Abstract

The refractory industry suffers a lack of young engineers in Germany. Within the past five years an integrating education concept has been developed to ensure a sustainable provision of young and best-skilled engineers to the refractory industry. The aim of this presentation is to demonstrate how the sophisticated network between education, science and refractory industry leads to efficient fulfilment of the industry´s demands.

Because of a vertically open vocational education structure as provided by public legislation it is possible to promote young people even with initial limited educational achievements to finish with an academic degree. The cooperative education network, BFZK (educational and research centre ceramics), which closely cooperates with Koblenz University of Applied Science and the University Koblenz-Landau, allows best possible utilisation of this public education structure.

Since 2010 Koblenz University of Applied Science provides a bachelor of material science and was followed by the implementation of a master degree in cooperation with the University of Koblenz-Landau. The educational system follows two major tasks: Best possible and targeted education in order to provide graduates with tailor-made abilities for the ceramic industry. The second task is to promote science projects that are closely related to the demands of the industry.

The presentation will introduce the state-of-art master and bachelor curriculum and will briefly present recent research works.