A concept and local implementation for industry-academy collaboration and life-long learning

Global operations are accelerating the diffusion of technology and the pace of innovation. The increased demand for ICT and problem-solving skills requires new methods and tools to support continuous learning paradigm. The cornerstones of the OECD policy framework for developing a suitably skilled workforce are a broad availability of good-quality education, a close matching of skills supply to the needs of enterprises and labor markets, support for workers and enterprises to adjust to changes in technology and markets, and preparing for the skills needed in the future. The life-long learning is a challenge among the companies, especially among SMEs. As production systems become more complex and software-intensive, the workers often have to possess heterogeneous skills, so that the companies would be able to keep up with the challenge of building high added value products. In order to concretize the policy frameworks, we have developed a concept for enhanced industry-academia collaboration to support training in different levels of career. In this paper, we introduce a concept for collaboration, associated physical environment and examples of the activities so far.Peer reviewe