of interest. The challenges of 2020, Engineering Education Research, Ethics in Engineering Education and Cooperation with Students are only a few examples of the topics discussed during the conference.
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BEST was responsible for organising the students’ participation in the conference and specifically for promoting the event to European students, organising conference activities focused on students, covering accommodation and other practical needs, as well as organising a social programme. The Educational Committee of BEST, in its continual effort to increase technology students’ awareness of educational matters and support their development, organised discussion groups and training sessions during which students had the opportunity to share their opinion, discuss their future and develop their soft skills. The topics of the Discussion Groups were “The impact of volunteer work on students’ development” and “Students’ involvement in the forming of engineering education”, while the training sessions were about leadership and feedback.
At the same time, during the 40th SEFI Annual Conference, representatives of BEST had the honour to present two scientific papers for “Virtual Internships” and “Student Understanding of Filters in Analog Electronics Lab Courses”, as well as to present the outcomes of the BEST Event on Education “Education for Sustainable Development: Fostering the Revolution of Society”, which took place in Vienna in the same month. BEST strives to improve
the future of EEE, by giving students more and more opportunities to inform themselves on educational matters, share their opinion, establish new networks, and most importantly, become a part of the evolution of Engineering Education. For all these reasons and more, BEST is going to collaborate with SEFI again for its next Annual Conference: “Engineering Education Fast Forward 1973 - 2013”, which will take place in September 2013 in Leuven.
Partner NGOs BEST has developed strong bonds with several other major stakeholders among student organisations. Similar to BEST, they all strive for the continual improvement of their quality and reputation, which leads to an emphasis on the development of their activities and working methods. Through established partnerships, BEST fosters communication and exchange of best practices, which enables us to complement organisational knowledge and consequently provide more and better opportunities for our students. BEST and 5 official partners: AEGEE (European Students’ Forum), bonding, CFES (Canadian Federation of Engineering Students), ELSA (European Law Students’ Association) and ESTIEM (European Students of Industrial Engineering and Management) have exchanged over 80 participants through various events during the last year. AEGEE (Association des Etats Generaux des Etudiants de l’Europe / European Students’ Forum) is a student organisation that promotes cooperation, communication and integration amongst young people in Europe. AEGEE is open to students and young people from all faculties and disciplines. Today it counts 13 000 members active in more than 200 university cities in 40 European countries, making it the biggest interdisciplinary student association in Europe. AEGEE has been a partner of BEST since 2010.
‘bonding’ is a student association that bridges the gap between students and employers. To reach this goal, they offer German students a broad range of projects like one-day case studies, excursions, lectures, as well as insight into companies for their future work. bonding has over 350 members and local groups in eleven university cities and is the market leader for job fairs in Germany. bonding has been a partner of BEST since 1997. The Canadian Federation of Engineering Students (CFES), is a national bilingual organisation that represents approximately 60 000 engineering students across Canada. Offering services ranging from leadership development conferences to technical skill competitions, complemented by a national student magazine and other outreach efforts, CFES aims at providing opportunities for an all-encompassing education, for engineering students in Canada to become unparalleled professionals in their field. CFES has been a partner of BEST since 2000. The European Law Students Association (ELSA) is the world’s largest independent law students association. ELSA offers law students a perfect platform to develop their existing skills, acquire new skills and meet fellow students and legal professionals throughout Europe. It comprises a membership of around 35000 students and recent graduates who are interested in law and have demonstrated commitment to international
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ESTIEM is the organisation for European Students of Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM) which combine technological understanding with management skills. Founded in 1990, ESTIEM was established in order to connect IEM students all over Europe and provide them with a unique platform. Their goal is to establish and foster relations between
students across Europe and to support them in their personal and professional development. Their network consists of 68 Local Groups in 26 countries, reaching up to 50 000 students. ESTIEM has been a partner of BEST since 2011. Seeking additional opportunities, BEST is also a member of IFISO (Informal Forum of International Student Organisations). IFISO gathers 21 international student organisations and creates a vibrant platform, enabling organisations to collaborate and strengthen their capacities.
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issues. ELSA operates primarily through its Local Groups, which are located at nearly 300 universities throughout 41 countries in Europe. ELSA has been a partner of BEST since 2011.
European Youth Forum BEST has had a strategic priority of becoming a member of the European Youth Forum (YFJ) for over 3 years. The application process for becoming an observer member lasted for one year and it was successfully concluded in April 2013. Through membership in this platform, we hope to open a new channel for sharing of best practices and to get involved in youth-related matters such as non-formal education, youth employment and mobility. YFJ is an international organisation established
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by national youth councils and international nongovernmental youth organisations in Europe. It strives to be the voice of young people in Europe, where young people are equal citizens and are encouraged and supported to achieve their fullest potential as global citizens. YFJ provides a support platform for its 99 member organisations and helps them develop and become more recognised. YFJ works closely with the Council of Europe, European Union and United Nations.
Round tableS Round tables are events organised by BEST that gather around 10 partners and potential partners related to engineering. The participants can be representatives of companies, technical universities or institutions. The event is not limited to partners of BEST but also other interested bodies can participate to get to know BEST and see how we can support each other. During the Round Tables we strive to bring the participants in contact with each other and present the hot topics of BEST to them. This is done through various presentations ranging from broad introductions to BEST to in-depth explanations of the services we offer and the current hot topics that we are working on.
Another important goal of the Round Tables is to gather input on how we can improve our services. By asking our partners what they are missing in our services or how they see possible ‘milestones’, we have been able to further develop them and provide a better value for partners and students. This year we organised three different Round Tables. The first one was in September in Ghent, the second was in Timisoara before the Presidents’ Meeting and the last one was in April in Valladolid right before the General Meeting.
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BEST and EUGENE Academic Network: successful cooperation “European Engineering Education facing and challenging the global competition in Higher Education” : this is the true meaning of the activity and the results of the EUGENE academic network. Looking at some of the key achievements to highlight, one can certainly mention the work done on the definition of a European common set of ‘excellence standards’ for PhD studies, as a tool to improve the effectiveness, competitiveness and innovation in engineering and technology (Line A). “Unifying Europe” in the emerging sector of Engineering Education Research (EER) has been the first main concern for the activity of Line B. The first European summit on EER marked the beginning of a new scenario, which should make the European stakeholders and research policy make aware of EER as a ‘very strategic’ research field to be fully supported and suitably financed like all other research fields in engineering and technology. The European Accreditation label for the engineering programme and all its issues dealing with the consolidation of the quality assurance practice in engineering education in Europe have been dealt with by Line C, whose ultimate goal has been ensuring mobility and recognition of degrees of students and graduates as the entry route to the profession of engineer in Europe. Besides the formidable progress within the boundaries of Europe, Line C has facilitated
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the spread of the label (explicitly recognised as an example of good practice by the EC). Line D made advancements in developing concepts and tools for improving universities’ own innovativeness. The work has been successful along different directions: learning how to increase attractiveness from good practices, setting and defining employability attributes for compiling a draft repertory of them to be used by all partner universities in EUGENE, promoting Engineering Education in the EU outside of European Higher Education Area (EHEA). All above said, we must not forget the contribution received from BEST, a historical partner of Network in the field of Engineering Education which has grown enormously in the last decade. In particular, as far as the EUGENE project is concerned, BEST has been in charge of one of its main activities - increasing attractiveness of EHEA. Besides that, the contribution of students has always been considered highly valuable by all the partners of the Network. In fact, the whole partnership recognised that the support provided by BEST, permanently represented also in Management Committee of the project, has been a key success factor of the Network.
Provip PROVIP, Promoting virtual mobility in Placements, is a European project. Over 10 partners from 6 different European countries are participating in it and all is coordinated by a team from KU Leuven, Belgium. This project runs for 2 years, from October 2012 till November 2014. It is a follow-up to an earlier project called EU-VIP, Enterprise-University Virtual placements, which ended in September 2011. EU-VIP was focusing on virtual mobility in order to enhance the quality of international work placements. The goal was the development of a framework which would allow the three stakeholders, students, companies and universities, to conduct a fruitful virtual or at least virtually supported internship. The results are guidelines and training material for the stakeholders. Their development was based on pilot projects organised by business partners as well as students’ input provided by BEST and gathered via two symposia that were organised in cooperation with EU-VIP. Since PROVIP is a follow-up project, the topic it deals with is the same, namely virtual mobility. This time, the main goal is dissemination of the outcomes of EUVIP. The main target group are companies, because it is believed that amongst them, the impact was
lowest. Within the two years of the EU-VIP, several pilot projects and training events will be organised to raise awareness amongst companies. Moreover, an Internet platform will be developed. As one of the main partners, BEST is expected to fulfil several requirements of this project. Although we are not responsible for any work packages, we are contributing to all of them. Our main contribution is via organising two Events on Education. One of them is ‘Bringing education and entrepreneurship under students' scope and it will be organised in July in Timisoara, Romania. Through this event, students’ opinions on virtual mobility will be gathered as well as the first version of the Internet platform will be evaluated. From this cooperation, BEST will gain insight into future work practices. Moreover, we well be able to develop the project and make sure that students’ needs are satisfied. We will gain knowledge on one of the current hot topics and will be able to present outcomes of our events not only to PROVIP but also the other engineering associations. We are hoping for fruitful collaboration and partnership that will be beneficial for all.
‘‘For the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, BEST has been a highly appreciated partner in European Commission funded projects for many years. Currently BEST is partner in the project PROVIP (Promoting Virtual Placements) led by KU Leuven. The PROVIP project is aimed at disseminating the results of the earlier EU-VIP project (Enterprise-University Virtual Placements), in which BEST also participated, to business and companies. EU-VIP looked into the integration of virtual mobility in international internships. PROVIP wants to create structural international cooperation regarding virtually supported international work placements between higher education institutions and the business world. Concretely this will be realised by developing a collaboration platform. BEST is taken aboard to represent the students’ perspective and to offer its valuable expertise in establishing a sustainable collaboration with companies. In the course of the project two BEST symposia will be organised to gather students’ input and to test out preliminary project results. Based on our earlier experiences, we are sure to receive very useful input from the BEST students to help make this project the next successful collaboration.” Mariet Vriens - Staff member at Academic Development in Teaching and Learning Department, KU Leuven
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Public relations of BEST For the process of maintaining closer relationships with our stakeholders, as well as creating a strong and coherent external image of our organisation, we use two main channels - media and social media. The project inside of BEST that takes care of this is the Public Relations (PR) Project which cooperates with other BEST bodies and Local BEST Groups. The PR Project constantly aims at making our appearances in the media bigger. Thanks to the cooperations with international media such as EU Reporter, Eurodesk, YoungPetro and others, the PR Project managed to increase the coverage over our largest events: Presidents’ Meeting, General Assembly and EBEC Final. We were proud to publish stories and interviews about BEST Career Days and General Assembly Valladoid in international media channels. The project also constantly tries to get more long-term media partnerships. With developing and maintaining sustainable and coherent promotion via social media channels, such as the official Facebook
pages, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, we are reaching more and more people. Currently almost 15 000 people are interested in our activities and are following the official BEST Facebook pages, which is proven by the 8 000 likes on the main BEST official Facebook page. These are supported by the BEST Blog, where people share their BEST experiences, BEST YouTube channel for promotional videos and Flickr account with BEST events photos. Our work is followed mostly by students, who are the main target of our events and activities, but also by companies, authorities, universities and other organisations. In the future we want to disseminate the educational involvement of BEST more, in every channel we have, as this is a very promising and developing part of our organisation. Thanks to the work done this year and the years before, also with the support of other BEST bodies, our media exposure and social media impact is increasing.
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