With Impact Graduating in Higher Economic Education

Each year, more than 300,000 students graduate with a degree from vocational economics education, often by completing a research or advisory report. But professional practice, the degree programmes and the students themselves do not always find this form of graduation to be optimal.

The aim of this project is to design new scenarios for graduation. This will be done in collaboration with economic HPE degree programmes, research groups, companies and students, thereby creating value for the business sector, students, education and research.

This is an ongoing study. We will provide a summary of the results here once it has been finalised.

01 February 2019 - 31 January 2022

We are setting up a network pertaining to graduation in the economic domain. We then study the current forms of graduation and the bottlenecks experienced by professional practice, degree programmes and students. Together with them and with other stakeholders, we then develop various scenarios for graduation projects.

Graduation is an important step towards becoming professionals. It is also an opportunity for education, research and professional practice to jointly tackle complex practical problems. Students often conduct research and produce research or advisory reports that often do not correspond with the needs of businesses and organisations. Many degree programmes are starting to doubt whether a graduation research project is the best possible way to assess whether a student meets the final qualifications of the respective degree programme. In addition, students regularly experience graduation as a last bump in the road towards their diploma and do not always see its relevance to real-world practical situations. Because of this, they often fall behind in their studies during this final phase.