Integrated cooperation in real life

Purpose and goal

The overall project objective was to develop and test new cooperation offers which mobilizes students as development resources for the region´s businesses and contribute to the utilization of the knowledge produced within BTH. This goal has been achieved through the development of two courses which have been tested in various iterations. The project´s second goal has been to develop a strategic framework for the university ´s collaboration. This has also happened and the framework has been used to identify urgent development areas within the university ´s collaboration.

Expected results and effects

The project aims to build a bridge between the regional industry (especially SMEs) and BTH, which will result in more regional SMEs benefiting from the knowledge resources at BTH and more students getting exposed to local industry thereby increasing their chances of finding a job in the region. These effects has only partially been realized at this stage since the number of students who have taken part in the cooperation-based courses developed w/in the project still is low.

Planned approach and implementation

The work in the project has been designed as a traditional development projects where work began with a broad collection of materials both within the university and at other universities. Based on this, the two courses were developed and then tested ´in real life´, audited and subjected to new tests. In essence, this approach worked well even if the tests for various reasons only involved a small group of students.