[2017/18] Annual Report

Board of European Students of Technology

ANNUAL

REPORT 2017/2018

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

Sofia Soto Almeida designer Mariniki Santorinaiou Gabor Ersek Galina Androsova Georgia Pantolona Gustavo Fonseca Hanija Bujas Joao Peixoto Laura Ray Ksenija Ulicevic Sara Santos Veronica Verclan Ognjen Lukacevic Enescan Karaer editors Sara Kiprijanova Oliwia Lechanska reviewers

Table of contents 1. About BEST

What is BEST BEST in numbers Board and Coordinators Presidents and Universities Structure of BEST New LTSP 2021

2. Services

EBEC

BEST Courses BSE BCC

4 6 7 8 10 12 13 14 16 18 20 21

3. Internal Activities

22 Internal strategic events at a glance 24

4. External Connections

BEST and Erasmus+

Joint Grant Application 2018

Attendance in conferences

Position Papers in BEST Partners

BEST Alumni Network

26 28 29 30 31 32 33

Welcome! Bine ai venit! Bemvindo! Bienvenue!

Hoşgeldin!

Bienvenido!

Benvenuto! Ласкаво просимо!

Welkom! Добро пожаловать! Добро дошли! Καλωσόρισμα!

Vítejte! Tere tulemast! Добредојдовте!

Vitajte! Üdvözlünk!

Dobro došli!

Willkommen!

Dobrodošli!

Tervetuloa!

Välkommen!

Velkommen!

Dobrodošli! Esiet sveicināti! Добре дошли! Sveiki atvykę! Velkomin!

3

1 BEST About

What is BEST? The Board of European Students of Technology, also known as BEST, came to existence in April 1989. It has been 29 years that BEST has been connecting students of technology from all over Europe. Currently we are composed of 97 groups from 34 countries. BEST has developed itself to be a center for innovation in the educational field and student support, and also organised to work for a million students from the hundred universities that we take part in.

BEST works to ensure students are able to apply their full potential in a culturally diverse environment and to achieve this we constantly strive to find new and diverse opportunities for the development of students of technology.

The focus of the organisation has revolved around three main areas. First, we provide complementary education to the one our universities already provide, making knowledge ever closer to the students in need, from all over Europe. Our most notable service on this is the organisation of one hundred courses, gathering students from several different backgrounds.

Secondly, BEST offers itself to be a platform for the educational involvement. To do this, we gather students, academy and industry’s input on how education should be improved so solutions can be proposed to the higher education institutions. Thirdly and last, BEST acts as a network between the industry, academy and students so opportunities can be found of collaboration and also providing career support to our students so they can get closer to their future.

With over 3000 members working to provide all this, it would not be possible without our values. In BEST we learn and improve on everything we do. We remain flexible to the adversities, all this while working in a highly cooperative and friendly environment and having fun in everything we do.

6

BEST in numbers

34

countries

45,2%

97

&

Local BEST Groups

4530

Members

% of members per field of study Computer Science/Automatic Control/Informatics 13,7% Mechanical Engineering 9,4% Computer Engineering 8,5%

54,8%

Electronic/Electrotechnical Engineering 7,3% Industrial Engineering 4,8% Electrical/Electromechanical Engineering 4,5% Economics/Business Administration/Marketing 4,5%

% of members by country Romania 8,6% Portugal 7,8% Poland 7,8% France 6,9% Turkey 6,2%

Spain 5,6% Belgium 5,3% Italy 5,2%

Civil Engineering 4,4% Physics/Physics Engineering 4% Chemical Engineering 3,5% Mathematics 3,5% Biomedical Engineering 3,4% Telecommunications/Electronics 3,1%

and many more

Computational Sciences 3% Biological/Biotechnical/Gene Engineering 3% Other 19,4% Sources: LBG Reports https://private.best.eu.org/statistics/accounts/index.jsp?type=active https://private.best.eu.org/statistics/accounts/country.jsp?type=active https://private.best.eu.org/statistics/accounts/studyField.jsp?type=active

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International Board & Department Coordinators

leaders “The of BEST are

the ones who set the vision The Compass XXX International Board of BEST President Gustavo Fonseca Treasurer Majd Mekouar Ouazzani Secretary Veronica Verlan

Vice-President for Human Resources Sara Santos Vice-President for Projects Georgia Pantalona Vice-President for Services AntĂłnio Ribeiro Vice-President for Local Group Support Mariniki Santorinaiou

8

To maintain and develop an organisation like ours, it is necessary to have people that envions what BEST can be. The leaders of BEST are the ones who set the vision however in collaboration with the entire organisation, draw the steps in order to reach the goal. They are the ones who define the pace and together with their teams and departments, they contribute to the development of BEST by developing themselves and others around them.

Being a member of the Board, a Department or Project Coordinator, means giving a large part of their year to support and guide the volunteers, in order to fulfill the mission and vision of BEST.

The Magnets Department Coordinators

Project Coordinators

Competitions Department Coordinator André Rocha Corporate Relations Department Coordinator Ana-Maria Brinza Design Department Coordinator Alexander Zozulya Educational Involvement Department Coordinator Hanija Bujas Grants Department Coordinator Ksenija Ulicevic Information Technology Department Coordinator Ana Vuksic Membership Department Coordinator Patrícia Pires/Vicente Frances Molla Public Relations Department Coordinator Carolina Amorim Training Department Coordinator Gianluca de Vita Vivaldi Department Coordinator Enescan Karaer

Public Relations Strategy 2.0 Project Coordinator Dunja Dragojevic BEST Career Day 2018 Project Coordinator Katarina Jojic General Meetings Reforming Project Coordinator Mateusz Bialas Position Papers Project Coordinator João Peixoto Regional Meetings Development Project Coordinator Miguel Marques Market Assessment Project Coordinator Teodora Pavlovic Services Performance Indicators Project Coordinator Gábor Érsek

9

Presidents & Universities

10

Timo Gollub

RWTH Aachen University of Technology

Aachen

Emil Bock Nielsen

Aalborg University

Aalborg

Ana Cavaleiro

New University of Lisbon

Almada

Özkan Umutcan Bapbacı

Middle East Technical University

Ankara

Ilias Parmaksizoglou

National Technical University of Athens

Athens

Miguel Oliveira

University of Aveiro

Aveiro

Laura Mucha

Technical University of Catalonia

Barcelona

Stefan Vukomanovic

University of Belgrade

Belgrade

Narcisa Groza

“Transilvania” University of Brasov

Brasov

Richard Kopál

Slovak University of Technology

Bratislava

Zuzana Stubianova

Brno University of Technology

Brno

Quinten Goens

Free University of Brussels (VUB)

Brussels

Aurélie De Clercq

University of Brussels (ULB)

Brussels ULB

Sergiu Lazar

POLITEHNICA University of Bucharest

Bucharest

Gergely Fürnstáhl

Budapest University of Technology and Economics

Budapest

Lorris Bougon

CentraleSupélec

CentraleSupelec

Emmanouela Dandouti

Technical University of Crete (T.U.C.)

Chania

Alexei Shershun

Technical University of Moldova

Chisinau

Horea Rusu

Technical University of Cluj-Napoca

Cluj-Napoca

António Louro

University of Coimbra

Coimbra

Jakub Brzosko

Technical University of Denmark

Copenhagen

Ligaya Wopereis

Delft University of Technology

Delft

Arthur Guyazov

Urals State University of Railway Transport

Ekaterinburg

Nastya Chesnokova

Ural Federal University

Ekaterinburg UrFU

Alexandre Briges

Arts et Métiers ParisTech

ENSAM

Axel Bertrand

ENSTA Bretagne

ENSTA Bretagne

Adrien Vasseur

ENSTA ParisTech

ENSTA ParisTech

Fabian Berreth

Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg

Erlangen

Katarzyna Malinowska

Gdansk University of Technology

Gdansk

Senne Meeusen

Ghent University

Ghent

Maksym Brzeczek

Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice

Gliwice

El-Emin Fejzagic

Chalmers University of Technology

Gothenburg

Miguel Yuste Fernández Alonso

Graz University of Technology

Graz

Benoît George

Grenoble Institute of Technology

Grenoble

Timon Garnier

University of Groningen

Groningen

Aki Malinen

Aalto University

Helsinki

Alexandru Sulic

“Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iasi

Iasi

Mehmet Emin Akkurt

Suleyman Demirel University

Isparta

Doruk Öztürk

Istanbul Technical University

Istanbul

Ogun Ozcelik

Bogazici University

Istanbul Bogazici

Onat Can

Yildiz Technical University

Istanbul Yildiz

Batuhan Erez

Ege University

Izmir

Aivaras Sidlauskas

Kaunas University of Technology

Kaunas

Mariia Briantseva

NationalTechnical University of Ukraine “Kyiv Polytechnic Institute” Kiev

Michaela Kupcová

Technical University of Kosice

Kosice

Aleksandra Oles

AGH-UST - University of Science and Technology

Krakow

Laura Medina

Las Palmas of Gran Canaria University

Las Palmas

Michiel Avau

KU Leuven

Leuven

Quentin Chavet

University of Liege

Liege

João Peixoto

University of Lisbon

Lisbon

Katja Fon Mervic

University of Ljubljana

Ljubljana

Monika Dziembowska

Lodz University of Technology

Lodz

Quentin Groulard

Catholic University of Louvain

Louvain-la-Neuve

Filippa Bengtsson

Lund University, Faculty of Engineering

Lund

Pylyp Panchenko

Lviv Polytechnic National University

Lviv

Maria Sanchez Moliner

INSA Lyon

Lyon

Patricia del Campo

Technical University of Madrid

Madrid

George Sebastian Roma

Carlos III University of Madrid

Madrid Calos III

Simona Siljanovska

University of Maribor

Maribor

Giuseppe Ipsale

University of Messina

Messina

Chiara Esposito

Politecnico di Milano

Milan

Larisa Salbieva

Bauman Moscow State Technical University

Moscow

Enes Alesevic

University “Dzemal Bijedic” of Mostar

Mostar

Antoine Teillet

University of Lorraine

Nancy

Gennaro Amendola

University of Naples “Federico II” Amendola

Naples

Natalija Tonic

University of Nis

Nis

Jovana Medjo

University of Novi Sad

Novi Sad

Slimane Thabet

Ecole Polytechnique

Paris Polytechnique

Melina Bousiou

University of Patras

Patras

Jovan Radnic

University of Montenegro

Podgorica

Simão Lúcio

University of Porto

Porto

Jan Spale

Czech Technical University in Prague

Prague

Rannveig Ósk Jónsdóttir

University of Iceland

Reykjavik

Edzus Utinans

Riga Technical University

Riga

Francesco Starna

Sapienza University of Rome

Rome

Vito Stefano Gozzo

University of Rome Tor Vergata

Rome Tor Vergata

Anton Didenko

Saint Petersburg State Polytechnical University

Saint Petersburg

Marija Horvat

University “Ss. Cyril and Methodius”

Skopje

Simeon Pavlov

Technical University of Sofia

Sofia

Ghassan Alrheis

Royal Institute of Technology

Stockholm

Merilyn Anton

Tallinn University of Technology

Tallinn

Teemu Lepistö

Tampere University of Technology

Tampere

Vasileios Karapatsias

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Thessaloniki

Osoian Radu

“Politehnica” University of Timisoara

Timisoara

Jens Danbolt

Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Trondheim

Vittorio Moccia

Politechnic of Turin

Turin

Fergus Incoronato

Uppsala University

Uppsala

Carlos Francisco Ortiz Cornejo

Polytechnic University of Valencia

Valencia

Iván Contreras

University of Valladolid

Valladolid

Meriem Alotti

University of Pannonia

Veszprém

Denis Uzelgecici

Vienna University of Technology

Vienna

Andrii Kovalchuk

Vinnytsia National Technical University

Vinnytsia

Aneta Artych

Warsaw University of Technology

Warsaw

Igor Jablonski

Wroclaw University of Technology

Wroclaw

Ivan Despot

University of Zagreb

Zagreb

Alina Lashchenkova

Zaporizhzhya National Technical University

Zaporizhzhya

Anna Leidi

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich

Zurich

11

Structure of BEST Covering 34 countries and reaching 1.3 million technical students, BEST has grown into a vast European organisation. There are 97 Local BEST Groups, spread around Europe, forming the basis of this organisation. Each group is present at exactly one university and has its own local board, its own practices, traditions and culture. Like pieces of a puzzle, each of them has its own shape and place in BEST. The connection between all of them is the common values of BEST which they all endorse as their own. This connection empowers BEST to be a strong organisation providing services for European students of technology.

Building on the basis of local groups, we have several international teams working to smoothen the communication between the groups and provide support when needed. Spread over the international teams of diverse size and aim, approximately 15% of our active members are working in myriad of domains ranging from educational involvement to IT, from writing and researching into grants application to career support, from competitions and complementary education to training and PR. Since 2015 the organisational structure of BEST changed to that of a matrix structure. This was a result of several years of evaluations of the previous structure and working on the new one.

In general a matrix organizational structure is a company structure in which the reporting relationships are set up as a grid, or matrix, rather than in the traditional hierarchy. In other words, employees have dual reporting relationships generally to both a functional manager and a project manager. The basis of the matrix structure in BEST are functional areas, represented by departments, and projects.

There are ten departments ensuring that the functioning of the organisation is supported and each has a distinct area of expertise.

These areas are Education, Corporate Relations, Grants, External Events, Internal Training, IT, PR, Design, Competitions and Support to Local Groups. Each of these is led by the department 12

coordinator who ensures the coherence of their respective activities with the other bodies of BEST. Another important part of the international work in the organisation are projects. Several projects take place every year and involve members of different departments as well as members of local groups who are not otherwise internationally involved. Many of these projects aim to develop the organisation, either regarding its internal working methods, or directly affecting the services that BEST provides to its stakeholders.

At the top level, BEST has an International Board consisting of seven members, who represent the organisation, coordinate the different bodies of BEST, ensure good communication between them, and facilitate the global development of the organisation’s programmes and activities.

1.3M students within reach 97 Local BEST Groups 33 countries 29 years

New LTSP 2021

“

(...) we also are focusing more on measuring our performance and results (...)

The last year was not only the final year for the implementation of the Strategic Plan 20152018 of BEST but it was also the creation of a new one. After several discussions on the strategy of the organisation and the involvement of the whole organisation in developing its strategic objectives we have concluded that the organisation will be focusing during the next 3 years on 5 different areas:

1. An increase in stakeholder assessment so we can better satisfy their needs

2. Providing an environment for innovation

3. Improve our financial management capacity

4. Strengthen our corporate relations by providing professional assistance on our collaborations

5. Have a bigger involvement of all of our members in the organisation development

Apart from these areas we also are focusing more on measuring our performance and results so we can have a better idea of the state of the organisation and where do we want to reach in the next three years.

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2

Services

EBEC Challenge 2017/2018 In order to provide such Core Services as complementary education and career support, BEST organises yearly engineering competitions called European BEST Engineering Competition (EBEC) which is a 3-phased, team-based competition in 2 categories - Team Design and Case Study. Both categories are based on interdisciplinary tasks developed for students of technology.

This year the concept was changed to EBEC Challenge which is a 2-phased competition. Participants from 74 top technical universities all over Europe had a chance to compete against each other in teams of four and prove that they deserve to be called engineers.

The winning teams of 74 Local Rounds (LRs) proceeded to one of the 12 National or Regional Rounds (NRRs) respectively to the city in which the Local Round took place in.

BEST “(...) organises

yearly engineering competitions called European BEST Engineering Competition

16

EBEC Challenge is concepted in a way that all the participants in each NRR National or Regional Round would work in an aligned way all together, to solve a bigger European — wide problem, which is Smart Cities. Each NRR solved individually a set of subproblems which covered many different and important fields such as:

- autonomous fire trucks; - intelligent trail rails organisation; - sorting out machines; - zero-energy buildings; - green energy models; - usage of drones for postal office and for transportation of people;

- systems to find a car.

Then the solutions were combined in order to solve the European-wide problem. This way, the participants of EBEC Challenge, from different parts of Europe, were working together towards the same goal, while working on differents parts of the same project.

17

BEST Courses 2017/2018 Complementary education is one of the main areas that BEST is passionate about and for decades, we have been providing a significant added value to STEM students of Europe through the organisation of academical BEST Courses.

BEST Courses give students the opportunity to get to know students from different universities, work with professors and company representatives from different countries and develop their knowledge on a variety of subjects. The topics of the events can vary from technical to career related skills or based on putting their theoretical knowledge into practice through applied engineering. The events can be basic: aiming to give an introduction to the interested students and not requiring previous knowledge. There are also several advanced courses organised which aim to develop the students’ knowledge and increase their expertise on the area.

In order to be a part of these events, it is required to be a part of technical or science programs in one of the universities where BEST is present. Once the application period ends, the organising local groups go through the motivation letters and their answers to three custom questions and select at least 22 participants based on their interest, academic background and other several criteria.

Last year, 86 BEST Courses were organised in our member universities. They have received more than 13000 applications from 8000 students and more than 1800 students took part in these inspiring events. These events also welcomed students, as organisers or participants, from our partner NGOs and introduced them to our service.

In order to make sure that a certain quality is provided to our stakeholders, an international team called Vivaldi Department has been providing guidance to our local BEST groups.

It has been providing assistance in the forms of providing helpful documents, various tools and even mentors, who are experienced in course organisation and in reaching certain quality standards. This year, the sharing among mentors was increased in order to provide more knowledge and assistance to our LBGs. 18

As the experience of organisation skills of our local groups have developed throughout the years, in order to assist the LBGs with their desired quality, a quality assurance tool called Golden Apple has been in effect for the last two years. The LBGs compete in order to achieve the ultimate prize of Golden Apple. The percentage of the course organising LBGs that have participated in this race has increased to 82%. As we noticed that the interest of LBGs has raised in the last year, we have evaluated and developed the concept of our gamification system to raise the quality.

As an organisation that meets the needs of our stakeholders and tries to follow the current trends of services in Europe, a short intensive meeting was organised in Ghent, Belgium to talk about the current state of our BEST Courses and discussions were held in order to come up with improvement points for our service. In the event, several ideas were drafted for a potential new BEST Course type and many improvement points were explored for the development of our beloved service which has provided an incredible experience to thousands of students all around Europe since 1991.

year, “Last 86 BEST

Courses were organised in our member universities.

19

BEST Symposia on Education A BEST Symposia on Education (BSE) is an event where students, local and international professors, experts from different industrial or research associations, higher education institutions and company representatives discuss educational matters and try to improve European higher education.

The outcomes of the discussions are afterwards gathered in a final report. Through the analysis of different BSE reports, papers are submitted and, when accepted, presented to international conferences on education such as SEFI AC, WEEF, ICL etc. BSEs are mainly run by the Educational Involvement Department (EduID), in cooperation with the Local BEST group that is hosting the event.

The topics that are discussed vary: they can be proposed by EduID or be related to Educational Projects connected to the European Commission, where BEST, through EduID is involved.

An BSE lasts around a week, and involves:

- 20-25 students; - content team members; - professors: from the host university or international experts;

- representatives from EU educational projects;

- company representatives.

20

As in any other BEST event, there are also social activities, such as sightseeing and city rally, company visits, and cultural visits.

EoE Rome Tor Vergata Fantastic Lear ning Methods And Where To Find Them EoE Porto Education: Be Part Of The Next Generation EoE Chania Refreshing Education: Update, Rethink, Grow

BEST Career Center BEST Career Centre is a service which aims to assist help students in to finding their dream companies, to help universities to get quality applicants and finally help companies to spot find employees that suit their needs. The main goal of BCC is to bring students, universities and companies together. By using our tools, such as career newsletters, CV database, special career pages on our public website and webinars, students and our stakeholders can benefit from BCC. We constantly strive to improve the services that we offer and this year we have started a project focused strictly on this. By enhancing the tools under the brand of BCC, we will make it even easier for our stakeholders to start collaborating with us and reach employees they seek.

Students and graduates will also benefit from it by getting higher quality materials and using a more intuitional website. Under BCC we offer our stakeholders the following services:

Career Newsletters

Career Newsletters provide information about current offers of our stakeholders to students via e-mail. By using this channel we can promote for instance: internship or job offers, special programmes or career events that are held by a company.

What is also worth mentioning is that one can choose the target group he wants to be reached by the newsletter e.g.: graduates from 2016.

Public Website

Public website of BEST(best.eu.org) allows companies and universities to put some information about them in special career section.

Besides, they can promote their special career or study offers there. It is a great way of showing potential employees, what the culture of the company/university is and what the perspectives for the future are.

main “The goal of BCC is to bring students, universities and companies together.

CV Database

We have close to 60 000 CVs in our database.

CVs are collected during career events, academic season courses and other related activities in the events that we organize. What really matters here though, is the fact that those are internationally minded people with huge ambition and strong technical background. Our Partners can be searching through the database anytime they want.

Webinars

As technology develops, the possibility of meeting with many people from across the globe world has been given. Our Partners can organise a Webinar -during an online meeting which they can get acquainted the participants with e.g. the working methods used inside the company or discuss the career opportunities in details. The main purpose is to provide direct online interaction between students and our stakeholders representatives. It is a great, innovative way of organising presentations or workshops that in the past could only happen on live events.

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3

Internal Activities

Internal strategic events at a glance BEST being an international organisation, with members from all across europe, in order to move forward and develop most of the work needs to happen virtually. Nevertheless, to progress in a faster more efficient way an amount of live events is taking place throughout the year. These events are hosted by the local BEST groups and the people participating differ.

Considering the way BEST is operating at the moment, most of the work that aims to fulfill any strategic goal of the organisation is based on projects, managed either by International Teams or the International Board. Most of the strategic direction and development that needs to happen though, regards more than one area of BEST and in order to efficiently cooperate to reach the desired results, two live events take place during one best year. Those events aim to gather relevant people in one place allowing them to discuss and work to take BEST one step further, these events are called International Projects’ Forum (IPF). This year the Summer IPF took place in Podgorica, Montenegro and the Winter IPF took place in Gdansk Poland, gathering in around around 60 people per event and discussing in average 42 topics. During just those 8 working days, high-priority issues were discussed and a lot of solutions and improvements were discovered to later be implemented.

Appart from the IPFs this year were organised 9 more internal events that aimed to fulfil the strategic goals that were set in the beginning of the year. A big goal of the year was the creation of the Strategic Plan 2018-2021, in order to achieve that goal three events were organised with different aims. First is the LTSP 2015-2018 Evaluation Short Intensive Meeting (SIM) was organised in Madrid, Spain, that event aimed to evaluate the previous Strategic Plans identifying the ways they could be improved for the creation of the next one. Next was the LTSP Workshop which happened in Lisbon, Portugal and gathered around 15 participants to create the Objectives that the organisation will work towards for the next three years. Finally, it was the Metrics Short 24

Intensive Meeting which happened in Aveiro, Portugal and aimed to gather metrics, set their targets and measure them in order for the ones that are indicating the fulfillment of the Objectives to be added in the Strategic Plan.

During this year a focus was also put in our services, with more emphasis in EBEC and BEST Courses. For EBEC, an evaluation Short Intensive Meeting was organised in Turin, Italy during which important topics for the improvement and sustainability of the competition were discussed. For BEST Courses, an event to develop them happened in Ghent, Belgium in which the service was evaluated and new ideas to extend it were discussed. For all of the services, the Visual Identities of their logos were created, work that was kicked off in the Visual Identity Short Intensive Meeting in Brest, France.

Finally, this year another main area that was put focus on, was to improve the skills in both Corporate Relations as well as writing grants of the internationally people involved in those areas.

For that reason two short Intensive Trainings took place, one for CR in Aachen, Germany and one for grants in Delft, Netherlands. In order to have people properly trained to deliver in those types of events another internal event happened to develop the concept of the technical tutors academy, in Vienna, Austria.

Live events are the tool BEST uses to work faster and to reach more effectively the most important strategic goals of the year. They are important milestones in the BEST calendar and they are gathering people from all across Europe to work voluntarily on building a better future for the European students of Technology.

events “These are hosted by

the local BEST groups and the people participating differ.

25

4

External

Connections

BEST and Erasmus+, aren’t those different things?

As you might have noticed, Erasmus+ is present in the activities of BEST since quite a few years ago. You might wonder why this connection is present in our events, it is time to find out!

All our internal meetings that aim to work for our objectives and help us follow our strategy are Co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union. They provide us of structural support under the topic “Civil Society Cooperation in the fields of Youth”. This is possible because our activities promote the employability, foster the empowerment, contribute to the development and promote intercultural learning, debate and inclusion among European youth.

Another thing you might not know about the Framework Partnership Agreement that we have with Erasmus+ helps our organisation not only with financial support but also with guiding, through their feedback on our anual and long term action plans.

It is an honour for us to say that the cooperation with Erasmus+ has been renewed for the following three years once we finished our last three years agreement. We will keep working to achive our common objectives.

the “(...) cooperation

with Erasmus+ has been renewed for the following three years

28

Joint Grant Application 2018 In January 2018 BEST agreed with AEGEE and ESTIEM that we want to collaborate more closely in the future, and therefore we decided to write Joint Grant Application together under Key Action 2 of Erasmus+.

During the first two months we had meetings and debated about what kind of project can we have in order for all NGOs to benefit equally, and potentially to have a project which would support and promote even more cooperation in the future. Of course one of the main focus was also to provide services to European youth that is external students not directly involved into the work of our three organizations. That is how we came up with YETEs - Youth European Training Events.

At the end the final goal is to support collaboration among local groups of each 3 NGOs, since if one of them is lacking a trainer for some of their events they will be able to call a trainer from other NGO.The pool of trainers will be much bigger, trainers will have more opportunities to deliver their trainings and spread their knowledge, and students will be able to have more opportunities to learn soft and hard skills.

The Joint Grant Application was submitted with above-mentioned concept in April 2018, however this turned up to be the wrong type of deadline for us, and we are expected to apply again with same concept, only with a bit shifted timeline in September 2018.

The concept of Yete is to: - Create an online platform / website

for registering soft and hard skills trainers from all 3 NGOs

-

After the online platform is complete open on it a call for European youth to apply for YETEs*

-

Once all YETEs are finished, do a proper dissemination, develop the website based on the feedback and needs of NGOs

-

Have a fully functional online platform with trainers from AEGEE, BEST and ESTIEM, where each NGO will be able to call for a trainer

*

Organising team and hosting local group for YETEs will be set months in advance before the call is sent, and each NGO will take care of organisation and hosting one YETE.

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Attendance in conferences The Educational Involvement Department of BEST gathers students’ opinion on educational related matters and disseminates them to the stakeholders of higher education.

In order to do so the department gathers information from BEST Symposia on Education, surveys and workshops. This information is presented on international conferences to which the department submits its scientific papers. All the publications are available on the ISSUU account of BEST.

In the past year, Educational Involvement Department of BEST has published the following papers: -

Smekens C., Friedle M., Bujas H., Camacho J., Erdis, M. B.: “European Students’ Perspective on Self-Directed Learning and the Role of the Professor”, SEFI Annual Conference 2017, Azores, Portugal

-

Pasovic D., Clemente J. R., Chaves R., Mikulski P., Kovaleva T.: “Skills Gap and Interdisciplinary Curriculum - Students’ Perspective”, World Engineering Education Forum 2017, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

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Antera S., Manasova D., Mihajlov S.:“Professors’ Competences Through the Perspective of STEM Students”, International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning 2017, Budapest, Hungary

- Local BEST Group Skopje: “Traditional and Modern Methods of Teaching, Their Applicability

and Effect on the Curriculum at UCM - Skopje”, SEFI Annual Conference 2017, Azores, Portugal

On the SEFI Annual Conference 2017 in Azores, Portugal, a special honor was rewarded for the best conference poster. 78 posters were submitted and the award was given to the BEST poster presenting the paper: “European Students’ Perspective on Self-Directed Learning and the Role of the Professor”. This presents the acknowledgement of our work by the Higher Educational Institutions, which is appreciated by our organisation.

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Position Papers in BEST

ready “We’re to advocate

for what we believe!

More than 20 years have passed since the establishment of the educational involvement service as a fundamental focus on the activity of BEST. Since 1996 that BEST has been collecting students’ opinions and working hard to bring them to the stage of the biggest players of higher education in Europe. Throughout these years, education has been a major part of BEST’s activity and it enabled us to become a recognised important contributor towards the development of engineering education by being the first and only recipient of the SEFI Francesco Maffioli award.

BEST, as an organisation strives yearly for the development of its services with the sights of increasing the impact it has on students of technology. With that in mind, the International Board and the Educational Involvement Department have been putting extra effort in the development of the educational involvement service of BEST. In this path, we became a member of the most important youth advocacy platform in Europe the European Youth Forum. Moreover, the strongest and most important institutional partners of BEST are SEFI and FEANI, two NGOs which actively advocate for their interests and seek to influence policy decisions at the European level. The mutual development attained by these

partnership has, in the past years, set BEST’s sails towards advocating for their statements as a students of technology oriented NGO. Feeling the environment’s interest in having BEST actively participating in the engineering education policy making, throughout this year, our volunteers worked into understanding how the concept of position papers could be applicable for the organisation. The work started in past October and we can fortunately say that after BEST General Assembly, a structured approach on the creation of position papers was approved.

Stay tuned with the new developments on educational involvement service! We’re ready to advocate for what we believe! However, for that, we need you!

Let’s make students’ voices be heard!

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Partners BEST is constantly working for students of Europe, although this wouldn’t be possible without our partners. During the BEST year of 17/18 we had 11 annual partners. Also we had 17 partners in our General Meetings.

As Corporate Partner we were working together with General Electric and Whirlpool.

As the highest level of partnership they were invited to our events and together with our Career Support Partners - Skoda Auto, Autodesk and MOL Group - they could enjoy the benefits of the full access to the BEST Career Center.

As Premium University partner we have worked together with KIC InnoEnergy and held BEST Career Webinar where students could learn about their unique master studies opportunity.

In the BEST year of 17/18 we also greeted Veolia, Amcor and Dassault Systemes as our Supporters and Magneti Marelli and JP Morgan as our Project Partners. During the year we cooperated through our social media channel and let students know about various career opportunities that were provided by our partners.

The year couldn’t pass without our General Meetings. During the autumn Local BEST Group Istanbul Bogazici was hosted our Presidents’ Meeting supported by Avery Dennison, EATON, GARANTi, Veolia, POLIN Waterparks and SkolTech. Moreover during the event we had a roundtable where we discussed the nature of our cooperation to improve it for the future.

In the spring our General Assembly was organised by Local BEST Group Sofia who was organising an International Career Day during the event where participants could meet Melexis, Telelink, Ultraplay, IBM, SBTech, Walltopia,Vivacom, Tesy, Abalta, Ficosota, AXclusive and JPMorgan.

With our partners’ support BEST could close a successful year when it could provide hundreds of opportunities for students and creating thousands of futures.

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“

During the BEST year of 17/18 we had 11 annual partners.

BEST Alumni Network

After being active in BEST, individual members turn into alumni. Many active members ask themselves: is there life after BEST? Alumni can say: yes, there is. Typically, young alumni start working in companies, work on their PhD or start creating companies. Since all of that creates a whole new set of experiences, alumni want to create networks to exchange information and experiences, and also keep the BEST spirit.

The success of projects like the Alumni Business Camp showed that there was a need to turn Alumni into an official body representing alumni of BEST and facilitating practical needs like visa applications and fee prepayments.

Since 2015, first ideas of an alumni association emerged. After several workshops with intensive discussions about the aims of the future association, statutes and regulations were discussed and created. With the support of Eamon McDermott from LBG Vienna for organising the election, the first board of the BEST Alumni Network (abbreviated BAN) was elected by the end of

2017: Christian Banik from LBG Stockholm as President, Eduardo Fernandes de Conto from LBG Grenoble as Treasurer, and Pierre Rondou from LBG Liège as Secretary. They will officially create BAN during 2018 and organise the first Alumni General Assembly.

BEST Alumni Network has the mission to promote and facilitate networking and collaboration among Alumni of BEST. In order to do this, BAN follows several aims: to support and strengthen the network of Alumni of BEST, to strengthen the social ties among Alumni of BEST, to promote business and career opportunities for Alumni of BEST, to foster professional and personal development of Alumni of BEST, and to offer constructive support to BEST and to reciprocally exchange best practices.

Through that, BEST Alumni Network aims to become a strong partner of BEST, in order to support active members of BEST as well as guiding them their way into the exciting world of alumni.

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Work hard Play hard

2017 2018