BOARD OF EUROPEAN STUDENTS OF TECHNOLOGY
2015/2016
ANNUAL REPORT
ANNUAL REPORT 2015 - 2016 Rond Point Schuman 6 1040 Brussels Belgium BEST.eu.org info@BEST.eu.org facebook.com/BESTorg flickr.com/photos/BESTorg twitter.com/BESTorg linkedin.com/company/best
Luís Alves Graphic Designer
Editors Amato Van Geyt Constança Júnior Dimitrios Karanassos Dominik Ivancan Dragana Manasova Egle Brovkaite Emre Niyazi Yazilikaya Evdoxia Pertsinidou Francisco Gordillo Galina Androsova João Ramos Clemente
Liliana Duarte Maria R. Zurita Mariana Silva Marta Filipa Cortesão Mateusz Treder Nagia Hanti Natasa Stavrevska Nuno Aniceto Orfeas Antoniou Oscar Marginean Patrycja Szymańska
Photos flickr.com/photos/BESTorg unsplash.com
Pawel Szulc Pedro Aniceto Pinelopi Marini Radek Czahajda Simon Van Eyndhoven Tiago Monteiro Tom Eelbode Ugur Saymaz Violeta Gomez Vitka Gres
WELCOME WORD FROM THE BOARD Dear reader, On behalf of all the members of the Board of European Students of Technology, we would like to start by wishing you a warm welcome to the Annual Report of BEST 2015-2016. In the pages of this report, you will find articles that represent a year’s work of thousands of members of our organisation. From Lisbon to Ekaterinburg, from Ankara to Reykjavik and everywhere in between, young and motivated volunteers made a commitment to turn Europe into a better place for their fellow students of technology. Our vision of empowered diversity and our mission of developing students are the guiding principles of everything we do – and we could not be more proud to let the world know about it. As an organisation of young people, BEST has already reached its maturity. Our history now spans over 27 years. Having started with only 13 local Groups, at the first General Assembly in Technical University of Berlin in 1989 (a few months before the Berlin wall came down), we are now present at 95 universities throughout Europe. From the beginning, our members were inspired by the idea of bringing students together and promoting Europe among Europeans. Since then, Europe has grown closer together and BEST has done its part, and today our activities reach several thousands of students all over the continent. The past year was the first page of a new chapter for BEST. This was the first year of the Strategic Plan 20152018, as well as the year that saw the implementation of a major internal structure change in the organisation. As part of this strategic shift, many new projects were started in areas that we deemed crucial for our future. By working in fields such as financial management, the satisfaction of our stakeholders or organisational resources, we ensured the constant improvement of BEST – the only possible way to stay
relevant and provide the best services possible to the students within our target group. From the beginning, BEST has always been an organisation with a focus on all students of technology, rather than just its members. Having this in mind, it is no surprise to see that the vast majority of all the activities we organise are aimed at the outside world. Despite this focus, it is always remarkable to see the development of our own members. Year after year, by working hard to achieve all of the ambitious goals of BEST, our members develop friendships and share experiences that last a lifetime. Many BESTies take advantage of opportunities to develop themselves in ways that would be impossible elsewhere, discover new passions and evolve into more wholesome people, ready to take on the world when the time comes. They all have our most sincere appreciation, and we hope they all had as much fun as we have had during this journey. Looking back at all of the achievements of the year, it is nothing short of amazing to see what a group of diverse, motivated and strong-willed young students can achieve when they work together under a common mission. We would not be finished without thanking all of the partners, supporters and sponsors who made all of our achievements possible. We wish you a pleasant journey through the pages this Annual Report. Whether you are a member of BEST, a partner of BEST or just hearing about us for the first time – we invite you to join us in our never-ending pursuit of empowered diversity throughout Europe. Yours truly, The XXVIII International Board of BEST: João Clemente, Emre Yazilikaya, Pawel Szulc, Mariana Silva, Orfeas Antoniou, Francisco Gordillo, Vitka Gres
WELCOME WORD FROM THE BOARD
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TABLE OF CONTENTS P3
Welcome word from the Board
P6
About BEST
P16
Highlights of the Year
8. What is BEST? 9. Structure of BEST 10. Presidents and Universities 12. Members and statistics 13. Profile of BEST Members 14. Growth of BEST 15. International Management of BEST
18. Structure transition 19. Services strategy 19. Growth strategy 20. BEST Career Day 21. BEST Public Website 22. Memorandum of understanding with SEFI 23. BEST Educational Platform
26. Complementary Education 27. Courses 28. Quality assurance in courses 29. Competitions 30. Quality assurance in competitions 31. EBEC Final 2015 32. Career Support 33. BEST Career Center 34. Educational Involvement 35. Events on Education 36. Local Educational Involvement 37. Education Research and Publications 40. Virtual International Plenary 40. Private Area 41. Makumba & Makumba congress 42. Training systems 42. Trainers’ Forum 2015 43. Financial overview 44. Internal Events 44. Presidents’ Meeting Flanders 2015 45. General Assembly Tallinn 2016 45. International Projects’ Forum 48. Erasmus+ 49. FEANI 49. SEFI 50. Partner NGOs 51. European Youth Forum 51. WEEF 2015 52. Round Table 53. Public Relations of BEST 54. Corporate Partners Articles 55. Relationship with Alumni
P24
Services
P38
Internal Activities
P46
External Relations
P56
Partners of BEST
ABOUT BEST
8. What is BEST? 9. Structure of BEST 10. Presidents and Universities 12. Members and statistics 13. Profile of BEST Members 14. Growth of BEST 15. International Management of BEST
WHAT IS BEST? The story of BEST dates back to April 1989 when the idea of an international, non-political student organisation was turned from concept to reality. For 26 years we have been connecting Europe, growing to 95 Local BEST groups in 33 countries nowadays. But we are far more than a sum of numbers. We are well organised, powerful and innovative student network, providing unique communication, cooperation and exchange possibilities that impact students, partners and universities across the continent. Following the vision of “Empowered diversity”, we provide complementary education through BEST Courses and Competitions, bringing added value to formal education and creating a unique opportunity to learn through experience. That’s how the mission of our organisation: “Developing students”, reaches its full meaning, giving students the possibility to study, gain practical knowledge and self-improvement in a multicultural environment. Through international involvement, students lower their cultural barriers, learning to respect and understand different ways of thinking. BEST also aims to deepen the connection between students, companies and universities, considering them all to be of great importance for developing high-quality, prosperous future employees of the society. All of this is achieved through our services, as well as through BEST Career Support, where we
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provide students with job opportunities and open the door to their career. Providing BEST services to over 1.000.000 students from all around Europe wouldn’t be possible without highly motivated and devoted BEST members. For us, the members, all of Europe is home, and we are a huge family. Our actions are inspired by our values. We strive for improvement and flexibility, we cherish friendship, we are passionate about learning, but we also never forget to enjoy all of our experiences and have fun. All of our work is done for students and by students. Through the engagement of our members, we provide services which aim to broaden the horizons of European students of technology. Our actions are inspired by our values. Through flexibility, we are open to quickly respond to changes. We always aim for improvement by continuously raising the standards in everything we do. We value friendship through building good personal relations and supporting teamwork. We strive to make our activities enjoyable and to help students become more internationally minded by having a chance to share and develop ideas. That, however, is not where we stop, since we believe in continuous improvement and growth. And we will for the years to come.
BEST ANNUAL REPORT 15/16
STRUCTURE OF BEST Reaching out to 1.300.000 technical students from 33 countries, BEST has grown into a vast European organisation. There are 95 Local BEST Groups from all over Europe, forming the basis of the organisation. Each group has a presence at a technical university and has its own local board, practices, traditions and culture. The connection between all groups is achieved through the common values of BEST, which we all endorse as our own. What makes BEST a strong and ever-growing organisation in providing services for European students of technology is this heterogeneous but coherent mixture. Built on the basis of the local groups, several international bodies aim to provide support to these groups. Spread over very diverse teams, approximately 15% of our active members work in a variety of areas: from marketing to IT, from educational involvement to career support, from training to competitions. 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 Education, Finance, External Events, Internal Training, IT and Marketing. Each of these is led by a coordinator who ensures the coherence of the activities with the other bodies of BEST. Another indispensable aspect of the international work in the organisation are BEST projects. Various projects take place every year and involve members of different committees as well as local group members who are not otherwise internationally involved. The need to move towards a structure with a bigger focus
on projects than committees was highlighted among the outcomes of the Structure Evaluation project which took place last year, and as a result, during this year the transition to a new structure was made. At the top level, BEST has an International Board that represents the organisation, coordinates the different bodies of BEST, ensures good communication between them and facilitates the global development of programmes and activities.
International Board VP Services
VP LGS
Regional Advisers
Secretary
President
Treasurer
VP HR
VP Projects
Local BEST Groups
Projects
Vivaldi
Grants
PR
Design
IT
Competitions
Educational Corporate Involvement Relations
Training
Membership
Departments
ABOUT BEST
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PRESIDENTS AND UNIVERSITIES Aachen
Udit Agrawal
RWTH Aachen University of Technology
Aalborg
Julie Simone Nielsen
Aalborg University
Almada
Ines Cruz
New University of Lisbon
Ankara
Kaan Yenipazar
Middle East Technical University
Athens
Panagiota Stefanou
National Technical University of Athens
Aveiro
Orlando Pinheiro
University of Aveiro
Barcelona
Irene Menendez Valle
Technical University of Catalonia
Belgrade
Stefan Zrnovic
University of Belgrade
Brasov
Andrada Ghergel
"Transilvania" University of Brasov
Bratislava
Pavol Csiba
Slovak University of Technology
Brno
Libuse Mokrusova
Brno University of Technology
Brussels
Peter Verheirstraeten
Free University of Brussels (VUB)
Brussels ULB
Francois Kalu Adam
University of Brussels (ULB)
Bucharest
Marius Bordeianu
POLITEHNICA University of Bucharest
Budapest
Tibor Fekete
Budapest University of Technology and Economics
Chania
Stelios Zouridakis
Technical University of Crete (T.U.C.)
Chisinau
Mihai Vlas
Technical University of Moldova
Cluj-Napoca
Oana-Diana Chende
Technical University of Cluj-Napoca
Coimbra
Carlos Inacio
University of Coimbra
Copenhagen
Ida Neel Saelland
Technical University of Denmark
Delft
Christopher McGirr
Delft University of Technology
Ekaterinburg
Arthur Haneev
Urals State University of Railway Transport
Ekaterinburg UrFU
Konstantin Rybalko
Ural Federal University
ENSAM
Robin Fournet
Arts et MĂŠtiers ParisTech
ENSTA ParisTech
Ines De Perthuis
ENSTA ParisTech
Erlangen
Robert Jerye
Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg
Gdansk
Mateusz Maniak
Gdansk University of Technology
Ghent
Simon Neuville
Ghent University
Gliwice
Patrycja Wala
Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice
Gothenburg
Florian Minges
Chalmers University of Technology
Graz
Domenik Melcher
Graz University of Technology
Grenoble
Kelyan Morfouesse
Grenoble Institute of Technology
Helsinki
Niklas Ilkka
Aalto University
Iasi
Madalina Lacatis
"Gheorghe Asachi" Technical University of Iasi
Isparta
Ugur Izgi
Suleyman Demirel University
Istanbul
Baris Erdogdu
Istanbul Technical University
Istanbul Bogazici
Bengisu Sozer
Bogazici University
Istanbul Yildiz
Esra Cavak
Yildiz Technical University
Izmir
Alperen Akbas
Ege University
Kaunas
Evaldas Kazlauskis
Kaunas University of Technology
Kiev
Karina Azarian
National Technical University of Ukraine "Kyiv Polytechnic Institute"
Kosice
Eduard Horkavy
Technical University of Kosice
KrakĂłw
Marcin Kotlarz
AGH-UST - University of Science and Technology
Las Palmas
Patricia Gonzalez Gomez
Las Palmas of Gran Canaria University
Leuven
Elien Vissers-Similon
KU Leuven
Liege
Dimitri Gromidas
University of Liege
Lisbon
Guilherme Farinha
University of Lisbon
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BEST ANNUAL REPORT 15/16
Ljubljana
Matic Novak
University of Ljubljana
Lodz
Michal Mrowka
Lodz University of Technology
Louvain-la-Neuve
Dani Manjah
Catholic University of Louvain
Lund
Henrik Normann
Lund University, Faculty of Engineering
Lviv
Zina Mazurkevych
Lviv Polytechnic National University
Lyon
Pierre-Alexis Ardon
INSA Lyon
Madrid
Alejandro Garcia Garcia
Technical University of Madrid
Madrid Carlos III
Elias Solana
Carlos III University of Madrid
Maribor
Hanija Bujas
University of Maribor
Messina
Marina Galletta
University of Messina
Milan
Matteo Soldo
Politecnico di Milano
Moscow
Oxana Shipilova
Bauman Moscow State Technical University
Mostar
Asim Hajdarevic
University "Dzemal Bijedic" of Mostar
Nancy
Antoine Collet
University of Lorraine
Naples
Alessandro Sgueglia
University of Naples "Federico II"
Nis
Nikola Mitrovic
University of Nis
Novi Sad
Jelena Bjelica
University of Novi Sad
Paris Ecole Centrale
Lucas Meinzel
Centrale Paris
Paris Polytechnique
Jean Tarbouriech
Ecole Polytechnique
Patras
Natalie Mantikou
Panepistimio Patron
Podgorica
Uros Kekovic
Univerzitet Crne Gore
Porto
Miguel Vieira de Carvalho
Universidade do Porto
Prague
Adam Kucera
Ceske vysoke uceni technicke v Praze
Reykjavik
Alma Stefansdottir
Háskóli Íslands
Riga
Madara Kosolapova
Rigas Tehniska Universitate
Rome
Monica Cervellera
Sapienza Universitá di Roma
Rome Tor Vergata
Andrea Caruso
Università degli Studi di Roma "Tor Vergata"
Saint Petersburg
Ksenia Smirnova
Sankt-Peterburgskij Gosudarstvennyj Politekhnicheskij Universitet
Skopje
Borce Dzikovski
Univerzitet "Sveti Kiril i Metodij"
Sofia
Ivaylo Ivanov, Hristov
Tehnicheski Universitet Sofia
Stockholm
Theo Bour
Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan
Supélec
Florian Do Amaral
Ecole Supérieure d'Electricité
Tallinn
Karl-Ivar Pajula
Tallinna Tehnikaülikool
Tampere
Joel Vanhalakka
Tampereen Teknillinen Yliopisto
Thessaloniki
Panagiotis Lois
Aristotelio Panepistimio Thessalonikis
Timisoara
Corina Ungur
Universitatea "Politehnica" din Timisoara
Trondheim
Sigrid Dalheim
Norges Teknisk-Naturvitenskapelige Universitet
Turin
Federico Fallace
Politecnico di Torino
Uppsala
Kristina Abrahamsson
Uppsala universitet
Valencia
Daniel Montalvo
Universidad Politécnica de Valencia
Valladolid
Luis Miguel Gordo Martin
Universidad de Valladolid
Veszprém
Dénes Papp
Pannon Egyetem
Vienna
Davor Pasovic
Technische Universität Wien
Vinnytsia
Kseniia Ivchenko
Vinnytskyi natsionalnyi tekhnichnyi universytet
Warsaw
Piotr Nawrocki
Politechnika Warszawska
Wroclaw
Monika Ruszkowska
Politechnika Wroclawska
Zagreb
Marija Hlobik
Sveuciliste u Zagrebu
Zaporizhzhya
Vladyslav Kapichulin
Zaporiz'kiy Natsionalniy Techninichnyi Universytet
ABOUT BEST
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MEMBERS AND STATISTICS Members by country (top 5)
6% Portugal
7% France
8%
Poland
Gender (%)
7% Russia
10% Romania
Number of members 3706 3898
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44
3294 3350
2013 2014 2015 2016
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PROFILE OF BEST MEMBERS Experienced in managing local and international teams Undergraduates or recent graduates Trained in Soft-skills Proactive and Creative Internationally Minded
Experienced in working in virtual teams Work and study experience in international environments Succesful in Project Management Comfortable with Travel throughout Europe Team Player
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GROWTH OF BEST BEST has always strived for diversity and sustainability and therefore has always welcomed new groups while simultaneously ensuring the stability of our existing members. New groups enrich our organisation by bringing fresh perspectives and new ideas. Thus, every year interested groups have the chance to join our organisation by showing their motivation and commitment to support our activities at their universities. In May 2016 BEST established a new group at Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey, extending its reach in the country. Now, an even greater number of students can benefit from our services, offering them the possibility to develop in a European environment. This year also membership of two groups, from University of Trento and University of Algarve was terminated.
BEST Groups by cities (July 2016)
Saint Petersburg
Wroclaw
Aachen
Krakow
Prague
Vinnytsia
Erlangen
Trento
Mostar Podgorica
Aveiro Izmir Isparta
Valencia
Las Palmas
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BEST ANNUAL REPORT 15/16
INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT
Board
At General Assembly Chania 2015, the International Management of BEST was elected for the year 2015/2016. The entire team prepared and worked upon the execution of Annual Action Plan of BEST for the respective mandate. The work of the team was thoroughly inter-related with intensive effort and cooperation to ensure successful results for their respective responsibilities. Apart from their work as part of International Management of BEST, each coordinator had specific responsibilities and a team to lead that work on their respective field of work.
President
João Ramos Clemente
Treasurer
Emre Niyazi Yazilikaya
Secretary
Pawel Szulc
Vice-President for External Services
Mariana Silva
Vice-President for Internal Support
Francisco Gordillo
Vice-President for Human Resources
Orfeas Antoniou
Coordinators
Vice-President Vice for Local Group Support Educational Committee Coordinator External Events Committee Coordinator Financial Team Coordinator
Vitka Gres Marta Cortesão Pedro Aniceto Constança Júnior
Information Technology Committee Coordinator Amato Van Geyt Marketing Committee Coordinator Training Group Coordinator
ABOUT BEST
Pinelopi Marini Dimitris Karanassos
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HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR
18. Structure transition 19. Services strategy 19. Growth strategy 20. BEST Career Day 21. BEST Public Website 22. Memorandum of understanding with SEFI 23. BEST Educational Platform
STRUCTURE TRANSITION
It is a truth universally acknowledged that adapting to an ever-changing reality is the key to success and survival. For BEST, change began in 2003 with the “7-step programme”, an initiative which would be a catalyst that led to a series of actions that greatly developed BEST, such as the creation of the LongTerm Strategic Plan, the Identity document and the evaluation of the current structure. The next step was to envision the ideal structure of BEST and plan the transition. In May 2015, BEST decided to move to a Matrix Structure, with a transition period of one year. Departments are the new pillars of the international part of BEST. Having taken the place previously occupied by Committees, they are in charge of the operational work of the organisation in all the different fields. In parallel with the Departments, BEST will develop its strategic work through Projects, executed under the framework of the Long Term Strategic Plan. Projects have a clear goal and defined start and ending dates. Depending on their nature they are supervised by a department or the International Board
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steps programme
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- in case they involve more than one department. This change in the working methods of BEST is also reflected in the new composition of the International Board, with three new Vice-Presidents: the VP for Human Resources, VP for Services and the VP for Projects, which replace the VP for Internal Support and the VP for External Services. This adjustment is meant to reflect the new working methods by taking a more project-oriented approach to the supervision of the international work. Another novelty of the Matrix Structure is the introduction of the “International HR Team”, which includes all the department coordinators and is supervised by the Vice-President for Human Resources. This team is responsible for having an overview of the Human Resources of BEST. With the new structure, BEST is now prepared to face the challenges of the modern times and work more efficiently to provide high-quality services to the students of technology in Europe.
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Setting up the basics
Getting to know BEST
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6
How are we getting there
Action
BEST ANNUAL REPORT 15/16
3
Where are we now
7
Evaluation of the change
4
Where do we want to go
SERVICES STRATEGY By being an organisation that provides services to its stakeholders: students of technology, universities and companies, it makes sense that BEST keeps track of the state of its services and is up to date with market changes and stakeholders’ needs. Back in September 2015, in Lisbon, Portugal, a meeting was held with the purpose of discussing BEST services focusing on crucial matters, and the evaluation, innovation and strategic management that we were employing at that time. Maintenance, development, innovation and implementation of services are the core of this strategy that can be subdivided into 5 focus areas. The impact that BEST has through its services: Providing complementary education, career support and increasing the educational involvement of European students of technology play an essential role in order to fulfil our mission as an organisation. To achieve them we have to aim for excellence and carefully analyse the impact that our services have in the community of European students of technology, the impact we have on companies and the way we participate in shaping the future of education in the fields of technology. Knowledge of our members: As a non-profit organisation composed of student volunteers, BEST members have a high turnover rate, often leading to inadequate knowledge management. This fact makes it hard to have sustainable development in all aspects of our organisation and in order to constantly
develop the way we approach stakeholders an efficient knowledge management is needed. Financial sustainability: Costs and expenses optimisation, as well as the evaluation of the return on investment made by BEST towards each service, needs to be properly accessed in order to ensure their sustainability and quality. Improving the knowledge on financial management is crucial to avoid mistakes that can compromise the way we deliver to our stakeholders. Development of current services: Investigate market trends, improve quality standards for events and introduce long term marketing strategies boosts services development. As we are a big organisation that provides services in several different ways, it is important to assess the quality of all our services and set a common and coherent development path. Implementation of new services: Being able to easily change is a very important skill in the current market. Innovation and development of new services is a must in our organisation, that allied with being up to date with the needs of our stakeholders can allow us to do more and better. The improvements and changes come along with a set of strategic goals to be implemented during the next two years, that will encourage all the organisation to properly manage, understand and be ready for changes for during the upcoming years.
GROWTH STRATEGY Since the very beginning of the existence of our organisation, BEST has always kept a close eye on the number of its members. Having a widespread network, consisting of well-functioning and sustainable groups has constituted an aim for generations. In order to achieve it, BEST has implemented a detailed membership system and has tried different approaches towards its growth. The adopted strategy varied in the space of years, depending on both internal and external factors. Untouched recently, the topic of Growth of BEST for the following years was tackled once again during the passing year. The project was kicked off and
members of the organisation were involved in different events to work on the policy that would be implemented in the near future. The former approaches were thoroughly evaluated and confronted with current realities. It was decided that BEST has already reached the substantial number of groups within its network and current nonproactive approach has been proved right. However, we noticed that in this way we may overlook the universities with potential for establishing high-quality groups. Therefore, in the next years, we will not only continue accepting new groups applying to join BEST but also actively approach selected universities.
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR
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BEST CAREER DAY
4th
Edition
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Partners
468
Applications
BEST Career Day (BCD) is a European career fair that gathers up to 200 specifically selected last year students and recent graduates coming from the BEST technological universities throughout Europe. Partners of the event have the opportunity to select 10-20 participants from a pool of hundreds of applicants by their application and CV, according to their own criteria. These applicants are defined by their willingness and motivation to work in an international environment and are actively seeking to start their career abroad. In its first 3 editions, BCD was organised in parallel with the official opening day of BEST’s General Assembly, which resulted in the event being rotated every year among the organising Local BEST Groups. The organisers of the event were members of the Local
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Participants
BEST Group which, together with the International Management, worked on putting together all the details regarding logistics and activities’ planning. However, due to its rotational nature, the quality of the event could not be guaranteed. In order to create better conditions, accessibility, provide the suitable environment, and help BCD to be a recognisable brand, BEST made the decision to make BCD an annual event organised by international members, independently from any Local BEST Group. The chosen location was Brussels, Belgium, due to its central and highly accessible location. As a result, the 4th edition of BCD took place on the 1st of April of 2016 at the MCE Conference Centre in Brussels.
BCD counted with the support of 14 partners for the 2016 edition that attended the event and provided content by holding presentations, workshops and interviews, in addition to being present at the career fair with a stand. Unfortunately, due to the terrorist attacks that occurred just one week before BCD in Brussels International Airport, not all of them had the possibility to attend the event because of travelling restrictions and flight cancellations.
Partners of 4th edition:
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BEST ANNUAL REPORT 15/16
Regarding the participants, BCD 2016 counted with a total of 171 participants pre-selected by our partners and confirmed to attend out of 468 applicants. Sadly, also as a consequence of the terrorist attacks, only 117 could finally be present at BCD.
“A very inspirational experience where you can meet diverse enterprises and expand your network with plenty of international students that are seeking as me for an opportunitty in their career” J. Daniel Carmena Copenhagen - BCD 2016 Participant
During BCD 2016, our partners had the chance to establish a close contact with the pre-selected participants throughout different activities. The day started with official opening speeches from BEST representatives and a presentation of Platinum partner Whirlpool. After the coffee break, where students had the opportunity to network with partners, participants could enjoy a presentation by EPO and listened to more information about BEST Career Support. Then, the first 2-hours-block of the career fair started, followed by the lunch break. After that, the last 2 hours of career fair took place, as well as the workshop from TOTAL. Throughout the whole day, P&G, EPO and Whirlpool, conducted personal
interviews with selected participants in parallel with the rest of the activities. The productive day ended with a cocktail reception where participants and partners could network and exchange impressions. Partner representatives and students were satisfied with the event, as BEST has shown great willingness and perseverance, in order to organise BCD as an independent and sustainable event, which delivers a high-quality Career Support Service to students and graduates across Europe. The next edition of BCD will take place in Brussels in March 2017.
BEST 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 serves as the primary platform for students to interact with the services we provide. Due to these factors and the feedback from our stakeholders, creating a new website for BEST has been considered a strategic priority for the organisation for the period 2012-2015. During this year, we finalised the new public website of BEST in order to improve the user experience for all our stakeholders. Firstly, we organised the information on the website in a more intuitive fashion so that our users find everything they need with the least amount of effort. Secondly, we have made optimisations to increase the loading speed and make the browsing experience as smooth as possible. Finally, we started working towards the mobile version of the website. If you’re curious to see the results, check out BEST.eu.org!
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MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING WITH SEFI BEST started its involvement in the development of higher education of engineering in Europe way back in 1996. Since then, 20 years have passed in which we have constantly strived to bring the voice of European students of technology to the decision-makers at the highest level. Throughout all this time, BEST has organised dozens of Events on Education, conducted multiple surveys and produced scientific papers that have been featured in the biggest and most important conferences in the world. As a leading organisation in this field, our work has been recognised with honours such as the SEFI Francesco Maffioli award, given to individual students or student associations for their dedication to engineering education in Europe, or being a founding member of the International Federation of Engineering Education Societies (IFEES). In order to maximise the impact of the work done in the field, BEST has been a part of numerous thematic networks, strategic partnerships and our members have attended and actively participated
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in conferences throughout the world - just in recent years we have been proudly represented in the World Engineering Education Forums in Florence, Dubai and Cartagena as well as SEFI Annual Conferences, the European Young Engineers Forum and many others. One thing that remained constant since the beginning of this journey has been our close cooperation with our most valuable partner in this field - the European Society for Engineering Education, more commonly known as SEFI. After many years of informal cooperation, both organisations decided to make it official in a sign of mutual recognition, and the Memorandum that connects BEST with SEFI was signed in July of 2015 in OrleĂĄns, France, during the SEFI Annual Conference, by both Presidents: JoĂŁo Clemente (BEST) and Kamel Hawwash (SEFI). The signing of this Memorandum is a very high honour for BEST, as it symbolises the merit of our work and contribution to the development of engineering education in Europe, recognised by none other than the most important European organisation in this field - SEFI.
BEST ANNUAL REPORT 15/16
BEST EDUCATIONAL PLATFORM BEST Educational Platform strives to start a European Commission (EC)-funded project under an ERASMUS+ grant. This project is a two-year Strategic Partnership to help bridge the gap between university knowledge and the professional skills needed to succeed in the work environment, creating the “European Platform for Higher Education development - University, Business and Students Cooperation (EPHE-UBS)”.
EPHE-UBS is thought to be one of the first European Commission-projects coordinated by a students’ association (BEST). By gathering student NGOs, Higher Education Institutions, Companies and Universities, the main goal of this project is to raise awareness, gather and disseminate students, university and business perspectives on different topics: Academic versus employability skills; • Continuing professional development/Lifelong Learning; • International Cooperation for higher education development.
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The EPHE-UBS project will comprise different activities: • One European-wide Survey: to assess the current situation regarding UBS cooperation from the different stakeholders perspectives, as well as collect ideas for its improvement; • Three BEST Events on Education: to gather the students’ opinions on the topics being discussed, the presence of experts from companies, universities and higher education institutions representatives;
A network for UBS cooperation would be created between the partners, setting a live and online sharing platform. This would help develop recommendations for the cooperation between university-business and guidelines from the students’ perspectives in the development of professional skills. BEST is working hard to kick-off this project, currently setting the final list of partners and the details for the grant application. The project is planned to happen from the year of 2017 to 2019.
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Four Partner meetings: to update on the work done, feedback and define the next steps of the project; Two Round tables: to gather Company and University’s perspectives on the topics being discussed; One final Conference: to disseminate the project outcomes setting a sharing platform between Universities, Business and Students. Participants of the conference would be partner representatives, experts in the field, students and paper-authors.
“one of the first European Commission projects coordinated by a students’ association”
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR
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SERVICES
26. Complementary Education 27. Courses 28. Quality assurance in courses 29. Competitions 30. Quality assurance in competitions 31. EBEC Final 2015 32. Career Support 33. BEST Career Center 34. Educational Involvement 35. Events on Education 36. Local Educational Involvement 37. Education Research and Publications
The year of 2015/2016 allowed BEST to reach students in 96 European universities, through its local groups. It is to these students that BEST’s services and activities are addressed. Since the very beginning, the main focus of the organisation is to provide complementary education to European students of technology. Once again this has been achieved through BEST seasonal Courses and engineering competitions. In total, between July 2015 to June 2016, 83 BEST Courses and over 100 competitions, in different fields of technology, took place all over Europe thanks to BEST. Next to complementary education, students have the opportunity to actively work on their future career while taking advantage of the set of online tools that are available through BEST’s public website - BEST Career Center. This platform aims to get international companies and institutions in touch with students. Not only do the online tools reflect the effort that the organisation puts into career support, live career fairs enable our stakeholders to interact face-to-face and expand their network.This year, a landmark was reached by having the first BEST Career Day in Brussels which included the presence more than 100 students as well as international companies and universities. The activity of the organisation in educational involvement encapsulates the opinion of the students of technology on higher education issues. Throughout the year, BEST organises international and local workshops and participates in the distribution of surveys. It is also responsible for analysing and disseminating the outcomes of this research.
COMPLEMENTARY EDUCATION Complementary Education is the core activity of BEST. Its purpose is to bring a significant added value to the education provided by the universities. Through it, students are offered new opportunities of development and gain new knowledge and skills which will be useful in their future lives. Offering
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such possibilities, BEST strives to fulfill its mission of developing students. The main service of BEST inside the area of complementary education is courses. They aim at broadening the knowledge of participating students on a specific field and providing the opportunity of applying these skills.
BEST ANNUAL REPORT 15/16
COURSES For 25 years, BEST Courses has been provided by BEST to technological students from all over Europe. Approximately 10.000 people apply to our courses each year, but only the around 2.000 selected ones get the chance to experience what a BEST Course looks like. This service provides students with the opportunity to learn familiar or completely new subjects they are interested in. Most of them are at a basic level with no prior knowledge required so that students from any technological field have a glance of other areas. At least one course is organised in each of our local groups per year, which allows students to explore more than 90 different cities and universities. In the past year we focused our efforts to increasing the quality of the services we provide, especially in the academic content. Two main systems were explored to make our courses even better. First of all, we revised and updated the standards every course should follow, assuring a better experience to the students, but also toof our partners and universities, involved. Secondly, our courses are now eligible to compete in an internal contest to recognise the best organized ones. Through gamification we are achieving the organisation of better events year after year, while the organising groups also have fun and enjoy the process.
Any student can apply to our courses, however, we require specific students’ background in order to attend these events; being students of technical and technological or science programs in one of the universities where BEST is present. Once they have applied and their applications have been validated based on this criterion, the organising groups select between 22 and 25 applications based on the motivation letter and their performance in the three questions they are required to answer. With this procedure we assure that only participants with interest in the field of the course and that follow what we call BEST spirit are accepted to our events. At the end, the over 20 students that attend the event get the chance to, during one to two weeks, learn about a new subject, or get better at one they knew, while sharing with other technological or science students like them from all over Europe, also getting to know the local culture and history, in an international and open-minded environment. This experience, that we have been providing for so many years now, is still the core of BEST as an organisation and one of the best added values we can offer to the future engineers and scientists of Europe.
Testimonials from courses “One week passed after this course and I am still gathering my thoughts, feelings and impressions. Even though I am back to my normal life, my mind is still in Italy and I find myself going through the pictures and videos all the time and trying to stop the tears in my eyes from falling. I don’t have anything to compare this course with, as it was my first one, but I am sure that I just had the two best weeks so far. I met wonderful people, collected a lot of experiences and opened my mind to many new things.” Sara Kiprijanova (Skopje) participant of
“Stairway TO Energy: a small step for sustainability, one giant leap for mankind” by LBG Turin
“This course was the perfect ending of my studies and got me inspired to follow my dreams to build my career in green buildings. It also inspired me even further to in the future to move to France. Thank you so much for making the BEST event the best. I’ll remember December 2015 for the rest om life!” Anonymous evaluation of
”I’m Green, Dabudi Dabudai” organised by LBG Paris Polytechnique
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QUALITY ASSURANCE IN COURSES Ever since BEST started organising courses, it became clear that some standard was needed to ensure and incentivise their quality and to protect the external image of BEST. This, in turn, led to the creation of a Quality system. Its first version was developed and first tried out in 1999 and was named the Green Apple project. It had as premise a group of practices which aimed to challenge all organisers of BEST courses to raise the quality of their courses. The main point of the Green Apple project was to provide the participants of BEST courses with sufficient information about the course and making the course better fit their expectations. The course organisers followed a procedure, consisting of several steps, to reach this goal. Throughout the following 11 years, this system was evaluated, modified and improved which ended up setting several standards that were defined as essential throughout the whole organisation. However, it was concluded that overall, the LBGs were not improving sufficiently with it. To change this, in 2012, the Green Apple system ended and in its stead came the Red Apple award, which presented itself as a list of requirements which would certify the quality of the academic content of the course.
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Already one year later several problems arose when evaluating the Red Apple award. It was suggested that winning the Red Apple award was not considered challenging enough for some LBGs, while for other LBGs it wasn’t achievable. To combat these issues, in the past two years the idea for a Red Apple 2.0 award came in play and the concept was finally implemented, now renamed as the Golden Apple award, accessible for all courses to participate since December 2015. The newly developed Golden Apple award consists of a list of non-mandatory achievements which are susceptible to modifications and additions depending on the performance of the LBGs, and with this list encourage a competition between the LBGs to see who can win the most points in any given season. Additionally, each achievement is given a ponderation based on its overall difficulty. Thus, depending on their performance, LBGs can end up winning from 0 to 5 Red Apples or, in case they complete all the achievements, the coveted Golden Apple. Since its implementation, already 64 LBGs have taken this challenge and with it strived to increase the quality of the courses of BEST.
BEST ANNUAL REPORT 15/16
COMPETITIONS In a world where technology has become built into our daily lives and has an ever increasing role, European students of technology are expected to have a big role on to the development of technologies for future generations. Consequently, they are expected to be skilful, to apply their knowledge in order to solve real problems and to communicate on a technological level about innovative solutions. Additionally, they should be able to adapt to changing environments, to have an international mindset and to work together with people from different fields of activity, developing projects and working under pressure to fulfil defined goals with limited time. Engineering competitions challenge students on all of these skills and have been part of the services offered by BEST since 2003. Engineering Competitions are events where teams of students use their technical, social and communication skills to fulfil a specific task or case. On these competitions and under specific conditions (time, situation, materials, etc), teams of students compete to provide the most optimised solution in terms of performance, cost and innovation. Through these competitions, BEST is able to challenge students and give them an opportunity to challenge themselves, but also to improve skills such as creativity, teamwork and communication. Engineering Competitions in BEST can be divided into 2 types of competitions:
EBEC Project European BEST Engineering Competition (EBEC) celebrated its 8th edition during 2015/2016. EBEC is one of the biggest European engineering competition for students, organised by students and it has its main focus in providing complementary education.
Europe. It aims to bring together BEST’s stakeholders: students, universities and companies - throughout the year by providing further opportunities from which future engineers will benefit the most.
EBEC challenges students of technology to test their competencies in two different categories: Case Study and Team Design. The competition welcomes teams of four students currently enrolled in a university where an EBEC local round happens.
Local Engineering Competitions
This competition starts at a local level and this year 84 local rounds of EBEC took place throughout Europe. Subsequently, national or regional rounds take place and at this stage winners of local rounds compete to have a place in the Final round. In 2016, 15 national and regional rounds occurred and the 30 winning teams had the opportunity to be present in Belgrade, Serbia for the Final event.
These engineering competitions are local events, custom made for their audience where participants from a university compete against each other in different ways and that are organised by the initiative of a local BEST group. Examples of categories in such competitions can be Team Design, Case Study, Negotiation but also Hackathons and others.
The coordination body for the project is composed entirely of members of the organisation who seek to improve and increase the recognition of the event each year. The 8th edition was marked by the implementation of new quality standards for local groups organising the rounds as well as the increased cooperation between bodies of BEST to support the project at all stages. The EBEC Project is organised by about 500 volunteer students from
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QUALITY ASSURANCE IN COMPETITIONS Since the first competition was organised in BEST in 2003, the number of competitions organised by BEST around Europe has been increasing year after year. What started off as a single competition was the spark that led to the creation of European BEST Engineering Competition Project (EBEC), and with it the topic of quality assurance became emerging and important. Since then, some methods have been established to ensure the quality of the competitions, no matter where in Europe they happen, as a service of BEST towards students, companies and universities. The main tool in the process of guaranteeing the quality of competitions is EBEC Handbook.
EBEC Handbook This document is a collection of rules, that defines EBEC and ensures the quality and standards of these events. The first version of this kind of document appeared after Presidents’ Meeting Portugal 2004 for BEST Engineering Competition (BEC), and the first one related to EBEC appeared in around 2012. This year, the EBEC Handbook was updated by the EBEC Team, in order to correct inconsistencies, adjust terms to the new structure of BEST, introduce a stamping procedure for the final round of EBEC and general improvements for EBEC pyramid. These changes led to the creation of EBEC Handbook 2.0 which was approved by the plenary at General Assembly 2016. With this new document, we aim to ensure that the quality standard of EBEC events is higher than before and that our stakeholders’ level of satisfaction is increased.
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BEST ANNUAL REPORT 15/16
EBEC FINAL 2015
7th
Edition
117
20
Participants
Countries
The 7th edition of the final round of EBEC was held in Porto, Portugal from the 2nd to the 11th of August. This year, 117 finalists from 28 Universities from 20 different countries participated. The event received the patronage of the Portuguese National Commission for UNESCO and University of Porto. Porto City council, both Faculties of Science and Engineering of the University of Porto, FEANI (European Federation of National Engineering Associations), IPDJ (Portuguese Institute for Youth and Sports) and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation supported this event. The final event also counted with the support of other 5 Universities. Sakthi was the promo partner for the event.
The overall winners for the final round of EBEC 2015 were the team from RWTH Aachen University of Technology (Team Design category) and the team from the Free University of Brussels (Case Study category).
During the 10 days, participants had an official opening day, four days of competition, a closing day, composed of a career fair and closing ceremony, and additionally two free days that allowed participants to explore the wonders of Porto.
Several milestones were achieved during this event. All the tasks were sponsored by companies and the highest number of international companies were present at the final round of EBEC compared to previous editions. Evaluations from participants show that in terms of content this was also one of the best final rounds. It is important to us that students and partners appreciate this unique opportunity to develop new ideas and to prepare future professionals in the field of technology. Thanks to the efforts that the organisation put into this event, on March 2016 the local BEST group of Porto was announced as the national winner of the European Charlemagne Youth Prize, which aims to encourage the development of European consciousness among young people, as well as their participation in European integration projects.
Tasks for the Team Design category were prepared by Dell together with EBEC Topic Group (BEST). There were two tasks for this category each taking two days. For the Case Study, there were four tasks. All of these were provided by companies and the EBEC Topic Group. The tasks were delivered by Reply, Colquímica, European Patent Office and Deutsche Bahn.
Local and international media coverage ensured the visibility of the event. The main communication channel was Facebook, with constant coverage over the course of the competition including the tasks, the career fair, official opening and closing ceremonies. The peak of the coverage was on August 10th with the posts made during the official closing day.
“Young engineers and a really international project. I’ve met so many people from so many different countries!” Pedro Quelhas,Human resources of Sakthi
“I’m totally impressed, it was great to see all the presentations and the teams were working very hard and were highly motivated.” Inga Barisic, Deutsche Bahn
“I think it’s very interesting to see what the companies do, who they are and what they are looking for.” Adam Brooking, Brussels, Belgium
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CAREER SUPPORT BEST continuously strives to provide quality services to its partners and to the technology and engineering students of Europe. In order to straighten the relationships between our stakeholders and provide the necessary career support students seek, we constantly work on the development of BEST Career Support and its features. BEST Career Support (BCS) is divided in two main areas: Live Events and BEST Career Centre. Live events are organised throughout the year, with the purpose of bringing together students, companies and universities, providing a more direct and closer interaction. Our partners participate in our events in several different ways: by delivering workshops, presentations, handling interviews and meeting students in job fairs. These events are BEST Career Day, Offical Opening Day of Presidents’ Meeting and Offical Closing Day of EBEC - European BEST Engineering Competition Final. The online tools BEST provides are all gathered under the name of BEST Career Centre. The platform allows interested students to have easy access to international career opportunities delivered by our partners. By creating an account on BEST website, students can fill their online CV, which is the very first step to fully take advantage of the potential of our career support service. All the information is collected
in a database, which is shared with our partners, benefiting both students and companies. Through the BEST account, students can also subscribe to the Career and Study Newsletters in order to receive up to date information about international job / internship offers, graduate programmes and special career & study related programmes. Annually around 40 newsletters are sent by our partners, which all include career-related opportunities that are relevant to students’ field of study and interests. Together with our stakeholdres, we use targetted access to ensure the efficiency of the newsletters. The amount of followers is constantly growing and now reaches over 40 000 students and graduates. We also take advantage of our Public Website and several social media channels such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, to promote international career and study opportunities provided by our partners, thus reaching a wider and more diverse public. Furthermore, our website gathers all the information related to our stakeholders, their opportunities and career related news. Lately, BEST Career Support promotion stategy has been finalised and being implemented by the organisation. All the aforementioned features are contributing to BCS continuous development, which is necessary in order to meet frequently changing needs of the market.
Innovation meets BEST Career Webinar Last year, BEST introduced a new concept in its Career Suport related services: the BEST Career Webinar (BCW). The main purpose of this tool is to provide direct online interaction between students and our stakeholders representatives. The topic and the content of the webinar may cover different aspects, such as promotion of current career offers, introduction of work/study environments and the benefits students can get by using the career opportunities. Furthermore, participants can ask questions to the representatives, get insights, and network with each other. Therefore, we can say that BCW aims to align students with more career and
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study opportunities and help them to develop their networking skills in order to prepare them for their future career. A targeted promotion according to the content of the webinar is crucial in order to reach the needs of our stakeholders. For this purpose we use our current promotional channels: career newsletters, social media posts and our public website. On the Public Website, we also share the event and application procedure in order to guarantee an efficient application process and ensure that, at least, 80% of the applying students filled out and updated their CV.
BEST ANNUAL REPORT 15/16
BEST CAREER CENTRE
Although concise in phrasing, BEST’s mission – ‘developing students’ – covers a broad meaning. One important cornerstone of this is guiding our target students in their professional development, by providing a spectrum of services that jointly bear the name of the activity BEST Career Support (BCS). Through BCS, we aim to catalyse closer communication and interaction of European students of technology on the one hand, and partners of our organisation (international companies and universities) on the other. Our stakeholders interact with BCS in two complementary ways: live events and the online tools consisting the BEST Career Centre (BCC). Live events provide opportunities for close contact between students, companies and universities by bringing all of them together in the same place. The three main Live Events during the course of the year are the Official Opening Day of Presidents’ Meeting in the first semester, the BEST Career Day in the second semester and the Official Closing Day of the final round of the European BEST Engineering Competition in the second semester. Since 2016, BEST Career Day (BCD) is a standalone career event which is held yearly in Brussels, in the heart of Europe. The first edition after this transition was already a great success. Besides the aforementioned international events, there is also a list of career events that are organised by Local BEST Groups. During these events, students participate in workshops and interview sessions and attend presentations and job fairs from our partners. The digital counterpart of Live Events is the BEST Career Centre, gathering all the online services we provide for career support. This platform is intended to form an easy mean for students to find job openings,vacancies, internships and graduate programmes that are offered by our international partners. After creation of an account, students can
upload their CV to our database of over 47 000 entries, which is frequently browsed by our partners, and subscribe to Career and Study Newsletters, through which they receive the latest information about several international opportunities. The profile of the receivers is matched to that of the opportunity presented in the newsletter, in terms of field of study, interests, etc. This targeted operation ensures efficient communication, with a continuously increasing number of subscribers to the service. Other online channels that we employ to promote international career and study opportunities are the Public Website and social media (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter) – approaching stakeholders through a wide variety of ways. However, the needs of our stakeholders change over time, and so do we. Thus, in an endeavour to keep our services up to date, we constantly challenge ourselves to improve BCS, in order to better address these new expectations. One notable example is the BEST Career Webinar, which mimics a live event by gathering students, companies and universities online. The low threshold for participation and the close interaction it provides, are key advantages of this new online service. The content of the webinar is completely flexible – career opportunities can be presented to the students, work environments can be explained, anything related to careers at the company is possible. In any case, the direct contact makes it very easy to ask questions and ensure the most effective communication between all parties. Overall, BCS is an ever evolving activity of our organization that is well on its way to play an important role in the landscape of career guidance tools for students.
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EDUCATIONAL INVOLVEMENT BEST strives to make students aware of their education. We gather the students’ opinions on education-related topics and get them across to decision makers in Europe. BEST, through the Educational Committee, organises yearly symposium-like events where students meet with experts and professionals to discuss important matters in education. Up to this date, BEST has authored well over a hundred education-related publications such as Events on Education reports, conference papers, journal articles, conference posters and project reports, among others. We keep developing our own research in an independent way, facilitating the connection between students and experts and transmitting the conclusions. To stay relevant in the educational field, BEST regularly attends Europe’s biggest conferences and meetings on the topics of technological and scientific education, such as SEFI Annual Conference, WEEF or IACEE. Moreover, BEST cherishes collaborations with multiple partners, such as SEFI and FEANI, developing longterm projects by their side to bring the students’ point of view into complex educational topics. In March 2016 we attended the SEFI debate on “Engineering skills connected to the market needs and the role of academia” in the EU Parliament.
Most of our work has been set on a European scale, however, being actively involved in local education is important if we are to address local issues quickly and effectively. BEST is happy to have Local BEST Groups increasingly enrolling in educational involvement and slowly setting their own educational research, either by attending local conferences or independently organising their own local symposia. During 2015/16, we saw the appearance of a scientific publication in one of the major European Engineering Education conferences by the Local BEST Group of Thessaloniki, and the General Assembly Tallinn 2016 counted with 200 students discussing educational matters on an initiative proposed by the host group. The next year will be marked by a change in BEST’s structure and the great work done so far by the Educational Committee of BEST will undoubtedly keep on sprouting under the Educational Involvement Department of BEST.
“BEST was introduced to me when I became a member of the Council of SEFI. As president of SEFI (2003-5) one of my three main accomplishments was to have a representative of BEST in the Council. That was due to my admiration for the the serious and dedicated approach to Engineering and to societal values by BEST. My respect grew and consolidated during the following years due to the positive contributions of BEST in education and training of Engineering. May BEST remain as a lighthouse for Engineering students!” Prof. Dr. Alfredo Soeiro, SEFI President (2003-2005)
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BEST ANNUAL REPORT 15/16
EVENTS ON EDUCATION Events on Education (EoEs) are international symposiums on education. Those events are the tools BEST uses to gather students’ opinions on educational matters. In this sense, BEST works as a communication channel between students’ and other European Education stakeholders. Every EoE has its official report, with all the results representing students’ feedback and innovative ideas. These EoE reports are published in the ISSUU account of BEST. In the summer of 2015, three EoEs were carried out in the Local BEST groups of Bratislava, Riga and Ankara.
EoE Bratislava - 28th June - 5th of July, Bratislava, Slovakia With the name of “Teaching with Technology”, the event tackled two main topics: Teaching with technology and Learning Styles. This event had 21 participants, 4 facilitators from BEST and 4 experts. The sessions were facilitated by 4 BEST Educational Committee members and the Local BEST Group Bratislava held the event. The main outcomes of the discussion were related to the usage of IT systems in education and its implications for the development of new engineers profile.
“Through this event, I learned about new methods of teaching with technology that I didn’t even think about before. I learned how important new technologies are to teach people faster and better, and if I am ever given a position that I could influence the teaching process of an institute, I will provide them with the ideas I learned from this event.” Soroush Allahparast, Sapienza University of Rome, participant of EoE Bratislava
EoE Riga - 21st-31st of July, Riga, Latvia The name of the event was: “Let’s cement the canyon! Removing the gap between university and profession”. EoE Riga had 22 participants, 8 experts, 4 facilitators from the BEST Educational Committee and counted with The Local BEST Group Riga for the organisation. The main outcomes were about continuous professional development, the gap between teaching profile and professional, and skills & learning objectives.
EoE Ankara - 13th - 22nd of September, Ankara, Turkey The main topics on education tackled in this event are “Principles of effective learning and teaching, and class and course organisation”. The event counted with 22 participants, 3 facilitators from the BEST Educational Committee and the Educational Office of the European Space Agency (ESA) as the main expert. “This course gave me an opportunity to grow and to learn - both about the others and about myself. Is our education system bad? According to me - yes. According to people around me - also yes. This event has managed to create a bigger picture of the education system in almost all of Europe. It managed to find the problems and with discussions during the working groups to find a solution. In our universities, I was rarely feeling so satisfied like I had felt during the exchange of views at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara.” Jane Djumerkoski, participant of EoE Ankara Jane Djumerkoski, Participant of EoE Ankara
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LOCAL EDUCATIONAL INVOLVEMENT In order to increase the students’ involvement in their own education and make changes on a local level, Local Events on Education (LEoEs) are organised. The main purpose of these events is to create a platform where local students, professors and company representatives can discuss, share, gather and distribute knowledge on specific themes in engineering education on a local level. During this year, 5 successful LEoEs were organised in different cities - Lisbon, Thessaloniki, Athens,Lviv and Almada.
LEoE Thessaloniki, December 17th, 2015 LBG Thessaloniki organised its second LEoE in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, under the topic of “ProjectBased Learning: Learning by doing in Engineering Education”. It was an opportunity to set up a meeting point with people from different occupational backgrounds and to give a stand about current educational matters and views of their own university. LBG Thessaloniki had the opportunity to create stronger bonds with their university. The outcomes were presented at the SEFI Annual Conference 2016. The final report of the event was also presented to academical authorities of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki during the summer of 2016. “Through EBEC we build. Through Courses we explore. Through JobFair we progress. But, only through LEoE can we question who we really are and who we want to become.” Vasiliki Kalfa, Main Organiser
LEoE Athens, 17-18th of March, 2016 The topic of the event was “Curriculum in the NTUA : Preparation for a professional career or the final exams?”. At the event, various members of the academic community were present, including the dean of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), the Career Office counsellors and the academic experts, professors of the NTUA. Some of the topics tackled were “the importance of extracurricular activities in the student life”, “the value of internships during the studies” and “the value of the soft skills and extracurricular activities acquired throughout the studies”. The final report was disseminated to the academic community of the NTUA. “Organising an LEoE was highly beneficial for our LBG. It is a challenging yet fulfilling experience from which one gets to contribute to enhancing the education of their university and in the meantime develop their own skills.” Christina Gouvatsou, Main Organiser
LEoE Lviv, 14th of April, 2016 The topic of this event was “Up-to-date Education”. It was the first event for this local group, when they tried to connect all three stakeholders - students, professors and company representatives in one event. It was a great success and the university representatives were left with a good impression. Moreover, participants recognised the need to organise this kind of events every year. “It was just a great experience for me as MO and for our LBG as well. We understood so many problems and important cases we need to solve while we’re working on it.” Iryna Krot, Main Organiser
LEoE Almada, May 11th and 18th, 2016 This event was divided into two sessions with two topics. The event, which gathered all three stakeholders companies, students and academia representatives led to the improvement of university relations and the spreading of our organisation’s name towards students and the university academical society. “It was also great to witness the participants interaction, the different ideas and perspectives shared throughout the event and knowing they enjoyed it and found it useful.” Daniela Cordeiro, Main Organiser
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BEST ANNUAL REPORT 15/16
EDUCATION RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS The Educational Committee processes the information gathered in EoEs, surveys, and other discussion groups or workshops into scientific papers, summarising the research on technology students’ feedback on several educational matters. These papers are presented at several international Conferences throughout the year. All the papers can be found in the ISSUU account of BEST.
issuu.com/bestorg BEST ISSUU Account
Some of the papers written last year were: • Nikolena Christofi, Egle Brovkaite, Marta Cortesao, Aggeliki Marini, “European Education Trends and BEST as Open Social Learning Organisation”, EIIC 2015, Virtual conference. • Andreea Militaru, Cristian García, George Kladis, Marta Cortesão and Monika Tolgo, “17 year evolution of the students’ perspective on innovative teaching, curricular development and e-learning in Europe”, World Engineering Education Forum (WEEF) 2015, Florence, Italy. • Georgios Kladis, Marta Cortesão, Ou Yan Zhou, Sander Clayes, Tiago Monteiro, “Project-based Learning as an Effective Developer of Young Engineers’ Curriculum”, SEFI Annual Conference 2015, Orleans, France.
learn cooperation flexible open-minded innovative responsible creative competition teamwork multidisciplinary softskills develop lifelong leader proactivity problem-solving company adaptation creativity work-under-pressure teamwork presentation-skills logical-thinking risk-managementc ommunication Key-words related to the “profile of an engineer” from 2015 and 2009 2009, according students of technology at our EoEs
EBEC project from an educational perspective LBG Thessaloniki organised its second LEoE in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, under the topic of “ProjectBased Learning: Learning by doing in Engineering Education”. It was an opportunity to set up a meeting point with people from different occupational backgrounds and to give a stand about current educational matters and views of their own university. LBG Thessaloniki had the opportunity to create stronger bonds with their university. The outcomes were presented at the SEFI Annual Conference 2016. The final report of the event was also presented to academical authorities of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki during the summer of 2016.
Skills chosen as the top skills developed in EBEC National/Regional rounds of 2015 (40% of participants answered to the survey)
Teamwork Problem solving Time, conflit and project Creativity Decision Making Presentation Skills 29% Motivation 28% Flexibility 26% Leadership
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85% 85% 50% 50% 49% 41%
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INTERNAL ACTIVITIES
40. Virtual International Plenary 40. Private Area 41. Makumba 41. Makumba congress 42. Training systems 42. Trainers’ Forum 2015 43. Financial overview 44. Internal Events 44. Presidents’ Meeting Flanders 2015 45. General Assembly Tallinn 2016 45. International Projects’ Forum
VIRTUAL INTERNATIONAL PLENARY In the past, all decisions were made on only two General Meetings. This caused the workload of the organisation to be unevenly distributed, valuable time to be lost and bureaucratic matters to consume a great amount of time of the plenary. Because of that, as well as the constant growth of the organisation, an improvement was needed in its decision-making process. The solution that was identified was a non-presential international decision-making body, working virtually. In 2007, the concept of Virtual International Plenary (VIP) was born and implemented afterwards. It was approved later on, in 2009, as an official decision body of BEST. Since then it underwent several small changes, improving its user-friendliness and making it more encouraging to share and discuss. VIP consists of a mailing list, an online forum and a voting system, and is supported by document archives
and wiki pages. It is the place where BEST gets the chance to discuss and take decisions online. It is also meant for gathering feedback from LBGs on the work of the international teams or any other “hot� topics. Lastly, it works as a constant sharing platform, where international bodies have a solution for constant two ways communication with LBGs. When a topic appears, it gets discussed, clarified, an official proposal is made and then voting takes place. The members of VIP are representatives of both LBGs and international bodies, a speaker and a deputy speaker. This way, the time for reaching a decision can be reduced from 6 months to 3-4 weeks. It gives us a chance to implement changes faster or to gather input before the General Meeting happens. Lastly, the workload of General Meetings is reduced, giving more room for the more important topics.
PRIVATE AREA BEST relies on relatively complex IT systems to provide its services and fulfil its needs. These range from our own mail servers to the application system, which allows thousands of applications to be sent and received to seasonal courses, career events etc. Additionally, BEST also has access to a very extensive intranet, called Private Area (PA), which further supports internal communication and knowledge management inside the organisation. Private Area is, in its essence, the link between all online tools of the organisation. The development of this intranet dates back to the mid-90s and was developed exclusively by members of BEST and is still maintained by them exclusively. When it comes down to documentation for knowledge management, Private Area contains the Document Archives and the Wiki. With these two tools, all the
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written knowledge of the organisation is properly stored and available for the generations to come. Human Resources (HR) Management, on the other hand, is facilitated by an integrated HR Tool and Task Manager. Bodies of BEST can easily overview and update the progress and skills of their members, as well as assign appropriate tasks to them and keep track of the work progress. Next to this, the Private Area also contains the Training Database which tracks all trainers and their training sessions by allowing them to register their training sessions and distribute their handouts online after the training happened. Private Area has undergone many development and design phases culminating in its current version. Its usability is constantly being improved and new features and tools are systematically planned, designed, implemented and launched.
BEST ANNUAL REPORT 15/16
MAKUMBA A truly remarkable property of the IT Systems of BEST is that all of its web applications are developed exclusively by BESTies. Not only are these applications created by BESTies, but also the framework used to construct these applications was created by BESTies.
Career Centre (BCC). As none of these technologies were optimal to our needs and it made our systems very chaotic, Cristian Bogdan and several other BESTies decided to develop a web framework to unify all these systems under one framework: Makumba.
This framework is called “Makumba” and was developed and tailored to our cause only: software development in amateur communities. This was started about fifteen years ago and its development was and still is led by the founder of the Information Technology Committee of BEST (ITC), named Cristian Bogdan. He is currently a professor at the KTH university in Stockholm and even now continuously supports the development of Makumba and its usage in BEST.
The main purpose of this Java-based framework is to facilitate the access to the database to the extent that someone with no major coding knowledge can easily understand, learn it and start developing not much after. This was needed due to the high turnover and short average lifespan of members within the organisation.
Before the development of Makumba, several different technologies were used in BEST: the application system used different technologies than the intranet which also used a different technology than the BEST
Nearly 15 years later BEST is still developing its applications with Makumba. Several discussions have happened whether we should move to a newer, modern framework, but as Makumba is still the framework fulfilling our needs the most, Makumba will still be used in the foreseeable future.
MAKUMBA CONGRESS In order keep the web framework that BEST uses for its web applications (Makumba) up to the organisation’s needs, its continuous development is needed. Most of this happens online just like most of the work within BEST, but in order to make adjustments to where the development is heading and keep BEST informed about Makumba and vice versa, live events are needed. These live events on Makumba have happened every few years since its creation in the beginning of the century and are called Makumba Congresses. On April 2016, such event happened at the KTH university in Stockholm upon being invited by Cristian Bogdan, the creator of Makumba and Senior Lecturer at KTH. In a collaboration with LBG Stockholm and Cristian Bogdan, 7 active ITCers went to Stockholm for this Makumba Congress that lasted for four days. There they learned more about Makumba and how they and ITC could further contribute to its development. The former was needed due to BEST currently using
an older version of Makumba and not being aware of all its features. The latter is due to Cristian Bogdan being currently the only active developer of Makumba and in order to keep Makumba fitting the needs of BEST. In those four days, we had several discussions and we also looked into the source code of Makumba to look for potential improvements and bugfixes. The main outcomes of the event were a concrete set of milestones towards the release of Makumba 1.0, a division of responsibilities between Cristian Bogdan and BEST on the future development of Makumba, several small improvements and fixes to Makumba itself, but most of all, that BEST is currently entirely up-to-date on the status of Makumba and willing to contribute.
INTERNAL ACTIVITIES
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TRAINING SYSTEM BEST is an organisation inspired by change, yet always driven by the same unquenched element: BEST members. These are unique individuals who strive to acquire and develop useful skills in order to be effective in the organisation and, later on, in their future endeavours. The body of BEST responsible for such development of skills is the Training Group. Being one of the six committees of BEST, the 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 the Trainers’ Community is comprised of two elements: The Trainers’ Community is represented by an impressive number of more than 400 trainers, who are also BEST members. The primary role of trainers is to deliver training. Apart from this, they continuously
share knowledge and materials amongst each other, support, give feedback and advice to each other. This knowledge management guarantees that BEST trainers never stop their professional growth and continually improve themselves through cooperation. The Training Group members provide the coordination of training to BEST members in order to ensure they can contribute to the organisation in an effective way. The Training Group’s daily activities business revolves exclusively around BEST members, as its mission is to ensure coordination of training in BEST.
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Active Trainers
4681
Training hours
TRAINERS’ FORUM 2015 The very first participants of a meeting gathering trainers of all European wide student organisations were astonished by the beautiful surrounding of Breno. Nobody expected this winter to be so warm and sunny. On 3rd December 2015, 50 trainers from 19 student organisations gathered to develop their skills and conceptualise Future of Training in an event organised by LBG Milan. During three working days, they had an opportunity to attend training sessions, discussion groups, workshops, Open Space Technology and various other activities accessible at any time. They were developing their training delivery skills, working on new tools to use during sessions and to evaluate them. Moreover, various ideas for further collaboration were created in between the sessions.
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“Trainers’ Forum 2015 was designed to establish a collaborative community of development oriented youth trainers. We are glad to see participants continuously engaging in different crossorganisational projects four months after we have met in Breno, Italy”. Radek Czahajda, TsF coordinator. Each day started at 8 am and was full of sessions up to 10 pm. Those were followed by team building evenings, including writing a script of a play about worst training situation, or inspirational speakers’ corner. Those, who are role models in their communities daily, bringing inspiration to many did not lose it at any moment of the event. It was an incredible mixture of people that probably made it so warm and sunny in Alps back then.
BEST ANNUAL REPORT 15/16
FINANCIAL OVERVIEW BEST, as a Europe-wide student organisation for technical students, striving to empower diversity through developing students, achieving our mission and vision, requires many resources and usage of these resources properly is another key element in achieving success. The most important resource will always be our members volunteering for this great cause. Another resource, more countable and easier to analyse is its finances. Management of finances is an important matter for the sustainability of the organisation, therefore it needs proper attention from organisation side. The money is allocated to support our activities in order to better provide services to the technical students of Europe. Our IT systems must be operated, marketing materials must be designed and digital media must be used to reach out the external world efficiently, and various meetings and conferences must be organised. The largest part of our budget is still spent on reimbursing our members for travelling, giving them the chance to take part in decision making and leverage a difference in Europe. BEST has for many years cooperated with industry and academics, and the cooperation has been refined over the last 28 years. Our industrial and university partners now take
part in the Career Support activity of BEST, providing opportunities to students and reaching out their future employees. This is also our main income, and everything we do would not be possible without this collaboration. The list of our partners who supported BEST in 2015-2016, can be found at the end of the report. The other significant source of income is institutional support. The European Commission has been supporting our operations for several years, and under Framework Partnership Agreement of the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, during 2015-16, we received an Operating Grant. This support recognises the efforts of our almost 4000 volunteers and the 27 years of work. BEST is grateful for this invaluable support. The status and details of the finances can be followed and checked by each member in the accounting tool available in our intranet. The detailed financial report of BEST for the 2015-2016 financial year is available on request. Numbers show that BEST is still in a healthy position regarding its finances, and can continue growing its presence in Europe, developing and innovating its activities for the stakeholders. External Relations
International Management
Unexpected Expenses
Administration
Expenses
Internal Events Support
International Teams Internal Training Company Trips Educational Events’ Coordination Competitions Coordination Marketing Materials
BEST Application System Debts
Framework Partnership Agreement
Corporate Partners
Revenues Career Support Partners University Partners Project Partners
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BEST ANNUALINTERNAL REPORT 15/16 ACTIVITIES
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INTERNAL EVENTS
Over the previous pages, we have been talking about the mission and vision of BEST, about how the activities and services of BEST aim to develop students to empower diversity in the future. But how is all of this managed? The internal structure of BEST exists to manage and support every service that BEST provides to our stakeholders and internal events play a key role in this. As an international organisation, much of our work is done online. Nevertheless, live events are an inherent part of the working culture of our organisation in order to function properly. Internal events fulfil this need by providing the foundation for developing our projects and facilitating the discussion among the members of our organisation.
Last year, 65 internal events contributed to the achievement of BEST’s goals for the year. Having one of the most developed internal training systems among student NGOs in the world represents not only a great asset for our organisation but also a great example of what internal events are. BEST TrainShops gather selected members of our local groups in a week-long internal event during which they get trained on a specific topic related to their current and future responsibilities inside the organisation, such as leadership, sales, graphic design, human resources management or marketing. Over the next few pages, we will introduce other major internal events required for the proper functioning of our organisation, such as General Meetings, which gather members from every local group of BEST or International Project’s Forum, which is a clear example of BEST’s working culture.
PRESIDENTS’ MEETING FLANDERS 2015 Between the 5th and the 11th of November 2015, the XXI Presidents’ Meeting brought together members from all over Europe driven by the will to shape the future of BEST. Local BEST Groups Leuven and Ghent joined forces and took a challenge to host almost 200 delegates, gathered to discuss and take decisions concerning the development of our organisation.
and corporate partners’ representatives from SEFI, FEANI, Agoria, Avery Dennison and Monsanto. The introduction part was followed by Job Fair and other activities happening in parallel: workshops, training sessions and interviews with companies.
Delegates from all Local BEST Groups were accompanied by the XXVIII Management of BEST, delegates from international teams, project coordinators and partner NGO representatives. During this event, the participants attended various workshops, training sessions, discussion groups and four full days of plenary sessions.
The following four days were dedicated to the discussions related to the evaluation of our services as well as internal matters and the work done by the international bodies of BEST in the first half of the mandate. This was done in the form of plenary sessions and parallel group discussions and every delegate had the opportunity to present work done by their local group and share their ideas with the whole organisation.
Presidents’ Meeting Flanders was kicked off with the Official Opening ceremony held in Brussels, on the 6th of November. It started wth welcome speeches from the President of BEST, organisers from Local BEST Groups Leuven and Ghent, representatives from KU Leuven and Ghent University and institutional
Presidents’ Meeting Flanders was an important decision-making milestone for the year 2015/2016. The event would not have been possible without the tremendous hard work of Local BEST Groups Ghent and Leuven that supported our work are delighted all participants with Belgian culture and traditions.
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BEST ANNUAL REPORT 15/16
GENERAL ASSEMBLY TALLINN 2016 Every spring the whole BEST gathers together to summarise the whole year’s work and decide upon the future of our organisation. The same thing happened this year - the XXXV General Assembly of BEST took place between 25th of April and 3rd of May 2016 in Tallinn. More than 280 participants from groups scattered all around the Europe came to the capital of Estonia to work together and enjoy the biggest internal event of BEST!
During the subsequent six plenary days, the most important issues were discussed, crucial decisions were taken and the XXIX Board of BEST was elected. The essential outcomes of the General Assembly 2016 were: Services and Growth Strategies were approved, Observer BEST Group Istanbul Bogazici became a member of our organisation and the process of adjusting internal bodies to the new structure was finalised.
General Assembly 2016 started with the Official Opening Day at Tallinn University of Technology (TUT). After listening to speeches from the President of BEST, FEANI Secretary General and organisers from Local BEST Group Tallinn, all the participants took part in OOD activities. Divided into groups, both BEST members and students from TUT discussed hot topics during Educational and Environmental Cafes. This concept was invented by the organisers from Tallinn and tried out for the first time at our General Meetings.
The presence of the representatives from two student associations for the first time is also worth mentioning: the Electrical Engineering Students’ European Association (EESTEC) and the National Association of Engineering Student Councils (NAESC) from the United States. The XXXV General Assembly marked a closure for the work in yet another BEST year but also the beginning for those who will lead our organisation for the following twelve months. The event would not have been possible without the Local BEST Group Tallinn which spared no effort and contributed immensely to the successful conduct of the event.
INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS’ FORUM The international scope of work in BEST is based on projects managed by international teams and the Board. Regardless of their nature or leader, this is how the ongoing development in BEST is arranged; clustered in small chunks, each with their own goal, human resources and usually a set of deadlines. Most importantly, sooner or later, some project will cross paths with others, influence them and cause a snowball effect that will push BEST forward. Due to the geographical spread, collaboration in projects is usually done through virtual communication channels. Nevertheless, some projects require inperson meetings of the team working on it. Once per year, a very special event takes place to gather the ones interesting in developing the international side of BEST in one place to create a platform for them to discuss and work: the International Projects’ Forum (IPF).
teams and members of Local BEST Groups (LBGs) met to work on high-priority issues that concerned the whole organisation. Important issues, such as the new Services Strategy of BEST, the Growth Strategy, Health Indicators for LBGs, BEST Application System and the BEST budget for 2016/17 were tackled during the 54 sessions that happened over the four days of the event. From a planning and performance point of view, IPF is more than an important milestone in the BEST calendar. 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 a better tomorrow for the engineering education world.
During the last IPF which took place in February in Moscow, Russia, more than 60 participants, including Board members, representatives of international
INTERNAL ACTIVITIES
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EXTERNAL RELATIONS
48. Erasmus+ 49. FEANI 49. SEFI 50. Partner NGOs 51. European Youth Forum 51. WEEF 2015 52. Round Table 53. Public Relations of BEST 54. Corporate Partners Articles 55. Relationship with Alumni
Being an organisation that strives to empower diversity and develop students means that our internal work only tells part of the story. BEST can only aim for having the biggest impact achievable by constantly being in contact with the world around us. That’s why we work together with a number of different partners from all different backgrounds - to ensure that the connection to the environment that surrounds us is as strong as possible. Student NGOs, professional organisations, youth umbrella platforms; the External Relations of BEST cover a wide range of formats, topics and people. Through these interactions, we are able to learn about our surroundings, share best practices with our peers, always broadening our network and increasing the impact of our actions. All of it with the goal of allowing us to do what we do best - make Europe a better place for students of technology.
ERASMUS+ The new Erasmus+ programme, created by the European Commission, aims to support projects and activities in the fields of Education, Training, Youth and Sport in Europe for the period 20142020. This new programme replaces seven existing funding programmes, including the Youth in Action programme (2007-2013) from which BEST has received support in previous years. The Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) is entrusted with the implementation of the programme and the management of actions at European level. After a successful application, BEST was recognised by the EACEA as a European NGO with relevant activity in the field of youth by being awarded a framework partnership agreement grant from the Erasmus+ programme under Key Action 3 : Civil Society Co-operation in the field of Youth. As a part of this framework, 43.953â‚Ź of funds was awarded to BEST to complete activities that are under the grant agreement. Specifically, BEST was recognised for contributing towards the employability
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of young people through the development of competences and skills by means of non-formal education, promoting intercultural learning and respecting diversity/equality, as well as adding to their personal, socio-educational and professional development. This grant provided structural support to implement activities during 2015-2016 covering statutory meetings, travel reimbursements, marketing and administrative expenses of the organisation. The support received through the Erasmus+ programme constituted a strong pillar for the internal structure of BEST as well as its projects and activities through funding. BEST recognises this programme as an invaluable support for the development of actions at European level aiming to increase and improve the impact of the services provided by the organisation towards the stakeholders, namely the European students of Technology. This support recognises the efforts of our almost 4000 volunteers and the 27 years of work. BEST is grateful for this invaluable support from the European Union.
BEST ANNUAL REPORT 15/16
FEANI FEANI is a federation of professional engineers that unites national engineering associations from 35 European countries. Thus, it 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. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the first contact between BEST and FEANI. As the European Federation of National Engineering Associations, FEANI represents the professional interests of engineers throughout Europe, actively working on a very high level on matters such as mobility and
accreditation. Once described by a former FEANI President as “BEST for grown-ups”, the synergy between our organisations and the potential to create a strong bond between present and future engineers guarantees that a solid cooperation would be a constant reality. Furthermore, in 2013 BEST moved its office to the FEANI Headquarters in Brussels, which strengthened our cooperation and our contacts. Over these 10 years, many interactions between the two organisations took place. FEANI has been constantly involved in the major events of BEST, constantly marking their presence at the General Meetings and EBEC Final, as well as helping BEST establish institutional contacts with several bodies in order to improve the quality of our work. This year, in parallel with the FEANI Annual Business Meetings in Lisbon, Portugal, FEANI organised the first edition of the European Young Engineers Forum. This youth conference, aimed at engineering students and young engineers, was organised in cooperation with BEST, which promoted it within the student community and also organised an engineering competition during the Forum.
SEFI SEFI (Société EuropéenneE pour la Formation des Ingénieurs) stands for European Society for Engineering Education and is one of our most valuable partners regarding engineering education. Having interacted for the first time in 1996, and official partners since 2015, BEST and SEFI are not strangers to each other and have reached several milestones together when it comes to working for the development of engineering education in Europe. Our cooperation and work towards our common goals takes place through our mutual attendance to events (Events on Education for SEFI & SEFI Conferences for BEST), online communication and access to both organisations’ channels. After 6 years in a row BEST has the pleasure to attend the SEFI Annual Conference. The 43rd SEFI Annual Conference in Orleans in France has the topic “Diversity in engineering education: an opportunity to face the new trends of engineering” and it took place during 29th of June and 2nd of July 2015, hosted by Polytech Orléans. BEST received an official invitation in order
to be represented and participate in the Conference. Aside from the Conference, three members of BEST were also invited by SEFI to participate in a debate session at the European Parliament in March, under the topic “Labour Market needs and Engineering Skills”. Finally during July 2016 BEST has organised an Educational Symposium in Copenhagen in close cooperation with SEFI. After the first year of cooperation under the Memorandum of Understanding, the relations between BEST and SEFI are now closer than ever, with a bright future looming ahead.
EXTERNAL ACTIVITIES
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PARTNER NGOs
Over the course of its existence, BEST has developed strong bonds with several other major student and youth organisations. BEST fosters communication and mutual exchange of best practices with these partner NGOs, enabling us to increase our organisational knowledge. In addition, a mutual exchange of members between our partners leads to new ideas and improvement. This year’s emphasis was on strengthening the cooperation with the partners we have and exploring new opportunities. This year that process has resulted in over 130 delegates and participants being exchanged between BEST’s and our partner’s events and several events organised together. This has led to the sharing of a great deal of information and knowledge. For the first time, two new NGOs also attended the General Assembly of BEST - EESTEC (Electrical Engineering Students’ European Association) and NAESC (National Association of Engineering Student Councils, from the USA) leading to possible cooperations lying ahead in the future. Currently, BEST has four official partners: AEGEE (European Students’ Forum) is Europe’s largest interdisciplinary student organisation. It promotes cooperation, communication and integration among young people in Europe. It consists of 13 000 members active in more than 200 universities. AEGEE has been a partner of BEST since 2010. Over the years, communication on topics like the dissemination of educational achievements, grants, and quality assurance has been established. Additionally, a joint Youth in Action grant with AEGEE was submitted in September 2013 and accepted, leading to a series of joint training events over the previous years. Our partner in Germany is bonding, a student association that bridges the gap between students and employers. They offer German students a broad range of projects aimed at increasing student insight of companies to help their future careers. bonding has over 350 members and local groups in 11 cities in Germany. We have been partners since 1997. As
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a result, the exchange of members between our organisations is still strong: in the course of 20152016 over 60 participants were exchanged during various events and one event was organised together. This organisation has also been supportive of our new BEST groups in Germany: Aachen and Erlangen. This year, the partnership between BEST and bonding was revised with the signing of a new Cooperation Agreement. During this upcoming year, the cooperation will reach its 20th anniversary - a milestone truly worth celebrating! The CFES (Canadian Federation of Engineering Students) is a national bilingual organisation, representing approximately 60 000 engineering students across Canada. CFES aims to provide 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. In the last year, cooperation has revolved around sharing on various topics like courses and engineering competitions. In 2015-2016, many CFES members participated in BEST Seasonal Courses as volunteers. This exchange was valuable to both sides and led to a better understanding of each other’s organisations. ESTIEM (European Students of Industrial Engineering and Management) was founded in 1990, and was established in order to connect IEM students all over Europe and provide them with a unique platform to support them in their personal and professional development. ESTIEM has been a partner of BEST since 2011. This year, our cooperation has strengthened significantly due to increased participant exchange in a variety of events. Contacts have been initiated on matters of educational involvement, marketing, alumni, competitions and knowledge management. Seeking additional opportunities, BEST is also a member of IFISO (Informal Forum of International Student Organisations): a platform of more than 20 international student organisations. It enables its members to easily collaborate, seek new opportunities and strengthen their capacities.
BEST ANNUAL REPORT 15/16
EUROPEAN YOUTH FORUM The European Youth Forum (also known as YFJ - Youth Forum Jeunesse) is a European platform comprised of more than 100 of the biggest and most relevant international non-governmental youth organisations and national youth councils in the continent. The YFJ makes use of their network and influence to be the voice of young people in Europe, advocating for their rights in many different fields, helping ensure that young people are treated as equals and are encouraged and supported to achieve their fullest potential as global citizens. Furthermore, the Forum also provides a strong support for its member organisations and helps them develop and become more recognised. YFJ works
closely with the Council of Europe, European Union and United Nations. Since April 2013, BEST has been an observer member of the Youth Forum and through this platform, BEST aims to become further engaged in European matters such as youth employment, mobility, formal and non-formal education and much more. This year BEST has been present at the YFJ Council of Members which took place in Madrid, as well as at the Council of Members in Brussels, Belgium. After a few years, BEST is becoming more aware of the opportunities within YFJ and better at involving ourselves in the platform.
WEEF WEEF (World Engineering Education Forum) took place in Florence, Italy, from 20-24th September 2015, as the biggest conference in Engineering Education. Counting with over 600 participants, BEST was represented by three members: Marta Cortesão and Tiago Monteiro from Porto, Portugal (as a Total sponsorship), and Andreea Militaru from Messina, Italy. With a high start, BEST got the chance to make an introductory speech at the inaugural session, emphasising the importance of students in the development of education. Aiming for an increased students’ engagement at the 2015 edition, the BEST members prepared and facilitated two sessions of the extensive programme: a panel discussion on “How to involve students in Education”; and an Open Space Technology session. Besides that, BEST presented a scientific paper entitled “17 year evolution of the students’ perspective on innovative teaching,
curricular development and e-learning in Europe” - a work done by members of the Education Department of BEST, summarizing 17 years of undergraduate research in Higher European Education. To top it off, BEST was invited as a panel member at the SEFICOPI round table on “Attractiveness of Engineering Education”, where some of the results from the Event on Education (EoE) Aveiro 2013 were presented. Organised by IFEES (the International Federation of Engineering Education Societies) WEEF is one of the most important events for BEST to be present at. It has been our goal to show our concern for the development of education, to transmit our work to relevant people in the field and to increase our network. BEST has been proudly contributing to WEEF, since the past 10 years, and it is looking forward for its future editions.
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ROUND TABLE Every year, BEST strives to meet with current and potential partners at BEST Partners’ Round Table gathering with participant representatives from companies, institutions, technical universities and business schools. Participant stakeholders have the opportunity to get to know BEST more and also network with other participants of the gathering. During this short and intensive gathering, BEST presents its services, activities and ongoing projects of the organisation and hold discussions about how to increase business and industry co-operation as well as how to get them closer to talented, creative and internationally-minded students of technology from all over Europe. This year BEST also hold discussions about new possible events,innovative online services and improving current partnership levels, moreover, it was a dynamic opportunity for BEST to gather feedback from participant representatives about BEST in general.
Schedule of the event:
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Another important goal of our Round Table is to talk about the needs and expectations of our stakeholders, ask for their input to determine missing points in our services and then work together on finding ways in which BEST can meet those expectations. This way, we are able to develop our services and provide a better value for our stakeholders. During this course, BEST organised two Round Tables. The first one was held in Brussels, Belgium, before the Presidents’ Meeting in November 2015 and the most recent one took place in Brussels, Belgium as well, before our BEST Career Day 2016. Representatives from Procter & Gamble, Total, Cargill, Project Management Institute, Deutsche Bahn, EIT Digital, Veolia, Altran and our institutional partner FEANI were together with us during these events. These events give us the opportunity to discover new ways of improving the cooperation & our communication with our participant stakeholders and set the premise for long-term and successful collaborations.
16:00
Introduction
16:30
BEST in a nutshell & Services Strategy
17:00
Presidents Meeting Official Opening Day
17:15 BEST Working Methods & Corporate Partnership 17:45
Online recruitment tools
18:30
Coffee and networking
18:45
BEST Career Webinar
19:00
EBEC
19:30
Introduction to the BEST Career Day
20:00
Closing and Official Picture
BEST ANNUAL REPORT 15/16
PUBLIC RELATIONS OF BEST We present the statistics of followers numbers for the period between 1st of July 2015 and 30th of June 2016. They may differ from the current.
Facebook 18107 14997 11800
7980 5285
BESTorg
6480
6479
5285
EBEC
6479
Season Events SEASON
EVENTS
5890
1284
1598
937
1304
4500 923 748
BESTorg
EBEC
Legend:
2014
2015
EXTERNAL ACTIVITIES
2016
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CORPORATE PARTNER ARTICLE
Partner General Electric Hello everybody. It’s Mateusz Treder, LBG Gdansk Alumnus, member of the XXV International Board of BEST - The Band and currently a mechanical engineer within the Edison Engineering Development Program (EEDP) for the GE Power and Water business located in Warsaw. When you are a young student at the university campus, while hearing the name “BEST”, there are certain words that come to your mind - Traveling, Learning, Fun, Teamwork, Improvement. After you engage into BEST activities and experience the true BEST spirit, you realize what’s behind these words –a fantastic group of friends doing exciting projects all over Europe. Over a couple of years I managed to lead international teams, travel to 32 different countries, meet and work with plenty of amazing people, creating lifetime friendships. These were exciting times, running interesting projects and making a real impact on the development of European students of technology. BEST simply provides a fast track professional and personal growth that you don’t want to give up after stepping into Alumni life. What to do next? How to find a perfect continuation of this inspiring environment, where you could continue your personal development and be challenged in a creative and fun way? These were the thoughts I had some years ago. Luckily I found EEDP at GE – a flagship graduate program focused on developing technical and leadership capabilities. It consists of 4 rotations each lasting 6 months. Besides on the job learning, you are enrolled into a state-of-the art training program based on life events, online courses and hands on workshops.
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As a matter of fact, 2 years on the Edison program can be compared to 10 years on a regular position in another company. This very steep learning curve is very typical for GE. It is one of the biggest companies in the world so every day you are working in multinational teams solving the toughest problems for human kind. Being resilient, hungry to win, able to judge the situation and make often hard decisions in order to win in the marketplace and deliver excellent solutions is a key to be considered a successful employee within GE. At the same time, one must remember that (same as in BEST) it is all about teamwork – not only looking out for your teammates but also to be authentic and accountable, this way building trust and rapport, indispensable for achieving a success. As a former BEST member, you can greatly buildon your already developed set of skills (project management, teamwork, and flexibility), passion for travelling & learning. Having excellent online communication skills comes handy when you start a day solving a problem with engineers from Asia Pacific region and finishing your day with a technical review with Americans. GE is always seeking people willing to make an impact, hungry to win, thriving in new environments. BESTies have always demonstrated these attributes thus being of interest for GE as a potential employee. There are various graduate programs that GE is running across different functions (Finance, Operations, Commercial, IT, HR) and Edison is just one of them. If you are a technology enthusiast who wants to further build on skills developed at BEST, reach out for more information and join the numerous BEST Alumni at GE.
BEST ANNUAL REPORT 15/16
RELATIONSHIP WITH ALUMNI As an organisation that spans almost three decades, many people have come and gone. This means that thousands of former active BEST members are currently spread throughout the world, fulfilling their careers in a myriad of different fields. In order to keep their contact with the organisation, the BEST Alumni Network aims to maintain and develop the connections among former members, as well as between them and the active members. The Alumni of BEST represent a unique source of knowledge and wisdom which is extremely valuable for the young members who are now taking care of BEST. As it is often said, ‘those who don’t learn from mistakes are deemed to repeat them’. As such, we happily welcome the contribution of our Alumni to our day-to-day work. Through the Alumni Network BEST ensures that this contact is not lost and several generations of members can be a part of the actions being undertaken today. In order to communicate, the Alumni of BEST use several online channels, such as mailing lists and dedicated groups on social networks. Additionally,
multiple events are organised throughout the year, in which former members can meet with each other, network and discuss ideas and experiences. The Alumni Meetings of BEST took place alongside the General Meetings of the organisation – in November 2015 in Flanders, Belgium, and in April 2016 in Tallinn, Estonia. Both meetings brought together hundreds of former members who enjoyed their time together, in close proximity to the active members who were working in the parallel General Meeting. This was also the year in which a lot of important decisions regarding the future of the Alumni community were taken. Projects in the field of improving communication with local alumni communities and developing the overall state of the network were conducted by the Alumni Coordinator, Pierre Rondou from the Local BEST Group Liège. Furthermore, there is a currently undergoing initiative, fully supported by BEST, that can deeply impact the future of the Alumni Network of BEST – the establishment of an independent international nonprofit association dedicated to the Alumni of BEST and their network.
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PARTNERS OF BEST
“MOL Group experienced a successful strategic partnership with BEST over the past few years. This is also reflected in the recent graduate recruitment program, during which we hired several BEST participants in our Headquarters in Budapest. MOL Group is looking forward to continue the cooperation, and meet talented students at BEST events.” MOL Group
“As one of the leading companies offering international opportunities and a flexible career advancement we are looking for the best talents in the market with a clear leadership potential, an international mindset and always ready to make the difference! Thanks to our cooperation with BEST we are able to meet some of the greatest engineers in the marketplace!” Whirlpool
Corporate Partners
General Electric
Career Support Partners
Salini Impregilo
Procter & Gamble
Whirlpool
Airbus Group
MOL
Supporter Partner
Veolia
University Partners
EIT Digital
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IFP School
Vlerick
BEST ANNUAL REPORT 15/16
ESMT
Koc University
Do you want to find out more about BEST? BEST.eu.org info@BEST.eu.org facebook.com/BESTorg twitter.com/BESTorg linkedin.com/company/best flickr.com/photos/BESTorg