ANNUAL

REPORT
2

board of european students of technology

ANNUAL
REPORT
2

Board of European Students of Technology

Avenue Roger Vandendriessche 18
1150 Brussels
BELGIUM
BEST.eu.org
info@BEST.eu.org
facebook.com/BESTorg
flickr.com/photos/BESTorg
twitter.com/BESTorg
linkedin.com/company/best

Ricardo Nuno Oliveira

Coordinator

Patrcia Pires
Designer

Cenk Savaoullar
Photography Selection

Writers
Alejandro Snchez Medina
Alexia Spyridonidou
Ana Rita Gonalves
Ana Rosa
ar Baaran
Corina Stirbu
Harald Rupprechter
Ioana Jivet
Javier Martin
Joo Pacheco

Judit Gyenese
Katerina Koutsonikoli
Klemen Krulec
Libor eda
Majd Mekouar Ouazzani
Mathieu Vandenberghe
Michele Damato
Mihai Cepoi
Mihai Tociu
Natalia Mazur

Olcay Sar
Oscar Marginean
Oya Merve Duman
Patricia Diaconu
Pedro Cardoso
Raili Vunk
Tiago Monteiro
Vicente Mauricio Quintana
Vlad Gliga
Yasemin Baran

A WELCOME WORD FROM THE BOARD

It is 1987, an event called International Week takes place in Stockholm, Sweden, having
as purpose to support the exchange of students between several universities. Sadly, the
meeting had no clear conclusion.
It is 1988, the second International Week takes place in Grenoble, France, where the idea
of creating a European Association that will strengthen the relations between European
Universities emerges. This association would be called BEST.
It is now one year later in the late 80s, 1989. BEST has its most important meeting in
Berlin, Germany, where the statutes and the strategy of the organisation were created.
Exactly 18 founding members participated to shape the core and identity.
Far into the future, 25 years later. Twenty five years! An important milestone for BEST. For
25 years BEST has grown exponentially and beyond the dreams of the founding members.
Starting from 18 local groups and reaching 95 this year, BEST has had a huge impact not
only on its members but also on its stakeholders.
The past year has been an adventurous journey with new dreams, projects and challenges.
It was a year of reflection where often we would question our working methods and take a
look at the big picture to see if our structure was aligned to our services which we provide
to our stakeholders. Our organisation has managed to have a true impact on the lives of
students of technology via our services and we continually try to live up to their expectations.
It was a visionary year, where we re-evaluated what our aim are and what should BEST
focus on the upcoming years. Lastly, it was a year of celebration, where each member felt
proud to be part of the biggest European organisation of students of technology as we
looked back upon our accomplishments and celebrated our achievements during our 25th
anniversary of BEST.
For 25 years the organisation has remained true to its values and they have guided its
members to reach for the stars and create a bigger impact for our stakeholders: companies,
universities, and of course, students!
We would like to acknowledge everyone who has contributed in making the past year
a great one for BEST. Thank you for your support and believing in us. We hope you will
enjoy reading this Annual Report, where every part reflects upon the daily work done by
passionate students, for students.
Yours faithfully,
The XXVI International Board of BEST

Mihai Tociu President

Patricia Diaconu Treasurer
Katerina Koutsonikoli Secretary
Klemen Krule Vice-President for External Services
Javier Martin Vice-President for Internal Support
Vicente Maurcio Vice-President for Local Group Support

CONTENTS

6
16
22
32
44
56
62

ABOUT BEST
WHAT IS BEST?
STRUCTURE OF BEST
INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT
PROFILE OF BEST MEMBERS

7
8
10
12

MEMBERS AND STATISTICS

RELATIONS WITH ALUMNI
GROWTH OF BEST

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

BEST ANNIVERSARY PROJECT
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
MARKET RESEARCH

SERVICES
BEST COURSES
EBEC PROJECT
BEST CAREER SUPPORT
BEST CAREER DAY

17
18
19

MARKETING STRATEGIES OF BEST

PUBLIC WEBSITE

20
21

23
24
26
27

BEST CAREER CENTER

28
29
30

EDUCATIONAL INVOLVEMENT

EVENTS ON EDUCATION

INTERNAL ACTIVITIES
FINANCIAL OVERVIEW
TRAINING SYSTEM

QUALITY ASSURANCE IN TRAINING

33
36
37

IT SYSTEMS
INTERNAL EVENTS

EXTERNAL RELATIONS
YOUTH IN ACTION
SEFI
FEANI
PARTNER NGOS

12
14
15

45
46
47
48

YOUTH FORUM JEUNESSE

ROUND TABLE
PROMOTING VIRTUAL MOBILITY IN PLACEMENTS

INTEL BUSINESS CHALLENGE

PUBLIC RELATIONS
PARTNERS OF BEST

38
40

50
50
52
53

WEEF
54
INTERNATIONAL ENGINEERING COMPETITION 55

ABOUT

BEST
6

WHAT IS BEST?
The story of BEST (Board of European Students of Technology) dates
back to April 1989, when the idea of
an international, non-political student organisation was born with the
aim to connect Europe. Twenty five
years later, we are far more than the
sum of our 95 Local BEST groups
(LBGs). Our work impacts students,
universities and industrial partners in
33 countries across Europe.

reer prospects by using the BEST Career Support (BCS) services and learn
skills relevant to their professional
development and reach their full potential. These activities are all about
developing students, giving them an
insight to different mindsets, thereby reaching a better understanding
of cultures and societies. Our events
give students the opportunity to develop the capacity to work in a culturally diverse environment so as to
improve their soft-skills.

Although over the years our members

have come and gone and our activities have matured and developed,
the vision of BEST has always been
the same: Empowered diversity. By
providing complementary education
through BEST Courses and Competitions, we bring added value to formal education. We provide a structured way for engineering students
to give input on their education and
therefore give them the chance to improve their learning. Students have
the opportunity to develop their ca-

BEST is a constantly growing organisation always seeking improvement

and achievements. All of the work is
done for students and by students
and we aim to broaden the horizon of
students of technology. Our actions
are inspired by our values. Through
flexibility, we are open to quickly respond to change. We always aim for
improvement by continuously raising the standards in everything we do.
We value friendship through build-

ing good personal relations and supporting teamwork. We strive to make

our activities enjoyable to everybody
who is connected to them and value
everything we learn through the experience of being involved in our activities where we have the freedom

to share and develop ideas. After 25

years, BEST is still challenging perceptions related to the development
of technical students. What we have
accomplished so far is only the beginning of our story.

STRUCTURE OF BEST
Covering 33 countries and reaching
1.300.000 technical students, BEST
has grown into a substantial European organisation. There are 95 Local
BEST Groups, spread around Europe,
forming the core of the organisation.
Each group is present at exactly one
university, 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 groups are connected with each
other by the common values of BEST
which every BEST member endorses
as their own. This connection empowers BEST as a strong organisation
providing services for European students of technology.

educational involvement to career

support, training and competitions.
The biggest international teams, the
BEST Committees, can be seen as an
equivalent to corporate departments.
There are six committees of BEST
and each has a distinct area of expertise. These areas are Educational,
Financial, External Events, Training, IT
and Marketing. Each of these is led by
a coordinator who ensures the coherence of the activities with the other
bodies of BEST.
Another indispensable aspect of the
international work in the organisation,
are the BEST projects. Various projects take place every year and involve
members of different committees as
well as local group members who are
not otherwise internationally involved.
The need to move towards a structure
with a bigger focus on projects than
committees was highlighted among
the outcomes of the Structure Eval-

Built on the basis of the local groups,

several international teams work to
provide support to the groups. Spread
over international teams of diverse
size and aim, approximately 15% of our
active members work in all sorts of
domains - from marketing to IT, from

uation project which took place this

year.

facilitates the global development of

programmes and activities. It consists
of the President, Secretary, Treasurer,
Vice-President for External Services,
Vice-President for Internal Support
and Vice-President for Local Group
Support.

At the top level, BEST has an International Board that represents the
organisation, coordinates the different bodies of BEST, ensures good
communication between them and

EBEC

LBGs
EEC

GWG

ITC

BAP

fT
EEC
ITC
TiGro
EduCo
mT

MR
PWS
BAP
KM

GWG
EBEC

EduCo

mT

Financial Team
External Events Committee
Information Technology Committee
Training Group
Educational Committee
Marketing Committee

Market Research
Public Website
BEST Anniversary Project
Knowledge Management

MR

PWS

KM

COMMITTEES
SMALL
PROJECTS

LBG

Local BEST Group

RA

Regional Advisor
(11 in total)

Grants Working Group

European BEST Engineering Competition

PROJECTS
9

INTERNATIONAL
BOARD

fT

TiGro

INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT OF BEST

At General Assembly Valladolid 2013, the International Management of BEST was
elected for the year 2013/2014. The team prepared and ensured the execution of
the Annual Action Plan of BEST for the respective mandate. The work of the International Management was highly inter-connected with intense joint efforts and
cooperation to ensure the accomplishment of their respective responsibilities. Additionally, each coordinator had responsibilities and teams related to their respective
field of work.

10

President
Mihai Tociu
Treasurer
Patricia Diaconu
Secretary
Katerina Koutsonikoli
Vice-President for External
Services
Klemen Krule
Vice-President for Internal
Support
Javier Martin Zamora
Vice-President for Local Group
Support
Vicente Maurcio

Educational Committee
Coordinator
Mikhail Tikhonov
External Events Committee
Coordinator
Pedro Cardoso
Financial Team Coordinator
Andreea Nicu
Information Technology
Committee Coordinator
Alejandro Snchez Medina
Marketing Committee
Coordinator
Judit Gyenese
Training Group Coordinator
Harald Rupprechter

11

PROFILE OF BEST MEMBERS

Internationally Minded

Experienced in Managing
Local and International Teams

Proactive & Creative

Undergraduates

Succesful in

or Recent Graduates

Project Management

Trained in
Soft-skills
Work and Study Experience
in International Environments

Comfortable with Travel

throughout Europe
Experienced in Working
in Virtual Teams
Team Players

MEMBERS AND STATISTICS

BEST
by
COUNTRIES

12

2011

2014
2013
2012
BEST
MEMBERS

2011
GENDER

42

58

13

RELATIONS WITH ALUMNI

The Alumni Network of BEST is aimed
at maintaining and developing connections between former members.
This network serves as a platform for
professional networking for the thousands of alumni based throughout
the world. Moreover, the Alumni Network also provides a medium through
which the former members can provide support and keep in contact with
the current members.
The Alumni of BEST use several online channels to keep in touch: mailing lists and dedicated groups on social networks. Additionally, multiple
events are organised throughout the
year where former members meet to
discuss and network. Alumni Meetings

14

took place in parallel to the General

Meetings in November 2013 in Brno,
Czech Republic (20 participants) and
April 2014 in Bucharest, Romania (55
participants). In October 2013, the 3rd
edition of the Alumni Business Camp
was held in Brussels, Belgium and
gathered 89 participants at the event
itself and 117 people at the official
dinner.
This year the alumni world embarked
on a journey to create more value out
of the network. New initiatives towards creating a new Alumni Directory, initiating a mentoring programme
and maybe even incorporating the
Alumni Network as a non-profit entity
are currently being developed.

GROWTH OF BEST
BEST has always strived for diversity
and sustainability and therefore has
always welcomed new groups while
simultaneously ensuring the stability of our existing groups. New groups
bring fresh perspectives and new
ideas to the organisation.

14

1989
12

In 2014, BEST established a second

group in Germany, extending its reach
in the country, providing its services to
an even wider audience and developing further relationship with German
universities.

80

95

LOCAL BEST GROUPS

1994
1999 2004 2009
COUNTRIES

2014

30

33

31

18

64

46

20

15

26

HIGHLIGHTS
OF THE

YEAR
16

BEST ANNIVERSARY PROJECT

The year 2014 is a very special one
for every BEST member. BEST is celebrating 25 years of existence. Since
1989 we have had various and significant achievements which established
us the role of one of the most important youth associations in Europe.
During this year we celebrate precisely this. We celebrate our growth, evolution and our strong belief in our values; mission and vision of BEST.

our Local Groups, alumni and specially invited guests.

We have had many things worth celebrating lately, both live and virtually. Virtually, through social media, we
are well-known across Europe for our
accomplishments in all our organisations focus areas; namely Education
and Career Support. We have also
published three booklets dedicated
to our services in order to promote
them and also thank our stakeholders for their support. These booklets
focus on: Educational Involvement,
EBEC and Seasonal Courses.

Together with this important milestone, we also celebrate five Editions

of EBEC Final and 10 years of Engineering Competitions, has led us to
create the BEST Anniversary Project
to recognise all these achievements.

During the last two years, we have

strengthened the bonds between the
members of our organisation, alumni
and our stakeholders. Without all of
these people, BEST would not be the
vibrant and special organisation it is
today and we would like to thank all
of you for all your support over the
years.

In terms of events, we have organised

to celebrate the five editions of EBEC,
an evening dedicated to our accomplishments, where we invited EBEC
participants and company partners.
During General Assembly Bucharest
2014, we celebrated our 25th Anniversary with representatives from all

17

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
One of the focus areas of the Long
Term Strategic Plan 2012-2015 (LTSP)
is Knowledge Management. The objectives of this focus area include
having a well-structured, sustainable, and easily accessible Knowledge Management System, as well as
promoting a culture of documenting
our work, sharing knowledge, in addition to using and developing existing
knowledge.
In March 2013, the Knowledge Management workshop took place in Riga,
Latvia, as a first step towards achieving the goals of the Knowledge Management focus area under the current
LTSP. This workshop had a very direct
impact on how BEST members work,
in any scope of their activity - from
new members joining LBGs to trainers, committee members and international management.
The concrete outcome of the workshop is a set of 24 projects that are
planned to be implemented in the
final two years of the current LTSP
under the Knowledge Management

18

Project. For the previous year, ten

projects were selected. Several of
the projects address the Knowledge
Management infrastructure on our
internal database Private Area (PA): a
design of a page dedicated to Knowledge Management in BEST, a map of
all the knowledge of BEST, the development of a tool to facilitate easy
access to all of our knowledge (the
BEST Library) and the redesign of our
committee pages. Other projects are
aimed at improving the social aspect
of Knowledge Management, including
the redesign of our knowledge management training for BEST members,
the introduction of Knowledge Fairs
as a sharing platform during BEST
events and a redefinition of the purpose of our common sharing mailing lists. Most of these projects are
planned to be finalised by the end of
the current BEST year.

MARKET RESEARCH
and expectations towards complementary education, educational involvement and career support. In
total, 2.900 students were reached
throughout Europe. Universities
were reached through interviews to
assess their perceptions on the impact student organisations should
have towards universities, to investigate what services such organisations should provide and to seek
out opportunities for future collaboration. Finally, companies were
approached through phone call interviews with the intention of assessing the contribution student
organisations have and to seek potential cooperation in other fields.

In a diverse and evolving environment, adapting to changes is the key

to maximising our contribution towards our stakeholders. BEST, aiming to evolve and meet challenges
efficiently, places the Strategy of
External Services as a major focal
point. We initiated this effort in order to observe how the needs of our
stakeholders change and how our
services align to these new needs.
BEST Market Research is the project through which we reach our
stakeholders, get insights regarding
their needs and our role in fulfilling
them. It is our way of transmitting
the voice of the external world to
the relevant bodies and supporting the decision making process regarding the strategic planning process of BEST as an organisation.

Research is to see what everybody

else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought, as Albert
Szent-Gyorgyi once said. BEST Market Research represents the beginning of a beautiful status, a status
no one else has thought of.

This project is structured according

to our three different stakeholders:
students, universities and companies with all three reached through
three individually designed surveys.
Regarding students, BEST Student
Survey was launched in February
2013 with the goal of gathering insight concerning their experience

19

MARKETING STRATEGIES OF BEST

In 2009, ten years after establishing
a defined identity of BEST, we decided to develop an advanced Marketing Strategy and since 2006 no major changes were made. However, the
Marketing Strategy Project was started by the XXI BEST Board and since
then it has had several outcomes
such as the BEST Brands Book and
the Communication Plans and Marketing Strategy Guidelines.

tion and during International Projects

Forum Lisbon 2014 the five services
of BEST were defined. These services
were: BEST as an organisation, complementary education, career support,
educational involvement and EBEC.
For each service, a defined message
for each stakeholder was developed,
selling points were evaluated and the
communication channels for the current situation were adapted.

In 2010, there was an Identity Workshop in Ghent, Belgium, to evaluate if

the identity we had was appropriate
for our organisation. As we became
more enveloped in the digitised era
and surrounded by digital bits, once
again, the Marketing Strategy project came back again in the BEST big
picture in 2013. The purpose was to
create an advanced marketing plan
for BEST that clarified its image and
served its needs and it became part
of the Long Term Strategic Plan of
BEST.

The marketing side of BEST made a

step forward and adapted all its activities to this new market in order to
clarify the BEST image.

During the Marketing Strategy Short

Intensive Meeting Vienna, Austria, all
the BEST services were re-analysed.
European BEST Engineering Competition (EBEC) got more atten-

20

As Robert Rose said: Marketing is telling the world youre a rock star. Content marketing is showing the world
that you are one. Nowdays, BEST is
a rock star and we showed it during
these 25 years by sharing the same
values and mission, organi- sing ten
years of competition and five years of
EBEC. In the end, challenges will drive
the teamwork across borders and a
rock star will never stop showing its
success.

PUBLIC WEBSITE
The World Wide Web started in the
early 90s by being a simple set of
hypertext documents accessible by
browsers; now websites have a substantial impact on the institutional
image of an organisation. In BEST, the
website serves as the primary platform for students to interact with the
services we provide. Due to these factors and the feedback from our stakeholders, creating a new website for
BEST has been considered a strategic priority for the organisation for the
period 2012-2015.

During this year, we focused on assessing the technical feasibility and

creating the structure of one application, as well as developing a topnotch Content Managing System. In
order for this process to go as smooth
as possible we have assembled a
team which is responsible for implementing everything we planned to do.
After this step is completed, the only
thing remaining is the launch of the
new website between April - May.

For this endeavour, we have decided

to stick to our culture of developing projects in-house by harnessing
the technical knowledge we possess
along with our network of alumni with
professional experience in the area of
web design.

www.BEST.eu.org

21

SERVICES

BEST COURSES
One of the complementary education
activities BEST provides to students
are BEST Courses. Courses, organised
by the 95 LBGs all over Europe, give
students the opportunity to combine traditional lectures with alternative forms of education. Furthermore,
with the social and cultural activities
courses provide, students can experience a multicultural environment and
gain new and wonderful friendships.
Every year, more than 2.000 students
take part in BEST Courses.
Applications for BEST Courses are
submitted through the BEST website.
Participants are chosen based on their
motivation letters, interest on the
topic of the course and the culture of
the country. Cultural diversity is one
of the most important aspects when
selecting participants. At the end of
the course, participants are evaluated
on their knowledge or skills acquired
during the course. Participants, who
successfully pass evaluation, obtain a
BEST Course certificate and a Course
Information Form (CIF). CIFs can be

recognised by the participants home

university and used towards to students degree.
With over 20 years of experience,
BEST has developed course standards. All LBGs follow these in order
to sustain and constantly improve the
quality of their courses. Both these
aspects make BEST courses widely
recognised by students, universities,
companies and partner associations
across Europe. After every course,
students are asked to fill an evaluation form which BEST gets a chance
to control the development of our
courses. BEST is always striving to improve the services offered to European students of technology.
Above all, BEST Courses bring students unforgettable memories and
unique experiences of interacting with
people from different backgrounds,
cultures and traditions; all while
learning and developing themselves
through complementary and atypical
university education.

23

EBEC PROJECT
European BEST Engineering Competition (EBEC) Project is one of the
biggest real-time based engineering
competition organised by students
in Europe. It brings its main stakeholders: companies, universities and
students together under a competitive environment where participants
present and develop their skills, thus
not only practicing their theoretical
knowledge, but also developing their
role as a member of European society
thanks to tackling real world problems. In the past years, EBEC has been
very successful due to its sustainability and permanently increasing standards. Having started as an initiative
in 2008, the project has reached a
strong position among the services
that BEST provides towards technology students.
The EBEC project has two competition
categories: Case Study and Team Design. The project welcomes teams in
groups of four, who are currently enrolled in an educational programme
where an EBEC round is present.
Complementary education is the
main focus of the EBEC project. The
application of theoretical knowledge

24

into practice is expected by involving

participants in real life problems with
time-limited conditions.
The EBEC Project is kicked-off by a
local round in all participating Local
BEST Groups; the winners of local
rounds are invited to national or regional rounds. The winners of these
secondary rounds qualify for the EBEC
Final event where they compete for
the title: BEST Engineers of Europe.
Last year, EBEC Final 2013 was held
in Warsaw, Poland. The event itself
was supported by Warsaw University
of Technology, as well as several important institutions such as the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the Copernicus Science Center
and leading industry partners such as
Procter & Gamble, GSE, IVECO, Deutsche Bahn, GE and the European Patent Office.
After the accomplishment of EBEC
Final 2013, BEST has set its sights to
EBEC Final 2014. This year EBEC Final
2014 was held in the European Capital of Culture, Riga, Latvia. The project has enjoyed its largest number of
participants; with Local EBEC Rounds

held at 87 leading technical universities in 32 countries where BEST is

present.

50

The EBEC Project serves as a platform

for technology students and is voluntarily organised by BEST members
who are also technology students of
European universities where BEST is
present. The project strives to bring
its stakeholders closer and to enable
further interaction among them so
that future engineers - the citizens of
Europe - will benefit the most.

EBEC Final 2014 has been supported

with interest by several institutes such
as Riga Technical University, UNESCO
Latvian National Commission and the
International Federation of Engineering Education Societies (IFEES).

71

71

78

83

LOCAL ROUNDS
2009 2010
2011
2012
2013
NATIONAL/REGIONAL ROUNDS
10

13

13

25

13

15

BEST CAREER SUPPORT

One of the features that makes BEST
a really unique non-profit organisation is being a wide-spread one, unified under a common mission and
vision. Established in 95 European
technical universities, BEST ensures a
broad range of students.
Since one of the purposes of BEST is
to connect students with companies,
several international bodies of this
organisation, helped by LBGs, have
developed many services to reach
this goal: one of which is BEST Career
Support (BCS).
On the one hand, BCS is a service that
every student can take advantage of,
the only prior requirement is that the
student attends or attended a university in which there is an LBG.
The procedure to use this service is
really simple: firstly there is the subscription to BEST website; then, there
is the filling of Curriculum Vitae with
personal data and relevant work information according to the European
standard model and finally there is
the subscription to the BCS service.
On the other hand, BEST engages in
partnerships with companies, providing them high quality services. These
companies cover all engineering fields
and this is because of the broad range
of students reached through BEST.
Companies can present themselves
and job offers to all the students who
subscribed to BCS. Furthermore, companies can have access to the BEST
CVs database to recruit students who
fill their criteria and interests.

26

Student diversity is also clearly observable during live events. Over one
year, BEST takes care of the organisation of several job fairs and engineering competitions around Europe. The
most important ones are organised
during the three biggest BEST events
during an academical year: Presidents
Meeting (PM), BEST Career Day (BCD)
during General Assembly (GA) and
EBEC Final. In these kind of events,
companies have the opportunity to
meet talented engineering students
who likewise have the chance to interact with top companies in the engineering field.
In conclusion, BCS is divided in two
main categories. The first one is represented by our online tools and takes
the name of BEST Career Centre
(BCC). The second one consists of the
in-person events with students such
as job fairs and engineering competitions.

BEST CAREER DAY

After the success of inviting external students to participate in Official
Opening Day in GA 2013, we provided this opportunity again this year.
Following the rapid uptake of these
events, we have developed this service into a new brand: BEST Career
Day. Recent or graduating students
from 95 top engineering universities
can apply for this event. After pre-selection, a list of the most promising
applicants is delivered to partners,
who can select the participants they
want to meet during BCD..

terviews take place, so partners can

interact directly and personally with
over 400 future engineers who match
their participants profile. The CVs
of all participants were available for
partners before the career fair, thus
enabling access to a large and detailed database of potential applicants. At the end of the day there is
a cocktail party, allowing networking
with a selected group of engineers.

BCD allows students to personally

discuss their career with top managers and international recruiters. They
get the chance to learn about the
lastest industry trends and most lucrative career opportunities. The first
part of the day includes presentations
and workshops for students held by
partners. During the second part of
the day the job fair and personal in-

27

BEST CAREER CENTER

BEST Career Center is the collection
of all the online recruitment opportunities BEST Career Support offers.
Here, students can find detailed information about our partners including
job and internship opportunities they
provide. Such information is available
to anyone who visits the BEST website.
In order to be up to date with all the
opportunities our partners offer, an
account on the BEST website and
subscription to BEST Career Support
is needed. This account also serves
as the CV of the students as it collects information regarding their career, educational and extra-curricular
activities. This year, more than 6.200
CVs were created.
This tool not only makes it easier
for our partner companies and universities to have an overview of the
students in our database, but also

28

enables us to define the appropriate

target groups for our services, so that
relevant opportunities can reach only
interested subscribers.
The most apparent function of BEST
Career Center is through BEST Career Newsletters. These are targeted e-mails that we send out to our
37.000 subscribers which include career opportunities of a partner. Since
these e-mails are targeted, our subscribers receive the newsletter only
if they have the necessary qualifications such as language proficiency or
educational background.
All of the aforementioned online services form the BEST Career Center
and through these BEST is able to offer valuable opportunities to students
and recent graduates to start their career in their home country or throughout Europe.

EDUCATIONAL INVOLVEMENT
In collaboration with Thematic Networks and Higher Educational Institutions, BEST provides technical students with opportunities to express
their opinions about European Engineering Education (EEE). We believe
students have an essential impact on
their own education, therefore BEST
transmits students opinions to the
key players for EEE.

ent the outcomes of the aforementioned EoEs. This year, topics related
with BEST engineering competitions,
interdisciplinarity, virtual mobility and
employability were presented.
During this year, BEST cooperated
with EUROEAST and PROVIP as educational institutions. Via social media,
BEST promoted mobility programmes
provided by EUROEAST. Through collaboration with PROVIP, members of
the Educational Committee participated in partner meetings in order to
express the students point of view on
the topic of virtual mobility. Moreover,
the Educational Committee collaborated with PROVIP in an Event on Education in Timisoara, Romania.

The Educational Committee of BEST

provides students every year with opportunities to express their opinion
on EEE topics through surveys and
by gathering students in live events
named Events on Education (EoEs).
By attending conferences in the field
of Higher Education, BEST is able not
only to network with experts on educational matters, but also to pres-

29

EVENTS ON EDUCATION
Besides Courses and Engineering
Competitions, BEST also organises
Events on Education (EoEs). These
are seminars that last approximately six days, gather up to 25 students
with different nationalities and focus
on evaluating and contributing to the
development of higher engineering
education in Europe. During these
events, students can gain knowledge
and share their opinions on the latest
trends in the field of European Engineering Education (EEE).
There are two types of EoEs: BEST
Symposium on Education, which
gathers students and academic representatives and BEST Academics and
Companies forum, that in addition to
students and academics includes industry representatives. During EoEs,
participants exchange opinions and
share experiences via discussions,
workshops and case studies.
In summer 2013, three EoEs were organised around the Europe and each
of them tackled a different topic.
Next station, sustainable education,
organised by BEST Madrid, was a follow-up event to an earlier symposium
organised by BEST Vienna in 2012. The
main goal of this event was to discuss
the effect of EEE on Sustainable De-

30

velopment as well as catalysing ideas

for projects that will be run by students of technology in the future.
Bringing education and entrepreneurship under students scope, organised by BEST Timisoara, dealt with
the topics of virtual mobility and entrepreneurship. The main objective of
this event was to introduce students
to the topic of virtual internships
and gather input for PROVIP, one of
BESTs partners.
EdYOUcation - Raise your hand,
make a change, organised by BEST
Aveiro, gathered both international
and local students who approached
the topic of accreditation and attractiveness of EEE. At the event, among
other stakeholders for EEE, Attract,
a European project on engineering
education, presented their ideas and
gathered information on the topic of
student retention in higher education.
In order to reach the desired outcomes, the atmosphere during an EoE
tends to be more informal than in a
lecturing hall which encourages students to speak their mind and share
their opinions. It is of great importance to us to establish a dialogue
between our partners and find a solution to common challenges.

 IT IS OF GREAT IMPORTANCE TO US TO
ESTABLISH A DIALOGUE BETWEEN OUR
PARTNERS AND FIND A SOLUTION TO COMMON
CHALLENGES.

INTERNAL

ACTIVITIES

FINANCIAL OVERVIEW
BEST is a student organisation with
strong ambitions and a wide range of
activities. Therefore there is a need
for an adequate budget to support
the work and the development of the
organisation.

meetings where important decisions

about the future of the organisation
are made.
Therefore, in order to manage the
organisation and keep it sustainable,
BEST is closely cooperating with industrial partners, universities and European institutions. The most significant part of the income comes from
Career Support Partners, followed by
the contributions from the European
Commission (under a 3 year Framework agreement, part of the Youth in
Action programme of the European
Union) and University Partners.

We are constantly working on fulfilling our mission: developing students

and towards reaching our vision of
empowering diversity. In this sense,
we provide career support to our students as one of our services. However,
through career support, we also manage to ensure our financial stability. In
order to provide the adequate services
to our students, we need to organise
several internal and external events,
and support a variety of projects, all
of which cost money. This money is
spend on ensuring the development
of the organisation through: travel refunds for BEST members, developing
the training system, maintaining our IT
systems, support for internal events
and the organisation of statutory

Considering the status of revenue

and expenses, we can conclude that
our organisation is in a stable financial position. The status and details
of the finances can be followed and
checked by each member in the accounting tool available in our intranet.
The detailed financial report of BEST
for the 2013-2014 financial year is
available on request.

33

31

Framework
Agreement

REVENUES

41%

Corporate
Partners

Supporters

University
Partners

Project
Partners

Others

Career Support
Partners

Administration

14

23%

International
Teams

International
Management

EXPENSES

31

Internal Events
Support

34

Internal
Training

6%
5

1%

10%
7

Company
Trips

4%

Marketing
Materials

4%

Educational Events
Coordination

Competitions
Coordination

External
Relations

2%

Unexpected
Expenses

3%

BEST - A SUCCESS STORY FOR

25 YEARS. AN ORGANISATION
INSPIRED BY CHANGE, YET ALWAYS
DRIVEN BY THE SAME UNQUENCHED
ELEMENT: BEST MEMBERS
35

TRAINING SYSTEM
BEST - a success story for 25 years.
An organisation inspired by change,
yet always driven by the same unquenched element: BEST members.
These are unique individuals who
strive to acquire and develop useful
skills in order to be effective in the organisation and later on in their future
endeavours.
The body of BEST responsible for such
development of skills is the Training
Group. Being one of the six committees of BEST, the Training Groups
mission is to provide adequate coordination between the needs of Local BEST Groups for training and the
trainers who are able to satisfy those
needs and deliver the required sessions.The structure of Trainers Community comprises two elements:
Trainers Community is represented by an impressive number of more

36

than 400 trainers, who are also BEST

members. The primary role of trainers
is to deliver training. Apart from this,
they continuously share knowledge
and materials amongst each other,
support, give feedback and advise to
each other. This knowledge management guarantees that BEST trainers
never stop their professional growth
and continually improve themselves
through cooperation.
Training Group members consist of
49 members of BEST who provide
the coordination of training to BEST
members in order to ensure they can
contribute to the organisation in an
effective way.
The Training Groups daily activities
business revolves exclusively around
BEST members, as its mission is to ensure coordination of training in BEST.

QUALITY ASSURANCE IN TRAINING

Trainers Meetings on Trainer
Camp - TRAP

Since the establishment of the Training System in 1999, quality assurance

has always been a hot topic. Over
the years, a few methods have been
established that assure the quality
of training as a service to all BEST
members on all levels. The following
methods have proven the most successful and long lasting:

The education of trainers starts at

Trainer Camp, therefore the quality
assurance process starts already at
this level. In intervals of 3 to 5 event
editions (between 1,5 to 2,5 years),
the event is evaluated in all its aspects during a gathering of competent trainers (who either already delivered training at the event or have
relevant expertise). This ensures that
the knowledge and methodology
used and transmitted during this crucial event stays up to date.

Train the Trainer Meetings

Second level trainer education is an

integral part of a trainers life cycle.
These three to four days events are
organised to prepare trainers for delivering topics requiring more refined
delivery techniques (e.g. communication models with a deeper psychological background).

Quality Content Project

This project evaluates the relevance

and factual validity of knowledge that
has been gathered throughout the
years since the establishment of the
Training System. The working methods include literature research, sharing and live, as well as online meetings. The desired outcome is to have
up-to-date and professionally correct
content in our training material, thus
ensuring that the knowledge delivered to BEST members adheres to
high quality standards.

37

IT SYSTEMS
BEST relies on relatively complex IT
systems to support its activity. These
range from our own mail servers to
the application system, which help
LBGs process the thousands of applications received for seasonal cour-

38

ses. As a result of the efforts made by

the organisation, BEST currently has
strong internal communication and
knowledge management tools that
keep being further developed.

Private Area

Innovation Platform

Private Area is the internal information system used by BEST. Its development dates back to the mid-nineties
and it is the result of the unification
of the IT platforms that supported
the services of BEST. In essence, this
system is the link between all the online tools of the organisation.

One of the goals of this years mandate was improving the innovation
process inside the organisation. As
BEST has grown, it has become harder to keep track of and start working
on plausible ideas due to the increase
in the complexity of communication.
The newly planned Innovation Platform aims to tackle this issue. This tool
has been defined to aid three areas of
the innovation process: brainstorming
and sharing, for presenting and developing ideas; storing and browsing, in
order not to lose ideas and keep track
of previously discussed topics; and
implemening these ideas.

When it comes to documentation for

knowledge management, Private Area
contains the Document Archives and
the Wiki. With these two tools, all the
written knowledge of the organisation is properly stored and available
for the generations to come.
HR management is also an inherent part of the system. By using the
HR tool and the Task Manager, BEST
bodies can easily overview and update the progress and skills of their
members, as well as assign appropriate tasks to them and keep track of
the work progress.

This tool will take the shape of a

forum, including the complex functionalities required to assist the innovation process. The development
started soon after the design was finalised after IPF Lisbon.

Private Area has undergone many development and design phases culminating with its current version. Its usability is constantly being improved,
and new features and tools are systematically planned, designed, implemented and launched.
Some highlights of this year are improvements on data visualisation
(with a more graphical approach), the
redesign of the Task Manager tool and
the design of Innovation Platform.

39

INTERNAL EVENTS
Over the previous pages, we have
been talking about the mission and
vision of BEST. About how BESTs activities and services aim to develop
students to empower diversity in the
future. But how is all of this managed?
The internal structure of BEST exists
to manage and support every service
that BEST provides to our stakeholders and internal events play a key role
in this.
As an international organisation,
much of our work is being done online, nevertheless, live events are an
inherent part of the working culture
of our organisation in order to function properly. Internal events fulfil
this need by providing the foundation for developing our projects and
facilitating the discussion among the
members of our organisation. Last
year, 69 internal events contributed
to the achievement of BESTs goals
for the year.
Having one of the most developed
internal training systems among student NGOs in the world represents
not only a great asset for our organisation, but also a great example of
what internal events are. BEST TrainShops gather selected members of
our local groups in a week-long internal event during which they get
trained on a specific topic related to
their current and future responsibilities inside the organisation, such as
leadership, fundraising, graphic design, human resources management
or marketing. Over the next few pages we will introduce other major internal events needed for the proper

40

functioning of our organisation, such

as General Meetings, which gather
members from every local group of
BEST or International Projects Forum,
which is a clear example of BESTs
working culture.

Presidents' Meeting Brno

Between 7th and 13th of November,
the 19th Presidents Meeting took
place in Brno, Czech Republic. It was
a chance for more than 160 students
from all Local BEST Groups as well as
partner NGOs of BEST to gather and
to discuss about the development of
our organisation.
From each Local BEST Group, one
delegate had the chance to represent
their group together with international committee leaders and delegates,
project coordinators, the International
Board of BEST and representatives of
our partner organisations. During this
event, they attended several training sessions, workshops, discussion
groups and above all, four full days of
plenary sessions.
Presidents Meeting Brno started with
an Official Opening Ceremony, held at
Brno University of Technology (BUT)
on the 8th of November. Participants,
together with 80 invited students
from Brno University of Technology,
listened to speeches delivered by Prof.
Michal Kotoul, Vice-rector of BUT; Michal Kotzian, PhD from the City Hall
of Brno; Prof. Ladislav Muslek from
SEFI; Mihai Tociu, President of the International Board of BEST and Libor
Seda, the main organiser of the event.

The Official Opening was a perfect

place for interaction between students and our partners: SKODA AUTO,
KTH, KIC InnoEnergy, Whirlpool, Vlerick Gent Business School and Brno
University of Technology. The day
was concluded with training sessions
on topics such as knowledge management, strategic networking and
communication and leadership all of
which were delivered by skilled BEST
trainers.

which international teams presented

their ideas for developing our organisation and their working methods.
Likewise, the delegates had a chance
to express support and provide feedback for international teams.
For Local BEST Group Brno, it was the
biggest event they have ever organised and a great honour to host such
an important event in the decision
making of BEST as well as a possibility to present Czech culture and tradition.

After Official Opening, four days of

plenary sessions followed during

41

International Projects' Forum Lisbon

The international scope of work in
BEST is based on projects managed
by international teams or the Board.
Regardless of their nature or leader,
this is how the on-going development
in BEST is arranged; clustered in small
chunks, each with their own goal, human resources and usually a deadline. Most importantly, sooner or later, some project will cross paths with
others, influence them and cause a
snowball effect that will push BEST
forward.
Due to the geographical spread, collaboration in projects is usually done
through virtual communication channels. Nevertheless, some projects require in-person meetings of the team
working on it. Once per year a very
special event takes place to gather all
of international BEST in one place to
create a platform for them to discuss
and work: the International Projects
Forum (IPF).

42

During the last IPF which took place

in February in Lisbon, Portugal, more
than 70 participants, including Board
members, committee members, regional advisors and project leaders
met to work on high-priority issues
that concerned the whole organisation. Important issues, such as the
evaluation of the structure of BEST,
Knowledge Management, Market Research, the Public Website and the
BEST budget for 2014/15 were tackled
during the 45 sessions that happened
over the four days of the event.
From a planning and performance
point of view, IPF is more than an important milestone in the BEST calendar. It is the personification of BESTs
vision and mission, where people
from all corners of Europe meet to
work voluntarily on developing students, share their passion and grow a
better tomorrow for the engineering
education world.

General Assembly Bucharest

Over time great organisations grow
and change is part of this process.
BEST, falling into this category, is no
different, much can change in any organisation in 25 years. Even so, there is
at least one thing that didnt change:
the General Assembly of BEST. Every
year, members of the local groups
gather to discuss and vote the most
important aspects of the organisation. This year Bucharest, Romania
had the chance to host this event and
for one year, all of the members of
BEST Bucharest worked hard to make
this dream come true.

this day ended, the delegates and organisers headed off to Neptun, a city
250 km from Bucharest, for General
Assembly working days, where the
alumni were already waiting. After six
days of hard work and plenary time,
followed by social activities during
the evening, the event ended and
the time has come for another local
group to take up the dream of organising General Assembly of BEST.
To sum up the event, the numbers
were:
BEST CAREER DAY

250 70 60
DELEGATES

General Assembly of BEST 2014 started with a Round Table where delegates from BEST and representatives
from events partners prepared the
Official Opening Day. Meanwhile, participants of BEST Career Day and delegates from BEST arrived and went
for a city tour. The very next day, everyone put on their suits and attended the Official Opening Day. When

ORGANISERS

60
ALUMNI

PARTICIPANTS

DAYS

ONE DREAM

43

EXTERNAL

RELATIONS
44

YOUTH IN ACTION
Youth in Action is a programme created by the European Union for the period 2007-2013, aimed at developing
and supporting European cooperation
in the field of youth. The Education,
Audiovisual and Culture Executive
Agency (EACEA) is entrusted with the
implementation of the Youth in Action Programme.

In 2013, the final year of partnership with Youth in Action, BEST was
granted with the maximum possible
amount (50.000 ) to support the annual work programme for the period
2013-2014. The financial support from
the European Commission covered
planned operating expenses of BEST,
mainly related to travel costs of the
management, organisation of internal
events, marketing and administrative
expenses.

As a European NGO exclusively dedicated to youth, BEST activities have

been recognised by EACEA as contributing to youth active citizenship,
mobility of young people, their intercultural dialogue and mutual understanding. For the period 2011-2013,
BEST has put its focus on several key
development areas during this threeyear cooperation with EACEA under
the Youth in Action Programme. Every year, the annual activity plan and
budget were submitted for evaluation
by EACEA.

The renewal of the Framework Partnership Agreement is a strong pillar

for BEST, allowing the organisation to
strengthen its internal structure and
increase its impact among European
students of technology. This partnership plays a major role in assisting
BEST internally and in gaining recognition for BEST activities among its
stakeholders.

45

SEFI
It has been over 15 year that BEST and
SEFI has been collaborating. Throughout these years, we have collaborated on many various projects and this
year wasnt any different.
Continuing the tradition that started
in 2011 during the worlds first Engineering Education Flash Week in Lisbon, Portugal, once again BEST and
SEFI came together in organising SEFI
Annual Conference: Engineering Education Fast Forward 1973<2013<<.
During this conference in Leuven, Belgium from 18th to 20th September
2013, BEST had the responsibility for
the participating students as well as
contributing with workshops and sessions for all other participants. BEST
was responsible for organising the
students participation in the conference by promoting the event to European students, organising conference
activities tailored to students needs,
covering multiple practical needs,
as well as organising a social programme.
During this event, over 300 people,
students and professors, gathered
to discuss the latest trends and hot
topics within European Engineering
Education (EEE). Among all the topics
that were tackled during various sessions, topics like sustainability of EEE,
physics in engineering and information and telecommunication technologies were tackled. Moreover, a paper
reporting outcomes of Symposium in
Vienna 2012 Importance of interdisciplinarity was presented, together
with several smaller presentations

46

conducted by BEST members as well

as a workshop: Train the trainers for
professors showing various teaching
methods that could be applicable in
lecture halls. Through this event, students had an opportunity to not only
learn about developments in EEE but
also to start creating a valuable network.
In addition to the conference, SEFI
representatives have collaborated
with BEST on an Educational Symposium in Madrid, Spain, that happened
during summer. More about that
event can be read in the article about
Events on Education.

FEANI
FEANI is a federation of professional
engineers that unites national engineering associations from 32 European countries. Thus, it represents the
interests of over 3.500.000 million
professional engineers in Europe.

BEST and FEANI have been in contact

since 2006 and have identified the
need to increase the synergies between present and future engineers
thus creating a strong collaboration
between our two organisations. During
this 8-year-long cooperation, several
joint workshops on topics concerning
the mobility of engineering and the
exchange of representatives at both
of our organisations events have
been organised.

Through its activities and services,

FEANI aims at facilitating the mutual
recognition of engineering qualifications in Europe and strengthening the
position, role and responsibility of engineers in society.

During the last year, this partnership

was strengthened with the transfer
of BESTs headquarters to Brussels,
Belgium; directly under FEANIs headquarters. This years focus has been to
identify potential joint projects which
both organisations can address.

The organisation is a founding member of the World Federation of Engineering Organisations (WFEO) and
collaborates with many other organisations dealing with engineering and
technology issues, as well as engineering education.

47

PARTNER NGOS
Over the course of its existence, BEST
has developed strong bonds with several other major student and youth
organisations. BEST fosters communication and a mutual exchange of best
practices with these partner NGOs,
enabling us to increase our organisational knowledge. In addition, a mutual exchange of members between
our partners leads to new ideas and
improvement.
BEST has five official partners: AEGEE
(European Students Forum), bonding,
CFES (Canadian Federation of Engineering Students), ELSA (European
Law Students Association) and ESTIEM (European Students of Industrial
Engineering and Management).
This years emphasis was on developing the partnerships we have and
disseminating the opportunities they
bring with them. This year that process resulted in over 110 cases of delegates and participants being sent to
each others events, which led to the
sharing of a great deal of information
and knowledge.

AEGEE is Europes largest interdisciplinary student organisation. It promotes cooperation, communication

and integration among young people
in Europe. It consists of 13.000 members active in more than 200 universities.
AEGEE has been a partner of BEST
since 2010. Over the years, communication on topics like the dissemination of educational achievements,
grants, and quality assurance has

48

been established. Additionally, a joint

Youth in Action grant with AEGEE was
submitted in September 2013 and was
accepted, leading to a series of joint
training events over the coming years.

bonding is a student association that

bridges the gap between students
and employers. They offer German
students a broad range of projects
aimed at increasing student insight
into companies for their future career.
bonding has over 350 members and
local groups in 11 cities in Germany.
bonding has been a partner of BEST
since 1997. As a result, the exchange
of members between our organisations is still strong: in the course of
2013-2014 over 70 participants were
exchanged during various events.
bonding has also been supportive
of our new BEST groups in Germany:
Aachen and Erlangen.

CFES is a national bilingual orga-

spread around 300 universities in Europe.

nisation, representing approximately

60.000 engineering students across
Canada. CFES aims at providing opportunities for an all-encompassing
education for engineering students in
Canada to become unparalleled professionals in their field.

ELSA has been a partner of BEST

since 2011. In previous years, BEST and
ELSA mainly exchanged legal and
technical advice, though now cooperation revolves about sharing best
practices on a variety of topics (such
as organisational structure, alumni
and grants).

CFES has been a partner of BEST

since 2000. This year, CFES organisation of the first International Engineering Competition (IEC) marked a
milestone in our cooperation. BEST
was able to send several participant
teams and therefore was mostly responsible for the participation of Europe in the IEC.

ESTIEM is the organisation for European Students of Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM). Founded in 1990, ESTIEM was established
in order to connect IEM students all
over Europe and provide them with a
unique platform to support them in
their personal and professional development.

ELSA is the worlds largest independent association for law students.

ELSA offers law students a perfect
platform to develop new and existing skills, and network. It has a membership of around 35.000 students,

ESTIEM has been a partner of BEST

since 2011. This year, our cooperation
has strengthened significantly due to
increased participant exchange on a
variety of events. Contacts have been
initiated on matters of educational involvement, marketing, alumni, competitions and knowledge management.
Seeking additional opportunities,
BEST is also a member of IFISO (Informal Forum of International Student Organisations): a platform of 21
international student organisations. It
enables its members to easily collaborate and strengthen their capacities.
The Ambassador of BEST is part of
the management organising the next
IFISO meeting in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

49

YOUTH FORUM JEUNESSE

YFJ (Youth Forum Jeunesse) or commonly known in English as the European Youth Forum, is an international organisation established by
national youth councils and international non-governmental youth
organisations in Europe. It strives to
be the voice of young people in Europe, where young people are equal
citizens and are encouraged and supported to achieve their fullest potential as global citizens. YFJ provides a
support platform for its 99 member
organisations and helps them develop and become more recognised. YFJ
works closely with the Council of Europe, European Union and United Nations.

Since April 2013, BEST has been an

observer member of the Youth Forum
and through this platform, BEST aims
to become further engaged in European matters such as youth employment, mobility, non-formal education
and much more. This year, BEST has
been able to be present at the YFJ
Council of Members which took place
in the European Youth Capital of 2014,
Thessaloniki, Greece and as well at
the ERASMUS+ event in Brussels,
Belgium. The opportunities of being
involved are abounding, therefore exploration are the next steps.

ROUND TABLE
Every year, BEST organises Round Tables in order to meet with our current
and potential partners in the technical
field. Representatives from companies, institutions, technical universities
and business schools have opportunity to get to know BEST more.
We present our services, activities
and ongoing projects of our organisation and hold discussions about how
to bring companies and universities
closer to talented, creative and internationally-minded students of technology from all over Europe. Another
important goal of our Round Table is
to talk about the needs and expectations of our stakeholders, ask for their
input to determine missing points in

50

our services and then work together

on finding ways in which BEST can
meet those expectations. This way,
we are able to develop our Career
Support service and provide a better
value for our partners and students.
This year, we organised two Round
Tables in different cities of Europe.
The first one was held in Brno, Czech
Republic before our Presidents Meeting in November and the most recent
one took place in Bucharest, Romania
before our BEST Career Day & General Assembly in April. Representatives
from BRD - Groupe Societe Generale, Deutsche Bahn, EIT ICT Labs, IE
Business School, FEANI, KTH - Royal
Institute of Technology, Misys, P&G,

Skoda, UPM - Technical University of

Madrid and Whirlpool were together
with us during these events.

stakeholders and set the premise for

long-term and successful collaborations.

These events give us the opportunity to discover new ways of improving

the cooperation with our participant

51

PROMOTING VIRTUAL MOBILITY IN PLACEMENTS

Promoting Virtual Mobility in Placements (PROVIP), is a project under the
Lifelong Learning Programme where
over ten partners from six different
European countries work together to
develop a new concept: virtual internships.
The project, coordinated by KU Leuven, Belgium, is a follow-up to Enterprise-University Virtual Placements
(EU-VIP), which concluded in 2011.
EU-VIP focused on virtual mobility in
order to enhance the quality of international work placements, and aimed
to develop a framework which would
allow the three stakeholders: students, companies and universities, to
conduct a fruitful virtually supported
internship.
The results of EU-VIP include guidelines and training material for these
stakeholders which were developed
over a number of pilot projects organised by business partners. Students
also provided input which was gathered via two symposia that were organised by BEST in cooperation with
EU-VIP.
The same results helped to lay the
foundation of PROVIP, which started in October 2012 and will last until November 2014. The main goal of
PROVIP is to disseminate the outcomes on virtual mobility from EUVIP to numerous stakeholders, but in
particular to companies as it is commonly believed that virtual mobility
has a low impact for industry.
For PROVIP, several pilot projects and

52

training events are taking place to

raise corporate awareness. Moreover,
an online platform has been developed to provide stakeholders with the
tools needed to arrange and manage
virtual internships, including the promotion of internship offers, an application system, communication tools
between the interns, companies and
university and tools to gather feedback.
BEST is contributing to all areas of
the project coordinated by different
partners. Our main role in the project
is to provide students input via the
organisation of two Events on Education. The first of these took place in
July 2013 in Timisoara, Romania, under the the theme: Bringing education
and entrepreneurship under students
scope. The event gathered extensive
input from students on their opinion
of virtual internships and internships
as a whole, in addition to evaluating
and providing feedback to the online
platform which has been developed
to support virtual internships. Topics
on entrepreneurship and its relation
with virtual internships were also covered, which presented new perspectives on the subject.
The second Event on Education, LINK:
Lets Introduce the Network of Knowledge, will take place in Gdansk in July
2014. It will tackle the topics of virtual
mobility and continue to explore its
relationship with entrepreneurship.
From our cooperation with PROVIP,
BEST gains insight into future work
practices, provides students input for

the development of these projects

and makes sure students needs are
satisfied, while gaining knowledge
on exciting and relevant issues such
as virtual mobility. In this way, we are
able to keep improving the outcomes
of our events and present them not
only to PROVIP, but also the other
engineering associations, leading to

a better future for the students who

will have more options when taking
the decision of applying for an internship.
We are hoping to continue with these
fruitful collaborations and partnerships which benefits all of our stakeholders.

INTEL BUSINESS CHALLENGE

Intel Business Challenge Europe (IBC
Europe) is part of Intel Global Challenge, which gives business development opportunities to young entrepreneurs and start-ups with potential.
The contest is supported by affiliate
networks and business experts across
Europe. Individuals and groups have
the possibility to develop their business idea into operational start-ups
and co-create on a European and
global level.

but also a programme for the development of skills for young people.
The role of BEST is to disseminate
information about the competition to
engineering students across Europe,
as well as provide feedback on certain parts of the competition. Involvement in IBC Europe gives us access to
a broad network of institutions and
industry representatives, as well as
experts in the engineering and business fields. Furthermore, as IBC is a
competition, we see cooperation as
a learning opportunity for both sides
to further develop our own competitions.

BEST, by becoming part of the IBC Europe affiliate network with the 2014
edition, supports activities under IBC
Europe, as it is not only a competition,

53

WORLD ENGINEERING EDUCATION FORUM

Even if BEST has its European boundaries, external relations do not know
the definition of borders.
The International Federation of Engineering Education Societies (IFEES)
is an umbrella organisation that aims
to establish effective engineering
education processes of high quality around the world and to assure a
global supply of well-prepared engineering graduates for the engineering
field.
In September 2013, BEST had the opportunity to attend a distinguished

54

event organised by IFFES, the World

Engineering Education Forum (WEEF)
in Cartagena, Columbia. The topic of
the event was innovation in Engineering Education as there is a general
need to search for innovated solutions in order to help optimise processes and services in the field of Engineering Education.
After the successful involvement in
WEEF, BEST is currently discussing its
involvement in the 2014 and 2015 editions which will take place in Dubai,
UAE and Florence, Italy, respectively.

INTERNATIONAL ENGINEERING COMPETITION

The International Engineering Competition (IEC) is an event organised by
the Canadian Federation of Engineering Students (CFES) of which BEST
was a partner, along with several other international partners. It seeks to
gather participants from all over the
world to compete in the categories:
Design competition and Consulting
competition. As in other competitions,
creativity and good teamwork are important factors to win, and students
learn by solving novel problems together in an innovative way.

While the IEC is not officially linked to

any part of the EBEC pyramid, nonetheless several teams composed of
BESTies and EBEC participants travelled to Canada in order to compete,
and as such BEST was responsible for
a large part of the European teams in
the event. One of these teams would
even go on to win the Design competition!
IEC is the main intercontinental project that BEST is engaged in, and as
such its organisation (and the collaboration with CFES) forms one of
BESTs most important projects. Both
CFES and BEST have already started
the preparation of the next IEC edition, currently scheduled for September 2015.

In September 2013, the first ever edition of IEC was organised in Calgary,
Alberta, Canada. It brought together students from Canada, the United
States, and Europe, resulting in a total
of 16 teams. Shell was the exclusive
sponsor of the competition, therefore
its official name was the Shell International Engineering Competition.

More information about the 2013

competition is available on: www.iec.
cfes.ca.

55

PUBLIC

RELATIONS
56

BEST, as an organisation growing day

by day, recognises the value of building a strong external image among its
stakeholders in order to assure that
all of the services produced by BEST
members are well-understood and
appreciated by the public. To this end,
the Public Relations Project strives
to monitor, assess and reinforce the
public image of BEST through the
use of social media channels, media
appearances and collaboration with
Local BEST Groups. Since 2009, this
project has ensured that BEST remains a well-known brand providing
high quality services to European students of technology.

opportunities, together with internal

events such as Regional Meetings,
General Meetings and Training Events
are promoted through social media
channels and media coverage.
As a result of a careful planning, official social media accounts of BEST
have been gaining the attention of a
great number of students, companies
and educational institutions. To illustrate, the official Facebook account
of BEST increased the number of its
fans by 47% in less than a year and
reached 11.407. Similarly, the official
Twitter account of BEST augmented
the number of its followers remarkably and reached 1.100. In parallel, the
official LinkedIn account of BEST saw
the number of 2.702 with an increase
of 63%.

Promotion of BEST services is a key

element for the public relations practices of BEST as they hold an importance in strengthening the public image of BEST. Therefore, BEST courses,
European BEST Engineering Competition, career-related and educational

Media coverage is also an integral

component of establishing a strong
relationship with the stakeholders
of BEST. Thus, a notable amount of

57

media companies were contacted

for possible media partnerships. The
biggest and most prestigious events
of BEST, namely General Assembly,
BEST Career Day, Presidents Meeting and European BEST Engineering
Competition, were publicised through
a notable number of different media channels. Young Petro, an international student magazine focused
on the petroleum industry, was also

involved in this process by being the

media partner for General Assembly
Bucharest 2014 and European BEST
Engineering Competition Final Round
2014.
The Public Relations Project is determined to continue its high-quality
and dedicated work in the following
years to make sure that BEST is in its
rightful place among its stakeholders.

FACEBOOK
STATISTICS
11.407
7.759
5258
3.731

4341
3038

SEASON
EVENTS

2013

2014
58

59

LOCAL

BEST

GROUPS
UNIVERSITIES & PRESIDENTS
LBG Aalborg

Daniel Hillerstrm

Aalborg University, Aalborg Universitet

LBG Almada

Tiago Cardoso

New University of Lisbon

LBG Ankara

Ahmet Mert Ozcelik

Middle East Technical University (Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi)

LBG Athens

Myriam Sarantea

National Technical University of Athens (Ethnico Metsovio Polytechnio)

LBG Aveiro

Ctia Alves

University of Aveiro

LBG Barcelona

Albert Poti Jove

Technical University of Catalonia

LBG Belgrade

Daniel Mijailovic

University of Belgrade

LBG Brasov

Adrian Marcean

Transilvania University of Brasov

LBG Bratislava

Matej upka

Slovak University of Technology, Bratislava

LBG Brno

Jan Maz

Brno University of Technology

LBG Brussels

Laurens Raes

Free University of Brussels (VUB)

LBG Brussels ULB

Flavius Ivan

University of Brussels (ULB)

LBG Bucharest

Andrei Frincu

Politehnica University of Bucharest

LBG Budapest

Kristf Andrzej Baran

Budapest University of Technology and Economics

LBG Chania

Aggeliki Marini

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

LBG Chisinau

Dorin Russu

Technical University of Moldova

LBG Cluj-Napoca

Andrei Popa

Technical University of Cluj-Napoca

LBG Coimbra

Cristina Bento

University of Coimbra

LBG Copenhagen

Thomas Bruun Bertelsen

Technical University of Denmark, Danmarks Tekniske Universitet

LBG Delft

Sebastian France

Delft University of Technology

LBG Eindhoven

Nawshad Chowdhury

Eindhoven University of Technology

LBG Ekaterinburg

Elvira Yakupova

Urals State University of Railway Transport

LBG Ekaterinburg UrFU

Ksenia Burlakova

Ural Federal University

LBG ENSAM

Antoine Van Der Borght

Arts et Mtiers ParisTech

LBG ENSTA ParisTech

Grgoire Varillon

ENSTA ParisTech

LBG Faro Algarve

Artem Yultyyev

University of Algarve

LBG Gdansk

Maciej Kopania

Gdansk University of Technology

LBG Ghent

Eline De Buyser

Ghent University

LBG Gliwice

Mateusz Ryba

Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice

LBG Gothenburg

Mats Lindstrom

Chalmers University of Technology, Chalmers Tekniska Hgskola

LBG Graz

Philipp Miedl

Graz University of Technology

LBG Grenoble

Sylvain Bouvet

Grenoble Institute of Technology

LBG Helsinki

Timo Salo

Aalto University, Aalto-yliopisto

LBG Iasi

Mariana Doroftei

"Gheorghe Asachi" Technical University of Iasi

LBG Istanbul

Mertcan ztrk

Istanbul Technical University (Istanbul Teknik niversitesi)

LBG Istanbul Yildiz

Tunc Sahin

Yildiz Technical University

LBG Izmir

Veysel Anil Gunay

Ege University (Ege niversitesi), Izmir, Turkey

LBG Kaunas

Justinas Maonas

Kaunas University of Technology

LBG Kiev

Marina Shalko

National Technical University of Ukraine "Kyiv Polytechnic Institute"

LBG Kosice

Marcela Markoviov

Technical University of Kosice

LBG Krakow

Michal Kulbat

AGH-UST - University of Science and Technology

LBG Las Palmas

Maria Ramos

Las Palmas of Gran Canaria University

LBG Leuven

Laurens De Smedt

Catholic University of Leuven (KUL)

LBG Liege

Anthony Marchand

University of Lige

LBG Lisbon

Ana Rita Medeiros

University of Lisbon

LBG Ljubljana

Tanja Abramovic

University of Ljubljana

LBG Lodz

Marta Wadowska

Lodz University of Technology

LBG Louvain-la-Neuve

Louise Nol

Catholic University of Louvain (UCL)

LBG Lund

Ellen Persson

Lund University, Faculty of Engineering, Lunds Tekniska Hgskola

LBG Lviv

Oleh Kozak

Lviv Polytechnic National University

LBG Lyon

Rmi Chateau

INSA Lyon

LBG Madrid

Pedro Garcia Chas

Technical University of Madrid

LBG Madrid Carlos III

Irene Romero

Carlos III University of Madrid

LBG Maribor

Katja u

University of Maribor

LBG Messina

Giuseppe Sgr

University of Messina

LBG Milan

Michele Damato

Politecnico di Milano

LBG Moscow

Pavel Sukhov

Bauman Moscow State Technical University

LBG Mostar

Nermina Baljic

University "Dzemal Bijedic" of Mostar

LBG Nancy

Adrien Carpinteiro

University of Lorraine

LBG Naples

Mario Salomone

University of Naples "Federico II

LBG Nis

Pavle Djordjevic

University of Nis (Univerzitet u Nisu)

LBG Novi Sad

Marko Vasiljevic

University of Novi Sad

LBG Paris Ecole Centrale

Aiman Sokhal

Centrale Paris

LBG Paris Polytechnique

Boris Azimi

Ecole Polytechnique

LBG Patras

Anastasios Alexopoulos

University of Patras (Panepistimio Patron), Patras, Greece

LBG Porto

Felipe Afonso Vieira

University of Porto

LBG Prague

Adam Uhl

Czech Technical University in Prague

LBG Reykjavik

Daniel Eldjarn Vilhjalmsson

University of Iceland, Hskli slands

LBG Riga

Zane Feldmane

Riga Technical University

LBG Rome

Tatiana Quercia

Sapienza University of Rome

LBG Rome Tor Vergata

Daniele Rossini

University of Rome Tor Vergata

LBG Saint Petersburg

Olga Osipenko

Saint Petersburg State Polytechnical University

LBG Skopje

Vesna Markovska

University Ss. Cyril and Methodius (Univerzitet Sveti Kiril i Metodij)

LBG Sofia

Dimitar Dimitrov

Technical University of Sofia

LBG Stockholm

Riccardo Borgani

Royal Institute of Technology, Kungliga Tekniska Hgskolan (KTH)

LBG Supelec

Adam Smiarowski

Suplec (Ecole Suprieure d'Electricit (Suplec))

LBG Tallinn

Andres Ruul

Tallinn University of Technology

LBG Tampere

Emil Hagstrom

Tampere University of Technology

LBG Thessaloniki

Olga Vrousgou

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

LBG Timisoara

Paul Finta

Politehnica University of Timisoara

LBG Trondheim

Franz LaZerte

Norwegian University of Science and Technology

LBG Turin

Davide Modesti

Politechnic of Turin

LBG Uppsala

Nemer Achour

Uppsala University, Uppsala Universitet

LBG Valladolid

lvaro Gutirrez Gonzlez

University of Valladolid

LBG Veszprem

Fut Dniel

University of Pannonia

LBG Vienna

Bernhard Stecher

Vienna University of Technology

LBG Vinnytsia

Inna Melnyk

Vinnytsia National Technical University

LBG Warsaw

Pawel Kociuba

Warsaw University of Technology

LBG Wroclaw

Marcin Majczyk

Wroclaw University of Technology

LBG Zagreb

Vitka Gres

University of Zagreb

LBG Zaporizhzhya

Sasha Kravtsova

Zaporizhzhya National Technical University

61

PARTNERS OF

BEST

CAREER SUPPORT PARTNERS

UNIVERSITY AND INSTITUTIONAL PARTNERS

SUPPORTERS
EDUCATIONAL PARTNERS
PRO

VIP

PARTNER NGOS
European Students Forum

With the support of the Youth in Action Programme of the European Union

63

With the support of the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union