As Fuel Cell and Hydrogen (FCH) technologies (FCHT) and businesses emerge and grow across Europe, the recruitment of new staff with expert knowledge in FCHT technologies is creating an increasingly urgent need for specialist training. The lack of specialised experts in FCHT is a hindrance in industry development and the deployment of FCHT. 200,000 trained specialists, of which around 50,000 with a university degree (UG and PG), were calculated within the SET-Plan to be needed in EU FCHT businesses by the year 2030.
A number of courses, summer schools and other training measures have been established in the past but they lack coordination at a European (and global) level. Textbooks exist, but do not cover the whole area of FCHT. The lack of text books in local languages creates problems in terminology and hinders communication between professionals. Many universities offer single courses and modules on FCHT aspects, but lack the staff, resources, and infrastructure to offer full degrees.
The TeacHy project specifically addresses the supply of undergraduate and graduate education both for students and trained professionals in Europe in the field of FCHT.
The main objective of TeacHy is to design, establish and run a university programme that grants an MSc degree in FCHT. The TrainHy consortium can empower educational institutions across Europe (and beyond) to deliver FCH-themed modules: institutions which could otherwise face difficulties in providing the teaching will have access to a repository of FCHT teaching and training material that can be integrated into their educational offers.
In this way a large number of European educational institutions – academia and vocational training institutes – will be potentially able to participate in an MSc programme infrastructure by offering typically 25 to 35% of courses locally and integrating the remainder as web- and network-based teaching (e-learning and remote courses) supplied through TeacHy. In this way a large number of institutions can offer high-quality programmes, courses, and modules to students located all across Europe, thus dramatically increasing the numbers of students having access to and enrolling in FCHT specialised programmes. What is more, is that the specific programme content can be chosen from a variety of material in order to tailor the programmes offered by individual universities to the varying needs of university specialisations (e.g. sciences, engineering, economics, or vocational training etc.), specialisation of university staff (leaning more towards physics, chemistry, electrochemistry, or engineering, industrial process safety etc.), regional and national specificities, student requirements, and finally teaching languages.
All courses need to be accredited locally (institution and nationally) with the support of TeacHy. TeacHy has established a network currently already encompassing over 75 bodies and persons from Europe, Brazil, Singapore, Japan, and the U.S.A. We involve ‘associated partners’ who will contribute to and support the project in providing the MSc course. The T.I.M.E. network is part of this and alone has 50 participating universities.
