Around 55 participants – students as well as partners and companies from the WIR! alliance – came together last Wednesday, June 21, 2023 in the Weimarhalle to discuss solutions to the growing challenge of getting young people interested in technical professions and engineering training in order to meet the increasing demand for workers in the next 10 to 15 years in the region of Thuringia and Central Germany. The event was coordinated and moderated by the Chair of Energy Systems at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. In the morning, partners of the alliance presented their activities and ideas in the field of education. Among other things, hydrogen technologies and topics were integrated into the training of Mr. Uwe Blechschmidt, deputy headmaster of the Sonneberg State Vocational School, and the "Climate Heroes" initiative of HySON e.V. was presented by Dr. Tobias Wätzel. The h2well ideas competition winners from the Elisabeth-Gymnasium Eisenach, Mascha Baller and Sarah Löbel, presented their competition entry. Philipp Protte from imaginata e.V. presented the pop-up exhibition created as part of the h2well-compact project. In order to promote early education and contact with technology, the Science Center in Jena Nord offers age-appropriate exhibits that convey science in a playful way. As Philipp Protte aptly put it in his lecture: "Every specialist was once an enthusiastic child..."

The morning session was concluded with an inventory of engineering sciences at Thuringian universities. Angela Clinkscales from the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar discussed the challenges facing universities and the economy due to stagnating student numbers. In the afternoon, we continued with opportunities to strengthen engineering education in Thuringia and to attract skilled workers. Jan Döpfner of Maximator Hydrogen GmbH described the enormous growth that the company has experienced in recent years and plans to do so in the future. As a result, the company was prepared to take unusual paths with its search for skilled workers – in addition to advertisements via all kinds of channels, the company was advertised via pizza boxes, for example. In order to retain its employees, it is particularly important to Maximator Hydrogen GmbH, in addition to hiring new staff, to retain, develop and motivate its employees. Their job campaign is based on the motto "Enthusiastic employees are good employees". In his presentation, Prof. Tobias Reimann from ISLE Steuerungstechnik und Leistungselektronik GmbH and the Technical University of Ilmenau asked important fundamental questions about the content and design of engineering education, which were the impulses for the discussion rounds afterwards. During his lecture, the diversity of the engineering profession as well as the variety of educational paths to work in engineering was particularly emphasized.

In the audience discussion, moderated by Prof. Mark Jentsch of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, solutions were discussed in order to attract more pupils to the engineering sciences and to keep students in Thuringia. The proposals were varied. On the one hand, it is a task for society as a whole to promote tolerance for foreign students and skilled workers and to highlight Thuringia's strengths more externally. Structurally weak regions are everywhere, but with different images. The charisma of a region is important and everyone has to contribute their building block. Regional attractiveness has many facets. Another way to take away students' fear of studying engineering is to have a stronger practical relevance – as well as to make it easier to switch between the paths of university, university of applied sciences and training.  On the part of the students, more opportunities for contact and exchange or better networking between students and companies – especially in their main areas of study – were desired.

In the afternoon, the aim was to bring together companies from the h2-well alliance with students from Thuringian universities. At four "theme tables", questions such as "What do students expect from their future employer?" were explored. "What are the requirements of the companies and what can they offer the student speeches?". From the discussions, it emerged that the students usually do not need to have any concrete knowledge, but generally a good technical understanding, the ability to familiarize themselves with a topic and stamina. For the students, high pay or a location in conurbations did not predominate as motivation. Instead, it is important for you to pursue a job that seems meaningful to you. Flexibility was also among the most important criteria for deciding where they would like to work.