28.09.2015 - 14:30:40

Looking back on the ECoL Summer School 2015, "Resilient Urban Industrial Systems"

The idea of ECoL, Emerging Concepts of Logistics, was formed with the intent of creating a multidisciplinary network between young academics and professionals together with stakeholders from industry, policy and science with various focal points of logistics. As one way of building such a network, the establishment of a summer school was conceived. For the first time, the ECoL Summer School took place between August 17th-22nd, 2015 in Istanbul on Koç University's scenic campus.

Collaboratively organised by Koç University and the University of Duisburg-Essen and sponsored by the leading logistics companies Ekol Logistics and duisport, the ECoL Summer School 2015 steered the cultivation of new research ideas through interdisciplinary workshops, presentations and excursions.

The summer school’s six-day programme started out with an introductory block in which both lecturers and participants presented their topics and ideas. The second block was dedicated to hosting company representatives in order to gain insights into industrial processes and to excursions to a number of company headquarters. The final part of the summer school consisted in two workshop-days, led by ZLV chairman Prof. Dr. Bernd Noche, ZLV members PD. Dr. Habil. Ani Melkonyan and Dr. Thomas Hanke as well as Koç University’s Prof. Dr. Metin Türkay respectively. The four lecturers conducted workshops revolving around different topics, which were however related to urban logistics and the challenges arising from the complexity of urban systems.

During the ECoL Summer School, academics had the opportunity to concretise their theories, while practitioners from the industry had the chance to receive feedback from a scientific perspective. The participants’ feedback clearly showed that the ECoL Summer School has broadened horizons through its multidisciplinary and multicultural structure with more than 30 participants from eight countries.

The planning phase of next year’s ECoL Summer School has already started. In 2016, the University of Duisburg-Essen will host the summer school in Duisburg in collaboration with its partners duisport and Koç University. Moreover, a memorandum of understanding will be established between the two organising universities and the Arab Academy for Science, Technology & Maritime Transport (AASTMT) for further academic alliances and for possible workshops/summer schools to be organised in Egypt in the future.

A more extensive report about the ECoL 2015 Summer School can be found on the summer school's homepage on http://ecol-summerschool.net/ .