In this EU-funded project, Prof. Ahmed El-Baz land his team work with partners in Europe and Tunisia to transfer knowledge in the field of wind engineering in an effort to strengthen ties between academic institutions and the wind industry. Wind Engineering Skills in Egypt and Tunisia (WESET)’s specific objectives are addressing the lack of Engineers with multidisciplinary knowledge of Wind Technologies; providing specific training materials and laboratories that support the training in Wind Engineering and the links HEIs-industry; promoting the use of Wind as a reliable, cost-effective and pollution-free source of energy in SM countries, supporting their economic development and independence; supporting the activities of WE companies in those countries and the creation of new companies by entrepreneurs, thanks to the technically qualified manpower of international standards.
The WESET Project is supported by the Erasmus + Programme, Key Action 2, Capacity Building in Higher Education to help reduce the lack of skilled engineers in wind engineering in Egypt and Tunisia, which hinders the use of wind as a reliable, cost-effective and pollution-free source of energy. The activities planned support the modernisation, development and internationalisation strategy of the partner Egyptian and Tunisian institutions, aligning master’s degrees with the needs of industry and the society, and creating links with European institutions.
The consortium developed modules and laboratories for capacity building in wind energy for on-campus teaching in Egypt and Tunisia, linked with their national industries, such that training materials were produced for four master modules, in English and French that will be openly distributed using a CC license; pilot tests of the training materials were carried out in the partner institutions; and Egyptian and Tunisian academic staff and master’s degree students with great potential were trained in Europe in wind engineering.
Five wind energy centres were created (one at each partner institution), linked with local industries. The results were presented at wind engineering workshops held in Tunisia and Egypt.
The Project Consortium includes Universidad de Valladolid, Spain; Université d’Aix Marseille, France; Aalborg Universitet, Denmark; Università degli Studi di Roma, Italy.; Arab Academy for Science and Technology and Maritime Transport, Egypt; Ain Shams University, Egypt; and The British University in Egypt.
The project benefited approximately 100 students and staff members in receiving training in the field of wind energy activities. Partners committed to preparing courses in the wind energy field; organizing training workhsops and courses for graduate students; establishing wind energy centres at partner universities; providing equipment necessary for training; and supporting graduation project in wind energy field.