In an effort to best respond to the needs and developments in power engineering on a global level, rapid energy transition and introduction of green and digital technologies, in January 2022, KONČAR’s CEO Gordan Kolak, M. Sc., was elected a member of the Program Board of the MBA in Energy Economics at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Rijeka, with KONČAR hosting the 11th generation of students. This represents a continuation of the close collaboration between KONČAR and the academic community, which goes all the way back to the 1940s.

Throughout our history, KONČAR has collaborated with the academic community in various forms, which have evolved together with technical and technological advancements. Croatian membership in the EU has created additional preconditions which particularly highlight and encourage collaboration between the academic community and the economy in terms of research, development and innovations.

As a company we have greatly contributed to the academic community with two academics, two professors emeriti, 90 doctors of science, six deans of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering (now the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing), University of Zagreb, six deans of “Rade Končar” Higher Technical School (now Zagreb University of Applied Sciences), two directors of “Ruđer Bošković” Institute, numerous associate and full university professors, polytechnic professors and senior lecturers.

Many KONČAR employees have worked part-time in education, transferring their knowledge and skills to students.

For decades, we have cherished a tradition of academic excellence and made great efforts to train and develop domestic experts. In doing so, we have closely cooperated with Croatian higher-education institutions, primarily engineering faculties. Cooperation with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, University of Zagreb is among the most notable traditional collaborations, which KONČAR enriched at the end of the last year by co-organising the course “Development of software solutions for industrial IoT systems”. The driving idea behind this cooperation was for the third- and senior-year students to learn about the development of applications for cutting-edge digital solutions used by the world’s leading IT companies, including KONČAR.

All of this shows how much attention the company has paid to education ever since its beginnings, regardless of the social and political circumstances, by encouraging our top experts to participate in education or to continue developing their career in education and science. We have always believed that economy and science should partner up for lasting success. Today, out of 4,100 employees at KONČAR, 1,560 hold a university degree and 45 hold a PhD in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, chemistry or economics.