MDU supports the industry’s climate transition

Together with around 20 industrial companies, Mälardalen University, Luleå University of Technology and Örebro University co-produce on-line university courses that meet the companies’ needs for skills development to accelerate the industry’s climate transition. Recently, three cost-free courses deriving from this initiative were completed. The participants were professionals working at the industrial companies ABB, Epiroc, Scania and SSAB, among others.

The courses are developed within the five-year project Reedeam, whose purpose is to strengthen the skills development throughout the entire value chain associated with the industry’s green transition. It requires extensive knowledge about new, sustainable technologies and business models. The whole project is funded by the Knowledge Foundation in Sweden with a total of SEK 30 million over five years, where the courses that are developed build on close collaboration between businesses, basic industry and academia to expand the range of need-based education of high quality.

“Balancing the course with my responsibilities as a Software Solution Architect at Scania was certainly challenging, but also manageable thanks to the course’s flexible structure. The content was highly relevant to my role and allowed me to directly connect the course material with ongoing projects at Scania, where sustainability and innovation are becoming increasingly important” says Joshi Subramanya at Scania.

He was one of the participants taking the on-line course Product, production and business development for circular flows, run by Luleå University of Technology. In the same pilot round, MDU provided the Virtual Commissioning course, which teaches participants how to identify and correct any problems or errors in production systems before they go live, reducing the risk of downtime, safety risks and costly rework.

The company Scania where Joshi Subramanya works informed him about the course. By taking the course, he also contributed to its development.

“This course has given me a much clearer understanding of how businesses can shift from traditional linear models to more sustainable, circular approaches. The course has equipped me with practical tools and frameworks to assess and implement circular economy principles in product development and production processes”, he continues.

“In the project, the industry and our three universities together create unique opportunities both for companies to train employees, based on their challenges arising from the green transition. We do this by ensuring that companies constantly are involved when we create the new courses and provide feedback on what works best. The universities contribute to the courses with researchers and teachers who have developed methods and theory based on needs arising from joint research projects”, says Bjarne Bergquist, Project Manager of Reedeam and Professor of Quality Engineering and Logistics at Luleå University of Technology.

New courses

This autumn, six new cost-free courses in pilot mode are offered in collaboration with industry, where employees within various companies will have the opportunity to undergo needs-based training. There, MDU will offer the courses AI-Driven Prognostics for Industrial Systems and Functional Safety in Battery Management Systems. More new courses will be offered by MDU and the two other universities this spring 2025.

“We are proud to develop these courses together with industry. We now can offer completely new courses within several areas, and we invite all working professionals to apply, says Bjarne Bergquist.

To further the long-term perspective, and to strengthen the collaboration between the parties, we are planning future industrial research schools providing that provide companies with access to doctoral key competence for the climate transition.