Promotion of Young Professionals in Science and Technology

18 Oct Promotion of Young Professionals in Science and Technology

National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech)
2009

The shortage of young people in numerous technical professions that can be ascertained at present has been foreseeable for some time owing to various societal trends and conditions—among which the demographical development ranks first. Usually, partial aspects or highly specialized questions are pursued in such surveys, generated as a rule from a discipline-specific perspective. Hence it is not only difficult to gain an overview of the broad range of literature but especially to comprehend the numerous and complex reasons for the shortage of young people as well as the possible interdependencies.
acatech aims at the development of a comprehensive strategy for the targeted promotion of young people for entry into the engineering sciences. If one wants recommended actions and suggestions of promotional measures to be well founded, one has to identify and understand the complex reasons for the shortage of young people beforehand. Hence the experts of the “Platform” deal with the causes from a multidisciplinary and problem-oriented perspective and investigate the problems that were identified as urgent in the context of five topics.