Universities that offer study programs in telecommunication engineering are experiencing a reduced number of students despite the fact that telecommunications is a pillar in modern economy. The major reason is that the telecom industry is passing through significant changes and the labor market requires a new profile for the telecom engineer (TE): a professional that is trained in the broad ICT domain, that owns both technical and market oriented skills and, therefore, that can contribute to the techno-economic society challenges. To render the study program more attractive and to boost the TE profile, a new project will be launched in October 2017 titled BENEFIT.
BENEFIT stands for Boosting the Telecommunications Engineer Profile to Meet Modern Society and Industry Needs
Three are the main pillars:
a) the cooperation between HEIs and industry to modernize the study program in telecommunication engineering;
b) the adoption of modern teaching methodologies and tools, the upgrade of the infrastructure, and the creation of joint university-industry labs;
c) the implementation of training of both teachers and students. Furthermore, to increase the level of cooperation, visibility and sustained opportunities the project will develop an integrated e-platform giving access to class material for e-learning, training/internships in the region, listing of universities and companies, employment opportunities, and events of both technical nature and accessible to the general public.
The project is coordinated by prof. A. Tonello and it involves overall 19 partners: University of Klagenfurt, University of Ljubljana, University of Osijek, University of Banja Luka, University of Sarajevo, University of Tuzla, University of Belgrade, University of Nis, University of Novi Sad, Bicom, Bit Centar, Cisco, Cluster Ni-Cat, Ericsson, RT-RK, AlfaNum, Schneider Electric, Vojvodina ICT Cluster, Zesium Mobile.
BENEFIT will be funded by the ERASMUS+ KA2 Capacity Building in Higher Education program with a budget of 960k Euros.
