On today’s date, August 16, 2022, the Dean’s Board and Representatives of the Institute for Business and Management HEIDELBERG Skopje held an official meeting with representatives from the headquarters of the Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University (DHBW) in Stuttgart and DHBW Mannheim.
The purpose of the meeting was a virtual ‘get together’ of IBMHS and DHBW, to discuss all relevant issues regarding DHBW Mannheim’s dual studies entry on the platform of the German Institute HEIDELBERG in Skopje (or the so-called project “Germany at HOME”).
IBMHS representatives were: prof. Dr. Ulrich Zeitel, Chairman of the Board of IBMHS, Executive Director of the FORUM Institute of Management and Professor at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, Dr. Brigitte Spielmann (Member on the Board of the Heidelberg Institute), prof. Dr. Ronald Gleich (Board Member of IBMHS and research director of the Center for Performance Management & Controlling at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management) and prof. Dr. Sinisha Naumoski (representative of the Board of the Institute in Skopje). From DHBW’s headquarters in Stuttgart, Vice-President Peter Väterlein was present, together with the Rektor of DHBW Mannheim, prof. Dr. Georg Nagler.
IBMHS informed DHBW of the completed summer working agenda, which enables:
- A sufficient number of companies that are familiar with the German dual higher education model and are willing to support the processes;
- A sufficient number of lecturers according to the German regulations: The already existing portfolio of 50+ professors, prepared to perform the dual lectures, under the supervision of DHBW professors, who will also be involved in examination processes; and
- Built infrastructure – classrooms for the theoretical part in IBMHS headquarters in Skopje and second, in Ohrid.
DHBW expressed their optimism in approaching the next steps of the cooperation, not seeing any fundamental problems.
This is the first time that a German state dual university transfers its unique German degrees and knowledge, through the world’s oldest and only dual higher education model, directly to the Western Balkans region. On the one hand, it is a pilot project of the German Government of Baden-Württemberg, together with DHBW, to transfer the unique model from Mannheim and Stuttgart, directly through the IBMHS platform to all Macedonian citizens. On the other hand, the model in Skopje will set an example for expanding the same practice in the rest of the region, starting with Croatia, then Slovenia and the countries of the Western Balkans.
❓What’s NEXT?
In about a month from today, on September 22, 2022, in Mannheim, IBMHS and DHBW will have the second joint workshop dedicated to the convergence of dual university education concepts, between Germany and N. Macedonia. Here, the fact that an agreement will be officially signed between PNU Institute for Business and Management HEIDELBERG Skopje and the main headquarters of the Dual State Cooperation University of Baden-Württemberg (DHBW) in Stuttgart is very important for Macedonian young people. With that, the HEIDELBERG Institute, after the joint formalization of the agreement by President Zeitel and Vice President Wetterlein, will be responsible for the development of the studies of DHBW – Mannheim, in Skopje (later also in Ohrid).
