Annual Report Board of European Students of Technology 2003/04 » We Are BEST

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» Annual Report Board of European Students of Technology 2003/04 » We are BEST

Improving a student’s life is what we do in BEST. with all our pleasure for all students of technology. Offering knowledge in science and engineering, On our way through Europe we are moving our limits, cultural experiences and social contacts all over losing our fears and getting ready to take the ﬁ rst Europe… To achieve these goals we work voluntarily steps into real life.

» Content

Word from the President 03 Highlights 04 Complementary Education 06 New Challenges 08 Educational Involvement 10 BEST Career Support 12 366 Days of Commitment 14 Financial Report 17 BEST in Europe 19 Local BEST Groups 20 Historical Evolution 22 Support from the Organisation 25 Partner Organisations 26 Partnership with Companies 27 » Word from the President 03

Every company recognises the need of training their environment forms the basis of their activity spread employees to get the skills needed for working in over 64 universities. The skills they gather during this nowadays complex environment. But why would you BEST period are more than just an enrichment of the wait so long? knowledge taught at school - it allows them to go for new challenges every day. BEST offers you the chance to actively support and enjoy the development of students of technology into During 2003 - 2004, BEST gave special attention to responsible engineers ready to become the managers the quality of our services. Thanks to the help of more of tomorrow. than 1500 motivated members, you will read about the nice progress achieved. Since 1989, BEST organises activities all over Europe. 500 000 students get the chance to extend their extra- In order to continue on this track the next years, I want curricular skills, to start an international career and to to invite you to cooperate with BEST. Your company discover the cultural diversity of Europe. This is done will be able to see better results than by using more in close cooperation with several companies taking standard approaches to students, and BEST will this opportunity to reach directly their target group of reach more students than ever before. potential future employees. Enjoy reading! When cooperating with BEST, your company also gets into contact with students who are passionate for working hard to offer these services to their fellow Wouter Schaekers students. Project oriented teamwork in a multicultural President of XVI board of BEST 04 » Highlights

15 Years of BEST TREE

In 1989, when BEST was born during a Due to BEST members positive contribution conference in Berlin, nobody could imagine in past educational networks, BEST got the how the future would look like. Over the unique opportunity to join a new project: years, 14 member groups became 64 and Teaching and Research in Engineering in plenty of others interested. Europe (TREE), a network of universities and organisations, funded by the European In the beginning, the only possibility to meet Commission. was the biannual ‘European Conference’. Nowadays, over 100 BEST events are From autumn 2004, BEST members will not organised on yearly basis. In time, new only bring their valuable ideas to produce services and also new skills have been speciﬁ c tools and reports to improve developed: a career centre, active input engineering teaching and research, but to educational topics and engineering also be part of the managing committee competitions. But what is most surprising: we and therefore have a strong leading role, as never lost touch with the 15 year’s old slogan: only student organisation of the network. “To promote Europe amongst Europeans”. They were visionary after all, in 1989.

Target Group Quality

The target audience of BEST services During the past years we found out that are “students of technology”. But what the quality of BEST Courses, our most does “technology” stand for? After a lot of important service, could not always be refl ection, we answered this question at guaranteed. That’s why we analysed the the General Assembly 2004, by defi ning situation and worked to identify the key “technology” as “applied sciences - elements all courses should have. engineering” and “science”. The result was a system to standardise We will thus promote our services only to the number of learning hours for all BEST students from these study fi elds. By October Courses. As the next goal, we want to 2004 we will update our application system reach a higher number of courses that are to ensure BEST services reach only our recognised by our universities. target group.

,g ,y , g, , Trainshops External Cooperation

Trainshops are short intensive training An important contribution of strenghtening events for BEST members. Their purpose BEST services was brought by cooperation is to provide high quality training in soft with external partners. Exchange of ideas skills like presentation, leadership or with other student organisations enabled communication, as well as practical areas, BEST to develop extra capability where our like fundraising, project management or own experience was not suffi cient before. public relations. A detailed cooperation plan with BEST’s In the period 2003 - 2004 BEST organised offi cial partners was approved to bring two trainshops, which focused on the current this cooperation even at a higher level the needs of our members. The fi rst trainshop coming year. Also the received feedback tackled the management of BEST Courses, from educational partners highlights the the second one was designed to improve value of the work done in and by BEST. the fundraising skills of our members.

Corporate Image

This year BEST started to work on the creation of a corporate image, which will make BEST more recognizable and known all over Europe.

Searching the right balance between organisation-wide standards and local ﬂ exibility has been addressed so that results will be ready next year. 06 » Complementary Education

Complementary education aims at improving the knowledge of engineering students in areas, important for their future career.

BEST members fulﬁ l this aim by making organisational efforts and collaborating with professors to set up educational goals.

» Learning Events

BEST Learning Events gather around 20 students who have the opportunity to explore a speciﬁ c ﬁ eld of a wide range of topics. These events are also a great opportunity to experience European cultures and to start new friendships.

Organiser Name of the Course Date # applications

Athens “From ancient until modern times...Olympic Games came back home” Apr 15 2004 267 Barcelona Optical Communications: come and you will see the light !! Sep 12 2004 343 Belgrade Connecting Europe - Opportunities of Internet network in modern communications Jul 09 2004 146 Brasov GET Plugged: Ways of interconnection Jul 25 2004 113 Bratislava Car is Immortal - behind the scene of the car industry Aug 29 2004 178 Brussels Contemporary materials for construction: in search for the next generation building Aug 28 2004 199 tools Bucharest In BRAND We Trust - How to Develop and Promote a Brand Sep 12 2004 134 Budapest How the goods travel? - logistic management in the 21st century Aug 15 2004 258 Chania Production Engineering and Management - Total Quality Control Jul 07 2004 359 Cluj-Napoca Evolve beyond 3D. Get to the Edge of Design Jul 11 2004 111 Coimbra Polymeric Materials Applications Aug 20 2004 138 Eindhoven How To Make A Hit Record: To promote Eurodance among Europeans Apr 24 2004 176 Ekaterinburg Ekaterinburg - city on the continents crossroads Oct 03 2004 69 Ekaterinburg USTU Radioactivity in our life May 02 2004 102 Ghent Water, essential for life and economic development Aug 15 2004 229 Gliwice Sell yourself! - The BEST ways to manage and create public relations Jul 04 2004 160 Gothenburg Electromagnetic ﬁ elds and their effects Jan 23 2004 156 Grenoble Smaller is Better - Enter the World of Micro and Nano Technologies Aug 30 2004 265 Helsinki 1-2-tree - International Forest Industry Aug 14 2004 271 Iasi Multimedia Technology for WEB Design - A project based learning environment Jul 18 2004 147 Kosice Industry & ecology - a battle a or symbiose? Feb 21 2004 212 Krakow Barrel of beer? Barrel of oil? Can you tell the difference? Jun 27 2004 61 Leuven Energy - Wake up... we’re tomorrow ! Jul 18 2004 355 Liege Medical matters under the knife of engineers Jul 11 2004 189 Lisbon ATGC(Another Truly Great Course): Biotechnology at the dawn of the XXI century Jul 30 2004 401 Ljubljana Let’s join to split atoms Apr 24 2004 164 Ljubljana Turn me on !!! - Electricity in the service of medicine Jul 03 2004 161 Organiser Name of the Course Date # applications

Lodz Plasma - From Galaxies to Thin Films Apr 18 2004 120 Lodz Artiﬁ cial Intelligence - Virtual Fight Jul 04 2004 175 Louvain-la-Neuve Medical imaging for diagnosis, image guided surgery and drug discovery Jul 18 2004 180 Lund SimRobots - Now in space! Jul 30 2004 373 Lviv Ecology in global system of investment Sep 05 2004 79 Lyon Sustainable Development : How to increase the value of our waste? Aug 30 2004 222 Madrid Design for All: Accesible Web Design Jul 19 2004 522 Maribor Let’s save the world!!! Jul 04 2004 75 Milan Enviromental resources: management & monitoring for a sustainable develope- Mar 21 2004 323 ment Naples 9001: Quality Odyssey! Sep 04 2004 222 Paris, Ecole Centrale Managing across cultures Jan 24 2004 201 Paris, Ecole Centrale Discover a great European space project Apr 20 2004 229 Paris, ENSAM Health and biotechnologies Apr 25 2004 149 Paris, ENSTA An international company : How to run it? What’s my place in it? Jan 11 2004 194 Paris, Polytechnique March on Mars Mar 21 2004 307 Paris, Supelec Network industries - A European issue Mar 06 2004 283 Patras “To green or not to grin?” Environmental Protection May 02 2004 189 Porto Advanced Materials - Building the Future! Sep 10 2004 228 Rome Get new energies in your life: be renewable!!! Sep 05 2004 380 Skopje Importance of communications - Welcome to the world of information! Jul 03 2004 153 Stockholm Breaking Secure Communication Systems: The History of Obsecurity Jun 02 2004 177 Tallinn Walk on Water - the Mystery of Hydrostructures Jul 11 2004 196 Tampere Bioelectric Signals of the Human Body Aug 08 2004 295 Thessaloniki Applications in information and communication society Oct 03 2004 231 Timisoara Advanced Materials Sep 12 2004 70 Turin Come on Wireless... Light my Fiber! Communication @ the speed of light Oct 03 2004 378 Uppsala Recharge your batteries... straight from the Sun! Aug 07 2004 457 Valladolid Are you fed up with your computer?? Try to teach it!!! Machine Learning algo- Mar 03 2004 349 rithms and applications Veszprem Health-gineering - Information systems for your health Aug 03 2004 158 Warsaw Secure it ! IT comes to ISMS May 14 2004 135 Zagreb Idea 2 Business Sep 12 2004 190 08 » New Challenges

In addition to Learning Events, BEST organises Engineering Competitions, Leisure Events and Cultural exchanges. Their aim is to broaden the academic and cultural horizons of engineering students.

» BEST Engineering Competition

The ﬁ rst BEST European Engineering Competition was held in Nieuwkerke (Belgium). Participants got training in teamwork, presenting and reporting. They competed in teams in the categories Team Design (construction of a robot), Case Study (solving a logistics problem) and Debates. As a result the participants clearly improved in working in an international team and in presenting and defending their ideas in front of an audience.

Organiser Name of the Event Date # applications

Eindhoven / Ghent BEST European Engineering Competition Oct 17 2003 114

» BEST Leisure Events

Every year BEST organises several leisure events. These courses don’t have an academic topic: they offer a schedule that focuses on social and cultural activities.

These events give the participants an excellent chance to expand their horizons by discovering European diversity and, very often, to discover their hidden abilities.

Organiser Name of the Event Date # applications

Brasov Dracula : Between myth and reality II Jul 05 2004 55 Bratislava Crazy Outdoors - See It, Do It, Enjoy It Jul 17 2004 78 Bucharest Medieval Transylvania: Unveil the Mystery of the Dark Castles Jul 19 2004 107 Gliwice Best Exploration Survival Tour - 1000 miles with Zubrowka in your backpack! Jul 24 2004 57 Kosice SurvivE treXing II : Lost in the Paradise Jul 10 2004 95 Lviv Danger! High Voltage 2004 MEGA Volt Jan 27 2004 59 Riga Veni, Vidi, Frui... taste our traditions Jul 09 2004 89 Timisoara The BEST Video: Direct Your Life! Aug 01 2004 73 Vienna 3D Hiking: “Dazzling Days on Dachstein” Aug 25 2004 91 » Cultural Exchanges 09

A Cultural Exchange is a cooperation between two or more Local BEST Groups. The main idea behind this event is to experience ﬁ rst hand the culture and social life of other Local BEST Groups and their hometowns. Practically this means the groups visit each other for a week.

Organiser Guests Date # involved students

Athens Riga Mar 15 - Mar 25 2004 40 bonding Hamburg Bucharest, Ekaterinburg, Tallinn May 2 - May 12 2004 36 Bratislava Uppsala Jun 19 - Jun 26 2004 17 Brussels Tampere Feb 9 - Feb 16 2004 18 Chania Valladolid Mar 24 - Apr 2 2004 39 Cluj-Napoca Helsinki May 17 - May 23 2004 28 Grenoble Ljubljana Feb 12 - Feb 21 2004 22 Helsinki Stockholm Jan 21 - Jan 23 2004 40 Helsinki Cluj-Napoca Apr 11 - Apr 18 2004 25 Kosice Barcelona, Rome Tor Vergata, Ekaterinburg USTU, Lviv Feb 6 - Feb 15 2004 28 Liege Budapest Feb 11 - Feb 17 2004 19 Lund Maribor, Timisoara Sep 23 - Sep 30 2003 30 Lund Paris, ENSAM Apr 25 - May 2 2004 25 Lviv Liege Mar 31 - Apr 10 2004 25 Maribor Lund Jul 21 - Jul 28 2003 20 Paris, Ecole Centrale Eindhoven Nov 28 - Dec 1 2003 17 Paris, ENSAM Lund Mar 16 - Mar 23 2004 25 Paris, Polytechnique Trondheim Jun 8 - Jun 13 2004 24 Riga Athens May 4 - May 14 2004 40 Rome Tor Vergata Barcelona, Kosice Feb 29 - Mar 6 2004 26 Soﬁ a Stockholm Mar 14 - Mar 22 2004 24 Tampere Brussels Oct 17 - Oct 24 2003 22 Thessaloniki Leuven, Belgrade Nov 27 - Dec 5 2003 20 Timisoara Budapest, Copenhagen Jul 24 - Jul 31 2003 30 Trondheim Paris, Polytechnique Feb 7 - Feb 15 2004 24 Uppsala Bratislava Feb 1 - Feb 8 2004 18 Zagreb Patras Mar 15 - Mar 21 2004 28 » Educational Involvement

Through the Educational Involvement, BEST strives to develop a growing competence in, and awareness of, educational matters among European students of technology and to provide valuable input from students to companies and teachers in order to help inﬂ uencing the development of engineering education in Europe.

In 2004, 39 participants participated in two educational events, compared with 44 participants in three educational events in 2003. For 2005 a plan for more educational events has been created. The main educational events will be BEST Symposium on Education and BEST Academics and Companies.

» International BEST Symposium

An International BEST Symposium (IBS) is a BEST event on education where European students of technology discuss educational matters and exchange ideas and experiences in the ﬁ eld of education with fellow students and with other interested groups. The goal of such an event is to increase the awareness of students of technology on educational matters in order to improve their self- development and to offer a knowledge base on education to all stakeholders in European engineering education.

Organiser Name of the Event Date # applications

Tallinn E4 Dissemination Year Mar 21 2004 68 Vienna Curriculum development: the use of new tools for teaching/learning Sep 22 2003 194

“It was an event that showed me students can actually change education. I discovered with enthusiasm that I’m not alone thinking about changes and willing to act on it. I found out a lot of about other educational systems; I had fun and made friends and had the genuine feeling that we can make our voice heard if we work together!”

Nadina Busuioc, Participant of IBS Vienna, September 2003 » BEST Educational Projects 11

To reach the goals of BEST Educational Involvement, E4 (Enhancing Engineering Education in BEST stimulates and develops actions where Europe) European students of technology can discuss educational matters and exchange ideas and E4 was a thematic network on engineering education, experiences in the ﬁ eld of education with fellow coordinated by the University of Florence. The goals students and other interested groups in education of E4 were to identify methodologies of quality, to and widely disseminates the outcomes produced analyse accreditation and recognition, to support within these actions. mobility and to search for new learning methods.

Participation of BEST in Thematic Networks on ETNET21 (European Thematic Network on Engineering Education Education and Training in the ﬁ eld of Environment- Water) BEST was, in 2003 - 2004, member of two thematic networks on engineering Education (E4, ETNET21), From September 2000 BEST was partner in ETNET thus keeping in touch with the education stakeholders 21, coordinated by VUB Brussels and focused on the and contributing to several interesting projects. analysis of obstacles for effective transfer activities and the study of new technological tools and their introduction into higher education and training systems. » BEST Career Support

» Local Jobfairs

Career support is a BEST service helping European students to take their ﬁ rst steps in the job market.

Each year Local BEST Groups across Europe organise jobfairs that bring students and companies closer together. These events are often done in collaboration with universities and other student organisations.

Orgnaniser Date # Companies # Visitors

Brasov Apr 19 - Apr 22 2004 17 2700 Bucharest Mar 22 - Mar 25 2004 33 6000 Cluj-Napoca May 9 - May 10 2004 32 3000 Ekaterinburg May 25 2004 4 300 Iasi Apr 26 - Apr 29 2004 7 3000 Krakow Mar 23 2004 16 8000 Lodz Mar 15 2004 10 1500 Soﬁ a Nov 23 2003 20 2000 Stockholm Nov 16 - Nov 17 2003 95 3000 Tallinn Apr 22 2004 27 1000 Timisoara May 4 - May 7 2004 32 3000 Valladolid Oct 29 2003 11 4000 Warsaw May 7 - May 8 2004 31 12000 Zagreb May 19 - May 21 2004 26 2000 » BEST Career Centre

BEST Career Centre is an interactive online job fair that connects universities and companies with highly skilled young engineers from all over Europe. Its main purpose is to increase the career opportunities for students and graduates. During 2003 - 2004 the number of CVs in our database has increased by 30%, and now 6770 persons have registered their CV online. The job offers change constantly, as companies constantly add new job offers into the Career Centre.

Through BEST Career Centre, students can ﬁ nd information about companies and job offers. They can also submit their CVs to our online database, where companies can browse the CVs and ﬁ nd students interested in an international career.

During 2003 - 2004 we tried to increase the number of job offers by establishing better relationships with the companies using our services. Furthermore, we began cooperating with Local BEST Groups to attract more companies to BEST Career Centre. The project is already showing its ﬁ rst results: through this system, Spica International joined recently.

Last year we also welcomed universities to BEST Career Centre. Thanks to the functional IT infrastructure, they can promote their academic offers like Master Courses and PhD’s. The ﬁ rst university that joined us is TU Delft (Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands).

Another important aspect was to ensure the quality of the CVs in our database. We organised a competition for Local BEST Groups; the objectives were to promote our services among students and gather CVs of a higher quality. We also provided the students guidelines for writing a CV.

For the future year, BEST aims at making BEST Career Centre more user-friendly for both students and companies. » 366 Days of Commitment

Every year a new International Board gets elected at From the mandate of the XVI board of BEST the the General Assembly in April. This board consists following goals were formulated: of nine BEST members and is in charge of the daily management of BEST. From July 1 2003 until 1. To make the information ﬂ ow between different June 30 2004 the XVI board focused on making the bodies of BEST more functional. organisation stronger as a whole. 2. To improve the quality of our public events. 3. To interact with the external world, showing that Goals we are proud of BEST. To achieve good results during their mandate, making 4. To make Local BEST Groups stronger: priorities was necessary to be able to stay focused 4.1 To provide Local BEST Groups with skills on on the most important issues. The members of the fundraising and human resources. board based these goals on reports written by the 4.2 To plan more in advance. Local BEST Groups, topics that were raised during 4.3 To provide a useful tool for Local BEST Groups the past General Assembly and their own experience cooperation. as BEST members.

» XVI Board of BEST

President: Wouter Schaekers Treasurer: Kristjan Mitt Secretary: Tina Toni Vice President for Internal Education: Aneta Blaszczyk Vice President for Information Technology: Gwenael Alizon Vice President for Educational Policies: Iulia Gherasim Vice President for Career Support: Piotr Bryk Vice President for Complementary Education: Gabriela Popescu Vice President for PR & Marketing: Tarvi Olli » Main Achievements 15

Strategic thinking in BEST

After a year of hard work clear guidelines on growth of the organisation were deﬁ ned. This work also resulted in several mandates for the XVII board of which ‘to strengthen the working structure of BEST’ is the ﬁ rst step towards a more dynamic organisation ready to extend its role in the next years.

Extended responsibility feeling of delegates on General Meetings Twice a year BEST holds General Meetings, to involve Local BEST Groups in the evolvement of BEST as a whole. During these meetings delegates learn about the new developments in BEST and can bring in their own knowledge and ideas. We are happy to see the increasing enthusiasm among delegates to grab this opportunity to work together on the future of BEST.

Improving internal organisation

As a direct answer to the needs of Local BEST Groups trainshops on fundraising and on PR & image were organised. To facilitate further the interaction between the groups an online sharing place was developed. At the same time the increased number of regional events improved their mutual communication and gave them the chance to prepare the upcoming congress. New ideas are still being developed to make internal communication even better, so BEST can work more efﬁ ciently.

Improving BEST services

By deﬁ ning a clear target group BEST can now more easily adapt its services to the expectations of those students. To improve even more the quality of our main service - BEST courses - a timeframe for the number of learning hours was developed.

» Future Steps

Still a lot of work is waiting for the new board, who has by now taken over the management of BEST. The XVI board is very conﬁ dent they will do a great job and wish them therefore a lot of success!

» Expenses » Financial Report 17 New Projects 10% Training Internal The fi nancial analysis comes from the audited fi nancial report 4% Communication for the period of July 1 2003 - June 30 2004. 56% Public Expenses Relations 19% More than 50% of the € 38,000 total expenses refer to travel and meeting expenses of the members actively involved in our organisation. This money ensured internal communication External and development. Furthermore, special attention was given Communication 11% to supporting Local BEST Groups. For this purpose, BEST International provided training events and fi nanced PR materials for Local BEST Groups.

Incomes » Incomes The ﬁ scal year 2003 - 2004 was special in many ways: the European Union changed it’s policy about funding non- Other governmental and non-political organisations. This decision 12% Corporate affected many student organisations. BEST was affected Partners by the loss of the EU grant, which represented 37% of last Supporters 52% year’s income. To compensate for this loss we had to put a 13% lot of effort into improving company relations. We achieved successful results by attracting more partner companies cooperating with BEST, which led to our career centre being used three times more both by students and companies.

Career Support Partners 23%

» BEST in Europe 19 64 Groups in 25 Countries 20 » Local BEST Groups

A Local BEST Group is the basis of the BEST structure, the place where everything starts. All groups are autonomous and managed by a local board which includes a president, treasurer and secretary.

To contact a Local BEST group, the easiest way is to write an email to [email protected] (e.g. [email protected]).

Full Members

Group President University Members Budget

Aalborg Michael Jensen Aalborg University 2 n/a Athens Dimitris Fotinos National Technical University of Athens 30 25000 Barcelona Guillem Torres Technical University of Catalonia 15 12100 Brasov Teodor Mihai Nicula “Transilvania” University of Brasov 12 15670 Bratislava Marek Kubis Slovak University of Technology 15 3000 Brussels Dirk Bolliou Free University of Brussels 13 8000 Bucharest Andrei Novac Polytechnic University of Bucharest 35 30000 Budapest Eva Juhasz Budapest University of Technology and Economics 22 5500 Chania Panagiotis Isigonis Technical University of Crete (T.U.C.) 18 5100 Cluj-Napoca Diana Moldovan Technical University of Cluj-Napoca 40 5800 Coimbra Miguel Tavares University of Coimbra 15 n/a Copenhagen Susan Langer Technical University of Denmark 20 24800 ENSAM Grégoire Biez Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Arts et Métiers 30 5200 ENSTA Chiheb Kaibi Advanced Techniques Superior National School 20 4800 Eindhoven Egbert Teeselink Eindhoven University of Technology 11 11300 Ekaterinburg Vyacheslav Mechanikov Urals State University of Railway Transport 16 6500 Ghent Beatrijs Verbrugge Ghent University 18 17500 Gliwice Anna Kus Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice 50 n/a Gothenburg Joel Andersson Chalmers University of Technology 18 13000 Grenoble Vy Nguyen National Polytechnic Institute of Grenoble 19 8020 Helsinki Tuomas Angervuori Helsinki University of Technology 24 13000 Iasi Ioana Nicusan “Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iasi 12 12750 Kosice Jan Mihalik Technical University of Kosice 25 11000 Krakow Maciej Malysz AGH - University of Science and Technology 22 14000 Leuven Nico Bogaert Katholieke Universiteit Leuven 16 8500 Lisbon Paulo Fonseca Instituto Superior Tecnico 23 10000 Ljubljana Klemen Drole University of Ljubljana 43 11500 Lodz Lukasz Kowalski Technical University of Lodz 20 5700 Louvain-la-Neuve Olivier Bodson Catholic University of Louvain 15 8000 Lulea Pia Mammioja Lulea University of Technology 4 n/a Lund Olaf Hoyer Lund Institute of Technology 18 10000 Madrid Tamara Crespo Polytechnical University of Madrid 20 600 Maribor Marjan Markocic University of Maribor 10 12000 Full Members

Group President University Members Budget

Milan Leonardo Lerede Politechnic of Milan 10 14000 Nancy Nicolas Pelletier National Polytechnic Institute of Lorraine 12 5000 Naples Salvatore Bocchetti University of Naples “Federico II” 30 500 Paris, Ecole Centrale Ryaz Daoud Aladine Centrale Paris 10 12000 Paris, Polytechnique Alexandre Persat Ecole Polytechnique 12 8000 Patras Marialena Vagia University of Patras 16 11500 Porto Luis Simoes University of Porto 24 n/a Riga Ilze Jakobsone Riga Technical University 25 5250 Rome Mario Leopizzi University of Rome “La Sapienza” 10 15000 Skopje Zoran Babamov University “St. Cyril and Metodius” 20 3300 Soﬁ a Vesela Lukarska Technical University of Soﬁ a 19 7000 Stockholm Monica Gretzer Royal Institute of Technology 17 12500 Supelec Jean-Baptiste Paquel Supelec 25 12000 Tallinn Esko Välling Tallinn University of Technology 55 40000 Tampere Elina Seppänen Tampere University of Technology n/a n/a Thessaloniki Giorgos Argyropoulos Aristotle University of Thessaloniki 13 16000 Timisoara Cristina Pop Politehnic University of Timisoara 35 10000 Trondheim Katrine Olsen Norwegian University of Science and Technology 18 24500 Turin Gianfranco Maglieri Politechnic of Turin 20 42000 Uppsala Karin Lindholm Uppsala University 9 11500 Valladolid Monica Martin University of Valladolid 30 n/a Veszprem Daniel Muhi University of Veszprem 20 5500 Vienna Rudolf Mayer Vienna University of Technology 15 7100 Warsaw Jacek Gawrych Warsaw University of Technology 39 80000 Zagreb Ivan Andrisek University of Zagreb 40 9000 Baby Members Group President University Members Budget

Almada Joao Lopes New University of Lisbon 13 n/a Belgrade Marija Orlovic University of Belgrade 15 1000 Lviv Artem Berenda Lviv Polytechnic National University n/a n/a Lyon Sophie Moreau National Institute of Applied Sciences 6 5150 Rome, Tor Vergata Roberto Spellucci University of Rome “Tor Vergata” n/a n/a 22 » Historical Evolution

In 1989 BEST was ofﬁ cially founded in Berlin having 14 local BEST groups spread over Europe. Since then our organisation has developed a lot thanks to the common passion for BEST of thousands of active members throughout the years.

In order to strengthen the organisation every new group willing to join BEST is going through several steps, where they can gradually develop their skills and capability.

Observer: discovering what BEST is about and gathering a group of enthusiastic students

Baby member: learning the BEST speciﬁ c skills and work on the continuity of the group

Full member: offering services to students and active helping to strengthen the organisation

» Growth of BEST

# Full Members 40

0 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 Years » New Groups

In the two General Meetings BEST members have decided upon the membership status of several groups. By the end of our anniversary year of the 15 years BEST we can proudly say that we are present in 64 universities in 25 countries in Europe, having 59 full members and 5 baby members. Next to this we are pleased to welcome 3 new interested Observer Groups.

New Full Members: • Vienna, Vienna University of Technology • Skopje, University “St. Cyril and Metodius” • Nancy, National Polytechnic Institute of Lorraine • Maribor, University of Maribor • Milan, Politechnic of Milan

New Baby Members: • Belgrade, University of Belgrade, • Rome, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”

New Observers: • Istanbul, Istanbul Technical University • Gdansk, Gdansk University of Technology • Kaunas, Kaunas University of Technology

» Taking Care of our Future

Membership has probably never been such a hot issue in BEST as last year. BEST members showed a close involvement in the development of their organisation, making sure that new groups were ready for the next step in their BEST career. In April guidelines for growth of BEST were approved in order to make it clear for everyone where BEST is heading to. » Support from the Organisation

24 » Training in BEST

Through a network of trainers 1700 training places with Trainer Camp V a broad variety of training were provided during the year 2003 - 2004 to ensure that BEST members will The Trainer Camp is an annual two-week event effectively contribute to the permanent development where experienced BEST trainers support the of the organisation. participants in their fi rst steps to become future BEST trainers. The trainees were provided with advanced Trainshop beRICHER training on communication, presentation, facilitation and teambuilding before practicing their skills and 20 participants learnt how to plan, prepare and delivering their fi rst training. organise fundraising in their Local BEST Groups and how to deal with company contacts. Moreover, they Jamboree 2003 gained an overview of new fundraising opportunities and the working methods of the fi nancial team. Gathering 400 participants, mainly new BEST members from all over Europe, Jamboree was the Trainshop beABLE biggest BEST event of the year. Besides learning about BEST and its projects newcomers attended For the second year, 19 future Learning Event training and increase strongly their motivation during coordinators learnt to ensure a high quality event this festival-like event. to students by receiving training on a wide range of topics, such as project management, fundraising and teamwork.

Organiser Name of the Trainshop Date Participants Trainers

Bratislava beABLE: management of a BEST Learning Event Mar 03 - Mar 08 2004 19 5 Poland Jamboree 2003 Nov 08 - Nov 11 2003 428 9 Thessaloniki beRICHER: improve fundraising skills of BEST members Mar 01 - Mar 06 2004 20 4 Valladolid Trainer Camp V : education of new trainers in BEST Jul 30 - Aug 18 2003 20 10

» Image of an Organisation

The life in BEST goes in circles, every next is reaching intensive training, where they learnt everything about a bit further. Last year BEST decided once again to public relations, marketing and design. take a closer look on the image of the organisation. Second bigger step was done in the beginning of First activity in this ﬁ eld was a PR and image training 2004, when 50 internationally active BEST members event for BEST members with the aim to grow gathered in Ghent, Belgium to evaluate and improve the overall knowledge in these matters. As BEST the current image of the services, BEST offers members are technical students this event focused to students: complementary education, career on a completely unknown ﬁ eld for them and turned support, educational involvement and engineering out to be really successful. Around 30 BEST members competition. gathered in Riga, Latvia in August 2003 for one week » General Meetings

From October 29 until November 4 2003, more than 140 BEST members gathered in Natoye (Belgium) to take part in the 10th Presidents’ Meeting. After 5 days of meetings and discussions they decided upon several topics, of which the most important were to investigate and evaluate the cooperation of BEST and bonding and to start offering BEST Career Centre to local companies.

From all over Europe 250 BEST members came to Copenhagen (Denmark) to attend the 22nd General Assembly April 3 – 11 2003. Being ready at 9 o’clock sharp, they started the day with discussions, working sessions and presentations... all to make BEST evolve and improve. After a full week they voted on the new XVII board, two mandates to improve the working structure and the image of BEST, a new rule of learning hours during a BEST course and the redeﬁ nition of the target group of BEST.

» Information Technology

How many of you ever thought about BEST as a foundry of virtual communication leaders? Globalisation, Internet, virtual distributed working environments - these are the keywords following contemporary work style in industry. BEST, even without deﬁ ning it as a target, excels people for such settings and made signiﬁ cant improvements during the year 2003 - 2004.

Analysing the needs of members, thinking simple and efﬁ cient, BEST developers completely restructured the main information system to make it more user-friendly. Designing new features such as archives made huge improvements to store smartly BEST’s information and value communication inside the organisation. » Partners of BEST

» CFES Canadian Federation of Engineering Students

Started in 2000, the CFES members helped BEST Ghent and Eindhoven relationship between to organise the fi rst BEST European Engineering BEST and CFES has Competition and invited BEST members to the 20th evolved into a strong and annual Canadian Engineering Competition to prepare promising partnership. the next event. Not only did the CFES Congress 2004 vote CFES ventured into Complementary Education unanimously for BEST to through our fi rst courses “How to create an engineering become our fi rst Offi cial portfolio” in 2003 and the renewable energy event Partner but also an planned for 2004. annual cooperation plan was accepted to set a CFES would like to thank BEST and all its groups who milestone of collaboration. have graciously offered to host CFES co-organizers as we continue to develop this program! The Sister Schools program with the fi rst transatlantic cultural exchange between Patras and Calgary and Deep Grewal, CFES ambassador the future academic collaboration between Lund and Sherbrooke had a remarkable start.

» bonding studenteninitiative e.V

The collaboration bet- With two successful Summer Courses organised ween bonding and BEST the last two years, and six new courses planned for started 7 years ago has 2005, the international idea grows inside bonding reached another step and is strengthened by the three cultural exchanges, with a new cooperation that involved three bonding groups and eight BEST plan, setting a stable groups. fundament for the next years. We want to thank everybody in BEST for this cooperation and wish you all the BEST to make it By inviting members even stronger! during job fairs, bonding biggest projects and Christian Banik, bonding ambassador BEST internal events, bonding and BEST learnt more about each other by cooperating extensively and exchanging experience in the ﬁ eld of training and PR. » Partnership With Companies 27

How far would you go to meet top students of Sharing this know-how inside BEST has provided technology, internationally minded and willing to our members with the latest tools and strategies on interact with professionals from companies? project management, teamwork, communication and You are looking for people ready to take up challenges, leadership. to be tempted by diverse and complex tasks? Some of the beneﬁ ts that our Partners get through the Don’t go too far... because BEST is all around active participation in BEST are: Europe, in 64 of the most prestigious universities from 25 countries, with more than 1500 BEST students • Efﬁ cient promotion among students of organising 125 international events. technology across Europe • Recruitment (online, jobfairs) BEST’s wish is to create bonds to multinational and innovative companies, willing to associate • Interaction with students (workshops, semi- their corporate image and work together with an nars, participation in General Meetings) organisation of international and dynamic European • Case studies students of technology. • Engineering competition Since 1997 we have been cooperating with the • Training professional world, involving companies in our • Brainstorm together on new opportunities organisation. Running common projects, two way and projects feedback and a close interaction with our Partners has allowed us to achieve the highest professional For more information on our cooperation with standards, even while being an organisation of companies, visit: students for students. www.BEST.eu.org/partners www.BEST.eu.org

Board of European Students of Technology