Our aim is to further extend and strengthen the existing relationship with four European universities into strategic partnerships, these universities are in Bilbao (University of the Basque Country, UPV, Spain), Leuven (KU Leuven, Belgium), Kaunas (KTU Kaunas, Lithuania) and Trondheim (NTNU, Norway).

To enable the exchange of students and academic staff, we believe that short-term mobilities and block teaching units are the way to go. They can be easily adapted to the academic year and programme of our partner universities, as well as to the work schedules of our participants. Participants can choose within different Summer Schools, Winter Schools, Conferences, Block Weeks, Workshops, Cross Border Projects, eLearning and Case Studies.

The partnership is based on joint Master´s programmes in the field of Project and Innovation Management and Engineering, as well as the corresponding research in these subjects. Partners in Dortmund are the „European Master in Project Management (EuroMPM)“, the „Master Embedded Systems for Mechatronics (ESM)“, the „Master of Digital Transformation (MDT)” programmes.

The target is to strengthen these partnerships and to deepen and increase the sustainability of the cooperation. Joint masters courses and concentration on the inherently international and interdisciplinary topics, like project and innovation management, as well as the engineering disciplines, should offer significant added value for all five partners. The master courses can benefit from exchanges and synergies by offering joint modules and teaching approaches, e.g. summer schools, block weeks, workshops, cross border projects, eLearning, case studies, conferences etc. Jointly supervised theses or doctorate programmes can further strengthen the partnerships. These measures lead to an increase in the exchange of students, lecturers and academic staff, which helps to develop more regular and intensive teamwork of the partner network.