WELCOME

BEST, Board of European Students of Technology is a constantly growing non-profit and non-political organisation. Since 1989 we provide communication, co-operation and exchange possibilities for students all over Europe.

90 Local BEST Groups in 30 countries are creating a growing, well-organised, powerful, young and innovative student network. Around 3000 members are involved in the day-to-day development of our services and almost one million students are reached through our events and initiatives.

BEST promotes „Empowered diversity“ and helps European students of technology become more internationally minded, by reaching a better understanding of European cultures and developing the ability to work and volunteer in a global environment. Technical students are given the opportunity to broaden their knowledge in topics which complement their technical education. BEST is creating the context in which students can share knowledge by organising academic courses, leisure events, engineering competitions, educational symposiums, training events and cultural exchanges. On the other hand, BEST also strives to broaden the job market horizons through career related events (job fairs, company days, workshops) and an international career center. Last but not least, BEST has developed its own training system; therefore its members have also the opportunity to improve their skills and knowledge by participating in training events on technical and soft skills.

Our priority is to offer high quality services for students all over Europe. Thus, we manage to bring all the partners in the "student - company - university" triangle closer.

STRUCTURE

The basis of our organisation is formed by our 90 Local BEST Groups spread in 30 European countries. Each of these groups have their own local boards and organise local and international BEST activities.

Next to the local groups, we have a well developed international structure. The International Board is composed of 6 members: President, Treasurer, Secretary and 3 Vice-Presidents: for External Services, for Internal Support and for Local Group Support. The main tasks of the International Board are global co-ordination of BEST and its bodies and programmes, execution of GM decisions, promotion of aims and purpose of BEST and support for quality assurance of all BEST activities.

Particular fields, tasks and programmes of BEST are coordinated by international teams. These teams are groups of voluntary BEST members managing the day-to-day work and development of BEST.

BEST members regularly meet for internal events where they can work on BEST-specific issues, receive training and strengthen their ties.

HISTORY

The idea of BEST was born in May 1987 in Stockholm (Sweden) during a European conference for students of physics and mathematics. The outcome of the conference was a decision to organise an International Week every six months in a different country during which the interaction between European students would be developed.

The second International Week was held in Grenoble (France, March 1988). This meeting involved students not only from physics and mathematics but also from other areas of competence. The meeting in Grenoble was followed by an International Week held in Eindhoven (the Netherlands). However, the first meeting held exclusively for BEST was in Berlin (Germany) in April 1989. There it was decided that BEST would consist of a Board, a General Assembly and members. Taking part in this meeting were delegates from all over Europe:  Barcelona, Berlin, Bologna, Budapest, Eindhoven, Grenoble, Helsinki, Lisbon, Ljubljana, London, Louvain-la-Neuve, Paris, Stockholm, Trondheim, Turin, Vienna, Warsaw and Zurich.

At this meeting BEST was officially founded with the aim to promote exchanges and communication between European Students of Technology. In November 1990, in the meeting in Budapest, the Summer Programme appeared a set of two week courses all over Europe. In the summer of 1991, 13 summer courses were launched. The first three years the Summer Programme was supported by the TEMPUS programme of the European Union.

The association kept growing, new members joined and new projects arose. During the XIV General Assembly in Tallinn (Estonia) it was decided that BEST should apply, together with CESAER and SEFI, to set up the H3E Thematic Network under the European Community's SOCRATES-programme. This Thematic Network was officially established in September 1996 to work upon the future of Engineering Education. This made H3E the first Thematic Network where students participate as equal partners.

During the XV General Assembly in Belgium, BEST started a partnership with the German student-association bonding Studenteninitiative e.V, thus recognising each others activities and setting up a framework for co-operation. Since 2002 BEST also cooperates with the Canadian Federation of Engineering Students (CFES).

Cooperation with bonding and CFES blossomed and facilitated the building of two important parts of BEST: along with bonding we developed our internal training system, and thanks to CFES we developed the concept of Engineering Competitions. This cooperation has continued until now and the latest project is to organise a joint International Engineering Competition between our three organisations.

In 2005, after a long process, the international structure of BEST was completely changed in order to bring more efficiency and to better serve the organisation and the Local BEST Groups. A lot of work was done since then to ensure the sustainability of the association; internally (IT platform, training system, common promotion strategy), externally (applications to BEST events, educational involvement), and financially (partnerships with companies). Finally in 2007, in Presidents' Meeting Valladolid, Local BEST Groups decided to have a common Corporate Image for BEST.

In 2009, BEST celebrated its 20th anniversary. For that occasion, various stories from Local BEST groups and Executive Boards have been collected. You can take a look at them on our anniversary pages