H2HUB in Saxony-Anhalt

• The transformation into a climate-neutral economy also means switching many processes over to hydrogen. However, the available knowledge concerning this technology is still limited.
• The H₂HUB project in Saxony-Anhalt will establish a knowledge transfer platform and develop the necessary content for CPD offerings in target group-specific formats.
• Fraunhofer IWES is primarily focusing on the knowledge transfer from research and development.

The challenge
Germany aims to be largely climate neutral by 2045. Electricity is to be produced using renewable energies, with the importance of hydrogen as a storage medium and energy supplier increasing enormously in a variety of sectors and industries at the same time. This structural change will be accompanied by massive changes in the working world. The result is a high demand for training and further education options concerning the topic of hydrogen, which cannot be satisfied at present. The latest scientific findings thus need to be exported to society and rendered usable as quickly as possible.

The solution
In cooperation with the Merseburg University of Applied Sciences, the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, and the Anhalt University of Applied Sciences, work to establish this central H₂HUB for training and further education has been underway since February 2023. One of the declared goals of the H₂HUB project is to network the existing qualification offerings better with those to be newly developed and integrate more experts from applied research and industry in the region. The aim is to work out the interfaces between the requirements in the companies and the official contents of the training and further education as well as to identify synergies and render them usable. After all, the specialists of the future will require both a specific and a systemic understanding of the hydrogen economy. Coordinated separately in the past, the network partners’ training and further education formats will now be bundled and supplemented with complementary offerings. The various tasks and competencies in the development of knowledge transfer formats will be coordinated between the partners in the network and converted into offers in cooperation in the scope of the project.

Students, specialists, and executives will be trained for the knowledge areas of the hydrogen economy in accordance with their needs (bachelor or master level, part-time further education). The further education courses will take place on site at the different locations of the cooperation and network partners or virtually via augmented reality and virtual reality (immersive learning worlds). In the next step, cross-disciplinary offerings will also be developed for further target groups such as high school students and doctoral candidates. The challenges of the hydrogen economy will be communicated in a practical and application-oriented way in this offering, resulting in a modular system for further education in the field of the hydrogen economy which can be individually adapted to the requirements of existing and future specialists as well as companies.

Fraunhofer IWES is primarily responsible for the knowledge transfer from research and development. To this end, a concept for lectures and seminars at the partner universities is being developed in cooperation. In addition, Fraunhofer IWES is taking over the task of, among other things, designing demand-oriented further education offerings for agencies and authorities as well as acting as spokesperson for the joint project.

The added value
The transformation of society into a climate-neutral economy can only be successful if necessary knowledge about hydrogen, its possibilities, and handling of this element is anchored in society. H₂HUB in Saxony-Anhalt is thus not only delivering vital expertise for specialists and companies but also contributing to the acceptance of the transformation among the general public.