About the Partners

Gdańsk University of Technology (Gdańsk Tech) is one of the largest technical universities in Poland. Over 15,000 first and second-degree students study there. Gdańsk Tech educates students at 8 faculties and 37 fields of study, in three fields: social sciences, exact and natural sciences, and engineering and technical sciences. The university employs 1,300 academic teachers and 1,500 administration and service employees. Gdańsk Tech is among 8 Polish
universities classified in the Shanghai Ranking. Gdańsk Tech is currently the second-best research university in Poland in the competition of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. The European Commission granted Gdańsk Tech the right to use the HR Excellence in Research logo. The Faculty of Management and Economics (FM&E) at Gdańsk Tech offers, in addition to 1st and 2nd cycle studies, over 30 specialist postgraduate programs, e.g. ”Lean Six Sigma” and ”Quality assurance in the technical industry”. The manager of the latter is the applicant’s team leader. FM&E of Gdańsk Tech has an appropriate modern infrastructure to conduct classes in
the field of process improvement. An example of such infrastructure is LabQ laboratory created in cooperation with the industrial sector. FM&E participates in the global LeanHE (Lean in Higher Education) initiative, which aims to improve processes at universities. Team leader prof. Piotr Grudowski has led research teams in the implementation of many research projects. He participated in the implementation of 14 international projects in cooperation with institutions
in Germany, Great Britain, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Latvia, the Czech Republic and China. He is the author of 18 books and about 200 articles in magazines in the field of quality management, pro-ecological management and methods of diagnosing, supervising and improving the organization. He is the editor-in-chief of the scientific journal ”Problems of quality”. He is an expert on the Polish Accreditation Committee.

The University of Stavanger (UIS) has existed as a university for around 20 years, but some of its departments started much earlier and have more than 100 years of history. About 13,000 students are currently studying at UIS. UIS employs 1,500 teaching and research staff. The university has extensive experience in international projects, participated in EEA grants, Erasmus +, InterReg North Sea, InterReg BalticSea, Horizon 2020 and others. UIS will delegate employees of the Faculty of Engineering and Business to the project. The Faculty offers unique MBA studies on operational management and process improvement. Their scope covers topics of the project, i.e. Quality Management and Lean Management.UIS collaborates with the CIAM cluster (Industrial Asset Management Competence Cluster, http://ciam.uis.no). CIAM organizes events in collaboration between member companies and UIS. Organizations, as part of cooperation, provide their resources and laboratories related to the operation and maintenance of traffic. As part of the cooperation between UIS and CIAM, workshops and training courses are held
on topics in the field of analytics, innovation, digitization and industry 4.0. There were also many seminars and research and development projects. The cooperation has contributed to the creation of many MA theses, courses and seminars. As part of the cooperation, five annual meetings are organized on the following topics: Operation and maintenance, Risk and security, Data management, HR and Economics related to added value and quality engineering. Industry in the Stavanger area is dominated by oil activities in the North Sea, but agriculture and
industrial production are also of great importance. The petroleum industry has extensive experience in process analysis and quality assurance, but continues to develop process improvements. Therefore, there is a great demand for quality specialists due to the local needs of the Stavanger region and Norway’s broader perspective.