Theory and practice of European co-operative education and training for the support of energy transition

EU 2020 strategy

This strategy includes measures to halt climate change. Because education is not regulated on the EU level, national education and training approaches need to be comprehensively linked to energy transition which is necessary to meet the Union’s climate goals. The targets related to climate change come within reach most unevenly across the EU’s 28 member states [12].

In 2002, the Council of the European Union has started the EU cooperation in education and training (ET 2020) in order to provide the strategic framework for co-operation in education and training up to 2020; ET 2020 is defined as a fundamental pillar to meet ‘…the many socio-economic, demographic, environmental and technological challenges facing Europe and its citizens today and in the years ahead…’ [13].

Strategic Energy Technology (SET-Plan) and Roadmap Education and Training

Facing the challenge of developing a low-carbon, secure and affordable energy technology system, the European Union (EU) promotes a fundamental energy transition. For this purpose, it devised the SET-Plan which promotes an increased use of renewables (‘…accelerate the development and deployment of low-carbon technologies…’) and the development of an innovative cost-competitive and efficient energy system [14].

In order to create a framework to support the ‘Availability and mobilisation of appropriately skilled human resources’, the SET Roadmap Education and Training was established [15]. This was a consequence of the recognition that ‘one of the key elements in supporting energy technology innovation at EU level is the availability and mobilisation of appropriately skilled human resources’ [10]. In the Education & Training Roadmap, the European Union mentions ‘...that one of the key elements in supporting energy technology innovation at EU level is the availability and mobilisation of appropriately skilled human resources…’ and ‘challenges for the education and training institutions and their legal frameworks will be to ensure a workforce flow of researchers, engineers and technicians who are able to generate new knowledge and to meet the requirements of evolving technologies and labour markets. In parallel, training for managers and decision-makers in the field is needed to design and implement appropriate frameworks for the development and deployment of new energy solutions.’ [16]

In their analysis of this special issue [Borrell-Damian and Narodoslawsky [Additional file 1], Narodoslawsky and Borell-Damián highlight the need for intensified promotion of collaborative education formats on the basis of the Strategic Energy Technology (SET) Plan Roadmap on Education and Training (SRMET [17]) and the Action Agenda for European Universities (AAEU [18]). The latter document provides a strategy for European universities to cope with the challenges of the energy transition. The analysis mentioned above reveals that the EU and the European universities consider co-operation in and shared responsibility for education of the future workforce as critically important to be able to meet the education and training challenges posed by energy transition.

The authors identify a strong tradition of co-operative education in vocational training in many European countries. However, they miss an equally strong endeavour in the field of educational co-operation between business and universities. They find that neither academia nor business has taken common responsibility for the education of future experts and that both have not deployed the substantial resources necessary for true common educational efforts.

In order to develop adequate co-operation formats, Narodoslawsky and Borell-Damián list the requirements to breach the walls between business and universities. The changes necessary for the energy transition with its varying requirements have to be put into effect in order to train the future workforce in an appropriate educational environment including efficient high-quality training networks. Thus co-operative learning formats can ‘...become major drivers for innovation in the education of future workforce...’ as they fulfil ‘…the need to educate students in the complexities and interconnected nature of the energy systems in relation to our societies, at local as well as global levels …’.

The development of a future-oriented European education programme aligned to the challenges posed by the energy transition is an essential part of the EU 2020 plan in order to keep Europe in the role of a technology leader while at the same time contributing to the effort to curb climate change.

On a global scale, the United Nations defined within its set of Sustainable Development Goals sub goal 4—quality education—which asks for education including issues like sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles [19]. The UN misses to directly discuss the development of environmentally clean energy technologies as one important aspect to reach this goal [20]. There is an obvious lack of integration of all 17 Sustainable Development Goals into an educational context.

UN and EU may set the frame. The effective implementation of educational goals has to be realised on a national and regional level because the ultimate competence lies there. An integrated development of co-operative education and training formats has to be executed by national institutions and businesses. Certainly, co-operation is not only needed across sectors but also across national borders as the challenges of the energy transition are international and so are the challenges of technology development and implementation.

Finally, co-operative education formats need to be adapted to the motivation driving their implementation.

Motivation for the development of co-operative education formats

Quality of students’ learning increases in a work-study-environment with a strong relationship to effective mentors [21]. This also increases a student’s understanding of her/his future work environment. Students benefit from workplace supervisors who create an authentic environment confronting them with real-world problems strengthening their self-confidence by exchanging ideas at an eye-level [22]. Thus, academic supervisors add to the student’s theoretical knowledge. The implementation of these changes into educational practice forces educational institutions as well as entrepreneurs to intensify their collaborations [23].

Students, university and business can benefit mutually from a well-co-ordinated co-operative education format. Optimal co-operation results in an exchange of skills between all beneficiaries, enhanced chances for students on the job market, increased research portfolios for universities and better qualified employees as well as in innovation advantages for business, to name only the most important impacts. There is a wide variety of possible formats, ranging from dual study programmes on the curricular level to various co-operative course formats, internships and thesis programmes funded by business. However, design and intensity of the co-operation are dependent on the desired results.

Definition of co-operative education and training

In general terms, Ricks suggested that co-operative education should foster an integrated educational and work experience, self-directed learning, reflective practice and transformative learning [25].

The quality of co-operation between education institutions and business/industry can differ vastly. A co-operation format can be defined as less satisfactory when it just includes defining topics for Bachelor’s or Master’s theses and providing internships in industry. Better results can be reached when the co-operative aspect includes lecturers from industry and joint courses for students and industrial employees. Results can further improve when business co-operates in the development of curricula and theoretical learning phases and higher education institutions (HEIs) are intertwined with practical phases in a business or industrial environment and when business and HEIs take joint responsibility for the learning outcome of students. Conventional co-operative education and learning formats are defined in different ways. A common feature of these definitions is an integrated learning approach which links theoretical education with practical work experience as described by the platform Co-operative Education and Work-Integrated Learning Canada [26], or as the World Association for Cooperative Education, an NGO linking higher education institutions, employers and public authorities, defines [27]:

‘Cooperative & Work-Integrated Education (CWIE) includes: cooperative education (all disciplines); clinical rotations; community research; internships (all disciplines); international work (co-op) exchanges; learning-integrated work; undergraduate & graduate research; service-learning; and practica, and other forms of learning where education is integrated with work experience.’

These definitions of co-operative learning emphasise duality between an academic study area and a vocational training area. Additionally, agreements and co-operation concerning adjustments of education contents and education goals must be reached. The mentioned definitions clearly build on traditional vocational training structures.

Conventional co-operative learning formats on the course level

Compared to the numbers regarding dual studies mentioned above, the selection of academic curricula is huge. 103,246 bachelor’s degree studies and 72,207 master’s degree studies are available worldwide [30]. A recent study by the European University Association (EUA) mapped the activities of European universities in the field of energy [31]. The EUA mapping gives an overview of education programmes compatible with the SET-Plan. Most of the selected master’s programmes in priority areas of the SET-Plan are related to energy (61.5% of 447 programmes).

Additional results are integrated in the whole document. Additional information about the collected results can be found in the case study reports available in Additional files 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.

Roots of vocational training

Vocational training has a far more co-operative tradition than tertiary education. In vocational training, there was no clear differentiation between theoretical and practical education. Apprentices were employed by a company and learned their trade from experienced workers in practical training. This is still practised in many European countries, e.g. Austria and Germany [32]. Today, this practical training is usually complemented with formal vocational training at special vocational schools.

In some professions requiring tertiary education, this traditional principle of dual education is still standard practice: medical doctors go through clinical rotation, and in many countries (e.g. Austria), lawyers are required to undergo an internship at a court before they are granted the right to practice their profession.

Co-operation via placements and internships

Concerning placements and internships which are less regulated, co-operation between academia and business is widely practised. The World Association for Cooperative & Work-Integrated Education (WACE), a professional association dedicated to promoting co-operative & work-integrated education, lists a total of 913 institutions they co-operated with in 52 countries worldwide [33].

This type of co-operation allows students to experience the work environment they will later work in. However, the quality of this experience differs widely, depending on the company that offers the internship, the position the student takes and the ability of the student to integrate into this environment. Usually, there is no educational structure at the site of the placement, and academic supervision accompanying these internships is rare.

A particular type of internships involves placements where students write reports or theses which are required academic output of their curricula. In these cases, co-operation between business and academia is closer: business usually defines the problems students have to address in these reports and theses. Assessment of the quality of these products usually remains with the academic teachers. The usability of the results evaluated by the business side may or may not become a factor in this academic assessment. This type of placements usually involves a certain amount of academic supervision and co-operation between the academic and business supervisors. This co-operation is not only beneficial to education but also enriches research as business and industrial problems are jointly researched by academia and business experts.

Although internships and placements are most valuable for student’s experience and research co-operation, they lack comprehensive integration into the educational structure of academic curricula. Responsibility for as well as planning of educational aspects of internships and placements are not often shared between academia and business; usually, business takes responsibility for the student’s work for the company while academia evaluates the quality of output according to their own standards only.

Co-operative learning formats on the curricular level (dual studies)

Based on the tradition of co-operative education in vocational training, there is a type of curriculum that combines theoretical education and practical training, usually performed in a company. Examples for these curricular-level co-operative learning formats are particularly described in North America and Europe. Dual study models in tertiary education emerged in Germany in the 1970s [34]. Awareness of these models had some ups and downs over time [35]. This led to a lack of a clear or consistent definition of dual tertiary education approaches [36]. However, terms like work-integrated learning (internships, service-learning, clinical placements), sandwich education (interspersed education in Great Britain and Canada) or learning factories [37] exemplify the development towards a similar goal but with heterogeneous designs.

In Europe, dual programmes in the course of tertiary education are seen as possible drivers for employability [38]. In the German-speaking part of Europe, this type of co-operative education and training approach is more clearly defined than in the English-speaking part where definitions are less clear which allows a more flexible application of specific education programmes and thus more adaptability in designing specific learning formats.

In Austria, the first dual tertiary education programme was developed at the University of Applied Sciences FH Joanneum. The goal was to find an alternative to traditional education programmes to solve ever more complex demands of the industrial sector [39]. ‘The integration of work place experience has become an important element of diversification of higher education’ [40]. The Austrian dual study programmes have since grown to curricula at six Universities of Applied Sciences (Fachhochschulen) with over 250 business partners [41].

European efforts

In order to push European universities towards intensifying activities concerning energy issues, the EUA developed a Roadmap for European Universities in Energy [46]. This roadmap includes 13 actions clustered around research and education, collaboration and effect. In this respect, collaboration includes actions to foster university networks and co-operation between universities and organisations in different sectors [46]. One of its particular goals is a stronger mobilisation of university and business co-operation. If co-operation between HEIs and business really shall contribute to establishing the highly qualified workforce necessary to reach the ambitious goal of a carbon-free energy system, it must not be restricted to dual study curricula. It must in fact become the new standard and part of each and every curriculum educating future engineers and energy experts in various fields. It must also become the basis for re-training and qualifying the current workforce to meet the challenges posed by the energy transition as described in the SET plan.

Available data on co-operative learning formats on the course level is poor and anecdotal. This is due to the facts that there are different approaches to co-operation in education and training between academic institutions and business and that it plays only a minor role in the particular national education systems. There is even less information on co-operative education programmes with a focus on energy, not to mention energy transition.

The most prevalent and traditional form of co-operation between HEIs and business on the course level is the participation of experts from business as guest lecturers in courses. In some cases, business experts may even be invited to conduct the courses entirely. Such co-operative learning formats expose students to business positions as well as to approaches and methods to solve problems used in business. This input by business experts certainly complements teaching by academic lecturers and may expand the student’s horizon. It may also help students to throw their acquired knowledge into perspective by revealing how to use these skills in practice.

Even more intensive co-operative learning formats are seminars and design courses in which business define specific real-world problems and business experts help students to approach and solve these problems and give feedback on the applicability of the proposed solutions. In these seminars and courses, business experts are directly involved in course planning and implementation as well. Such learning formats provide students with practical insight into how to use their knowledge and skills. These seminars and design courses, moreover, provide students with access to supervision and feedback by academic as well as business instructors.

An ever-increasing number of HEIs offer lectures held by business experts as well as seminars and design courses with the participation of business instructors. Although they provide considerable advantages for both students and academic teachers and form an important link between business and academia, they do not provide exposure of students to business working environment, they contradict the general approach that tertiary education is exclusively planned, provided and evaluated by HEIs and that there is only indirect added value for business partners, mainly by generating a more qualified workforce that benefits not only business involved in the co-operation but also the competitors not involved.

Innovative co-operative learning formats on the course level

As the arguments above indicate, there is ample room for improvement, in particular for co-operative learning formats on the course level. This publication provides insight into some new approaches to such formats, based on case studies carried out in the course of the BioEnergy Train (BET) project commissioned by the European Union under the Horizon 2020 programme.

BET is put into effect by a consortium of HEIs, research centres, professional associations and industrial stakeholders. Its goal is to develop two new pilot master’s curricula in fields specifically identified by the SRMET as critical to implementing the SET plan, namely the master’s programmes Biorefinery Engineering at the Graz University of Technology in Austria and Bioresource Value Chain Management at the University of Twente in the Netherlands². The consortium is headed by the European Sustainable Energy Innovation Alliance (eseia), a cross-sectoral association³. According to the guidelines of SRMET, the project is also tasked with the development and application of innovative co-operative learning formats.