Hydropower/STEM/Network and Career Building/Best Practices to Enabling Partnerships

From Open Energy Information

Best Practices to Enabling Partnerships

This compilation of publications offers a summary of collaboration best practices to strengthen your local and regional workforce.

Employer-Driven Community College Partnerships Toolkit: An Innovative Response to Workforce Training Need
This toolkit was designed to help colleges and employers create innovative partnerships to jointly address regional workforce training needs and to ensure that new workers have acquired the knowledge, skills, and competencies to make immediate contributions in the workforce. These sample documents, templates, and step-by-step guides will serve as reference tools to help identify the best way to collaborate with colleges and employers in your region to strengthen your local and regional workforce. Source: Energy Providers Coalition for Education and Council for Adult and Experiential Learning
Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers Program
This fact sheet provides an overview of Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers, which leverage the talent and resources of industry, universities, and government to generate advances in technology and enhance industrially relevant workforce training for researchers. Source: National Science Foundation
Keeping the Power On
Schweitzer Engineering sponsors research aimed at keeping power plants running smoothly. Source: University of Idaho
Best Practices to Enabling Partnerships between Industry and Academia
Read real success stories from the hydropower industry and academia on how building relationships with local universities has contributed to building the local hydropower workforce. Source: Hydropower Foundation
Powering the Future Hydropower Workforce with STEM Education
An estimated 17% of the current energy workforce is ready to retire. It is critical for the hydropower industry to understand how to address the overall impact this will have on current and future operational performance. What’s one solution? This STEM academy, which is designed to help students explore jobs in hydropower and guide them in making a choice on a career in the field. Source: National Hydropower Association
The Power of the Education-Industry Partnership
Community colleges are the institutions that stand closest to the crossroads of higher education and the real world, where Americans need to apply a mix of technical knowledge, business acumen, and creativity to add value in firms whose imperative is to compete on innovation. This complex talent mix requires knowledge and skills gleaned from both academic education and vocational training. The only way to develop curriculum and instruction models that deliver this skill set to large numbers of Americans is for business and education leaders to build collaborations that leverage their combined knowledge of labor markets, skills, pedagogy, and students. Source: Center for American Progress
University, Meet Industry: 4 Ways Faculty Can Make and Keep Strong Industry Partnerships
Industry-university partnerships deliver a wealth of financial and non-financial benefits to both parties, as well as drive innovation and economic growth. But forming these partnerships can be complex work. This article offers a short list of best practices and strategies to help faculty work constructively with companies. Source: Venturewell
Entrepreneurial Mindset: The Secret Ingredient to Successful Industry-University Partnerships
To establish and maintain solid industry partnerships, research faculty need to think and act like entrepreneurs: actively seeking out new customers (industry partners), developing a sustainable business model (partnership), maximizing tight budgets, and pitching value and ideas to potential partners. This article describes four components of an entrepreneurial mindset that can help university research faculty develop partnerships with industry. Source: Dorn Carranza, Ph.D. MBA; Assoc. Director @ FDA's Office of Science & Engineering Labs via LinkedIn
Centralia College Hydro-Electricity Class 2017
This video describes a hydropower class at Centralia College that is the result of an industry partnership among Tacoma Power, Puget Sound Energy, Lewis County Public Utility District, and Avista Utility. Source: Centralia College
Looking into the Future of Energy Leadership
Kristina M. Johnson, outgoing CEO and co-founder of Cube Hydro Powers, becomes chancellor of SUNY. Source: State University of New York
Professional Development for Educators: Pairing Teachers with PNNL Researchers Brings the World of STEM to the Classroom
When teachers partner with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory scientists in the field or laboratory, they gain a wealth of new experiences to share and inspire students who are curious about real-world problems. Field research experiences for teachers help them reimagine classroom lessons to be even more engaging and relevant to their students. Source: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Laos and Ethiopia: Empowering Local Communities
Relying on education, practice, and local development, GE's global training program aims to develop the knowledge and competencies of local people in the field of hydropower. Source: GE
Partnering to Educate the Next Generation: Benton PUD
Benton PUD partners with local schools and the Foundation for Water & Energy Education to bring hydropower to the classroom. Source: Benton PUD
Georgia Power Highlights Literacy During Get Georgia Reading Month
Georgia Power's Learning Power program places education coordinators in schools to provide customized curricula and materials at no cost with lessons focused on STEM that involve hands-on activities highlighting energy basics such as simple circuits and energy efficiency. Source: Georgia Power
Hydropower Foundation Promotes Hydro Jobs with Immersive Hydro Education Program
The Hydropower Foundation launched the Hydro Think Tank, a competition for university students in Alabama to find a solution for a dissolved oxygen problem that can occur when extreme rainfall events lead to a high organic load in a reservoir. Source: Hydropower Foundation
Building Collaborative Strength in Oregon and the Region
Oregon Tech forges meaningful partnerships with businesses in the Pacific Northwest, including Intel, Pacific Power, Maxim, PCC Structurals, Oregon Cutting Systems, JELD-WEN, and Boeing. Business partners serve on advisory councils, supporting students through internships and sponsored projects, teaching classes and hiring graduates. Oregon Tech provides professional development to employees, furthering their knowledge in engineering, technology, and management. Source: Oregon Institute of Technology
Renewable Energy Engineering: Be Part of the Emerging, In-Demand Field
As the first university in North America to design and offer a Bachelor’s Degree in Renewable Energy Engineering (BSREE), Oregon Tech produces graduates who develop, promote, and implement sustainable energy technologies across the country and the world. Oregon Tech’s unique renewable energy degree prepares graduates for major roles in the clean energy sector and the renewable energy industry in particular. Source: Oregon Institute of Technology

This portal is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO). The United States Government retains, and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes.

EERE-WPTO.png