The overarching theme of this year's Research Summer School is "Risks in the SME Supply Chain." During the event, participants will first learn more about the risks and challenges that small and medium-sized enterprises can encounter in their supply chain via platform-based learning. Afterwards, participants will work on real challenges and develop step-by-step agile solution approaches based on design thinking.

Two EU projects and an SME accompany the Summer School

The Summer School is supported by the SME Haas Magnettechnik, which is currently facing such risks. With these challenge pitches, the students not only understand the topic theoretically, but also have the opportunity to implement what they have learned in the real corporate world.

In addition, two high-profile EU research projects are supporting the Summer School: together with the VOIL platform and BePrepared, students will learn about general and technological risks to corporate supply chains through platform-based learning. Part of this platform-based method is the Blockchain Learning Guide. Thus, by the end of the Summer School, initial concepts for a solution or even a Minimum Viable Prototype (MVP) will be developed.

In the evening, after the work is done, the students can participate in organized events, stroll through the beautiful city of Wiesbaden and enjoy the city and the nightlife.

The Virtual Open Innovation Lab VOIL is a strategic partnership of nine project partners from seven countries with the aim of promoting awareness and digital skills for technologies, tools and methods in the course of the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises. To this end, they have created a platform that provides a digital environment where SMEs, entrepreneurs, universities, students and young professionals can develop their digital transformation skills and experiment with new technologies.

And what is BePrepared all about? Supply chains are increasingly interconnected and globalized. Data sharing has increased over the years due to advances in ICT. Although this increased data sharing can contribute to certain benefits such as improved processes and planning, it also poses some risks such as the loss of proprietary knowledge or the unintended disclosure of key business insights to other stakeholders. In addition, the increasing digital integration of supply chains poses the risk of becoming the focus of cyberattacks. Both threats are a major concern for companies regardless of size. Therefore, a sound understanding of the risks that can occur in supply chains is an essential part of the digital competencies that SME professionals should have in order to act confidently, critically and responsibly.

The aim of the two projects is thus to understand and analyze digital and disruptive technologies and develop solution approaches that SMEs can implement to remain competitive.

Before registering, a few organizational notes:

As a participant of the Research Summer School, you can earn 3 Credit Points äquivalent to a Master's class during this event.

Anyone with legitimate interest, Bachelor student, Master student and PhD candidate may participate. By registering, you agree to pay a participant fee of €100. You will receive payment instructions after registration, along with a reference number assigned to you. For those who can only participate online, there will be no registration fee. However, the online slots are availabe only at a limited amount.

Should you have any questions on financing your participation at the Research Summer School or any further questions, please contact Ms. Carolin Diefenbach.

The consortium of the Research Summer School and the previous projects VOIL and BePrepared consists of researchers from several renowned universities from Europe. To make these scientific projects even more valuable for companies, Haas Magnettechnik will also be part of the Research Summer School.