Board of European Students of Technology
| Board of European Students of Technology (BEST) | |
|---|---|
 Logo of BEST |
|
| Formation | 1989 |
| Type | INGO |
| Purpose/focus | Empowered Diversity |
| Region served | Europe |
| Official languages | English |
| BEST International President | Iustina Pop |
| Website | www.BEST.eu.org |
| Remarks | International student organisation targeting over 1 million technology students across Europe. |
Board of European Students of Technology (BEST) is an international, non-governmental, non-political, non-profit student organisation comprising 91 Local BEST Groups (LBGs) in 30 countries around Europe with more than 3000 active members.
BEST strives for empowered diversity by developing students of technology through complementary education,[1] career support and involvement of the European learning system. By creating the opportunities for students to meet and learn from one another through academic or non-academic events and educational symposia, BEST endeavors the development of a more internationally open minded conscience, encouraging their mobility and intercultural relationship and communication.
Contents |
[edit] Structure
BEST is structured in three layers: local level, regional level and international level.
- The basis of BEST is formed by the 90 Local BEST Groups (further called LBGs) spread in technical universities from 30 European countries. Each of these groups have their own local boards and organise local and international BEST activities.
- On the second level, the organisation is divided into 11 regions, the goal of the regional division being to ensure a better communication between the LBGs and the international level.
- On the top-most level, we find the international structure, with an International Board and International committees/teams which are coordinating particular fields, tasks and projects of BEST.
[edit] Board
The International Board of BEST is composed of 6 members: President, Treasurer, Secretary and 3 Vice-Presidents: for External Services, for Internal Support and for Local Group Support. The Board is elected each year, at one of the two annual General Meetings where representatives from each LBG gather. The main tasks of the International Board are global co-ordination of BEST and its bodies and programs, execution of General Meeting decisions, promotion of aims and purpose of BEST and support for quality assurance of all BEST activities.
The Board includes the following positions:
- President
- Treasurer
- Secretary
- Vice-president for external services
- Vice-president for internal support
- Vice-president for Local Group support
[edit] International Committees
Besides the International Board, BEST has six committees that take care of specific tasks and projects in the organisation:
- Marketing Committee - handles marketing and public relations, develops and implements marketing strategies in the organisation.
- External Events Committee - oversees the Complementary Education Programme of BEST.
- Educational Committee - carries out the activities related to the involvement of BEST in educational matters (including relations with institutions regarding education in Europe), and is responsible for BEST Educational Programme.
- Information Technology Committee - handles the Information Technology (IT) needs of the organisation, developing concepts of IT applications, implementing the systems and providing technical resources and services for BEST.
- Corporate Relations Committee - keeps the good cooperation with companies and other organisations.
- Training Group - manages and coordinates the internal education of the organisation by providing training for BEST members.
[edit] Activities
The core activity of BEST is to provide complementary education, by bringing a significant added value to the education provided by the universities.[2] Besides this, BEST is constantly trying to provide career support for students, by connecting them with their future employers, and to increase the educational involvement, by increasing the awareness of students on issues related to engineering education and improving engineering education through the input of those students.
[edit] Events
BEST events are organized throughout the whole year. There are Seasonal events such as BEST Courses, BEST Events on Education, BEST Seasonal Engineering Competitions and BEST Leisure events. Moreover there are the Local, National and Regional BEST Engineering Competitions and the European BEST Engineering Competition (EBEC).
[edit] BEST Courses
BEST Courses are the core activity of BEST and they can either be Courses on Technology or Courses on Career related skills. These are events about one to two weeks in length, uniting technology students from all over Europe to study a technological subject. However, while these subjects are of an attractive and innovative nature, mixing various topics in engineering education, education on itself is not the only goal of these events: Equally important are expanding horizons, improving cultural understanding and, in general, providing European students of technology with the opportunity to experience something distinctive for little cost.
The quality and openness of BEST Courses are important, as they distinguish BEST from other international student organisations. Any student from sciences and technology universities with a Local BEST Group (LBG) can apply to any of the before mentioned BEST activities, without having to become a BEST member. Thus, BEST provides a service to all engineering students from associated universities. Furthermore, BEST has an internal quality standard that the courses are required to fulfil.[3] In a Course, participants will have all food, lodging, travel costs during the course, cultural activities and an exciting academic program supplied during the course.[4] Almost every Local BEST Group organizes such a course every year.
[edit] BEST Events on Education
BEST Events on Education are seminars that last for about 6 days where the students and professors from Europe discuss and gather and/or distribute knowledge on specific topics of concern for engineering students in the field of education. This category includes events such as BEST Academics and Companies Forum (an event where students, representatives of universities and companies gather to discuss current issues related to engineering education) and BEST Symposium on Education (an event where students from all over Europe together with representatives of universities gather to discuss current issues related to engineering education).
[edit] BEST Engineering Competitions
The BEST Engineering Competitions (BEC) are events organized in collaboration with a number of important European companies in the field of technology. The companies propose a problem to be solved by teams made of participating students. The competition events usually begin with training sessions, followed by several rounds of competition. Thus, students have the opportunity to consolidate their engineering capacities. The BEC concept has been conceived in order to complete the theoretical part of university studies with a practical one. Therefore, students will be able to increase their knowledge and get used to constructive thinking, as well as a different vision of a problem.
Since 2009, the local engineering competitions (LEC) are brought together in a common project where winners from these competitions compete at the Regional and National level and then the winners go to the European final[5] which is called EBEC. In the last EBEC edition more than 5000 students were part of the competition during the local rounds organised in their home universities. From these, almost 600 qualified for the national or regional rounds and the best 104 students participated in the Final event that took place in Istanbul, Turkey.[6]
[edit] History of BEST
The idea of BEST was born in May 1987 in Stockholm (Sweden) during a European conference for students of physics and mathematics.[7] The outcome of the conference was a decision to organise an International Week every six months in a different country during which the interaction between European students would be developed.
The second International Week was held in Grenoble (France, March 1988). This meeting involved students not only from physics and mathematics but also from other areas of competence. The meeting in Grenoble was followed by an International Week held in Eindhoven (the Netherlands). However, the first meeting held exclusively for BEST was in Berlin (Germany) in April 1989. There it was decided that BEST would consist of a Board, a General Assembly and members. Taking part in this meeting were delegates from all over Europe: Barcelona, Berlin, Bologna, Budapest, Eindhoven, Grenoble, Helsinki, Lisbon, Ljubljana, London, Louvain-la-Neuve, Paris, Stockholm, Trondheim, Turin, Vienna, Warsaw and Zurich.
At this meeting BEST was officially founded with the aim to promote exchanges and communication between European Students of Technology. In November 1990, in the meeting in Budapest, the Summer Programme appeared: a set of two week courses all over Europe. In the summer of 1991, 13 summer courses were launched. In the first three years the Summer Programme was supported by the TEMPUS programme of the European Union.
The association kept growing, new members joined and new projects arose. During the XIV General Assembly in Tallinn (Estonia) it was decided that BEST should apply, together with CESAER and SEFI, to set up the H3E Thematic Network under the European Community's SOCRATES-programme. This Thematic Network was officially established in September 1996 to work upon the future of Engineering Education. This made H3E the first Thematic Network where students participate as equal partners.
During the XV General Assembly in Belgium, BEST started a partnership with the German student-association bonding Studenteninitiative e.V,[8] thus recognising each-other's activities and setting up a framework for co-operation. Since 2002 BEST also cooperates with the Canadian Federation of Engineering Students (CFES).[9] And starting with 2010, Association des États Généraux des Étudiants de l'Europe (AEGEE) is also a partner organisation of BEST. [10]
Cooperation with bonding and CFES blossomed and facilitated the building of two important parts of BEST: along with bonding the organisation developed the internal training system, and with CFES it developed the concept of Engineering Competitions.
In 2005, after a long process, the international structure of BEST was completely changed in order to bring more efficiency and to better serve the organisation and the Local BEST Groups. A lot of work was done since then to ensure the sustainability of the association: internally (IT platform, training system, common promotion strategy), externally (applications to BEST events, educational involvement), and financially (partnerships with companies). Finally in 2007, in Presidents' Meeting Valladolid, Local BEST Groups decided to have a common Corporate Image for BEST.
In 2009, BEST celebrated its 20th anniversary and on this occasion a history book of BEST was written.[11]
[edit] BEST groups
A BEST Group is an association of BEST members at the same university. These groups are responsible for promoting and organising the activities of BEST at their university.
BEST is present in 30 countries at the following universities:
[edit] Partner organisations
BEST collaborates with three other student organisations:
- bonding-studenteninitiative e.V. [12] (from Germany, since 1997)
- Canadian Federation of Engineering students [9] (from Canada, since 2004)
- Association des États Généraux des Étudiants de l'Europe (AEGEE) [13] (since 2010)
BEST also represents its students in some thematic networks. For example:
BEST is member of the following organisations involved in Engineering education:
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.unifi.it/tree/dl/Engaging%20students%20in%20their%20own%20education%20by%20J.%20Rei,%2009.09.05.pdf
- ^ http://best.eu.org/aboutBEST/identity.jsp
- ^ http://best.eu.org/student/courses/neverAloneGuide.jsp
- ^ http://best.eu.org/student/courses/whatYouGet.jsp
- ^ http://bestistanbul.org/ebec2011/about/ebec-structure/
- ^ http://bestistanbul.org/ebec2011/ebec_final/
- ^ http://www.best.eu.org/aboutBEST/history.jsp
- ^ http://www.bonding.de/web/web.nsf/web/studenten_best_en
- ^ a b http://www.cfes.ca/content/official-partners
- ^ http://best.eu.org/aboutBEST/studentAssociations/index.jsp
- ^ http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12328605-history-of-best-20-years-in-europe
- ^ http://www.bonding.de/web/web.nsf/web/studenten_bonding_en
- ^ http://www.aegee.org/Pages/partners.html#organisations
- ^ http://sputnic.europace.org/partnership.php Partners of Sputnic
- ^ http://vm-base.europace.org/
- ^ http://www3.unifi.it/tree/dl/complete_list.pdf
- ^ http://www.eie-surveyor.org/partners.htm EIE-Surveyor partners
- ^ http://www.ifees.net/members/ members of IFEES
- ^ http://www.feani.org/webfeani/ Members of FEANI
