University of Maribor Student Challenges (NOO)
With the aim of establishing a single entry point at the University of Maribor (UM) for employers and developing innovative forms of cooperation between students and employers, enabling UM to effectively identify, adapt to and respond to the changing needs of the labour market in selected areas of education and other activities, the University of Maribor Student Challenges (NOO) (ŠI:UM (NOO)) were implemented during the pilot project period (January 2023–December 2025).
As part of the ŠI:UM (NOO) project assignments, students worked in interdisciplinary teams under the guidance of an academic mentor and an industry mentor to explore various creative and innovative solutions to challenges faced by organisations in the public and private sectors in local and international environments. In this way, students acquired additional knowledge, skills and practical experience already during their studies, thereby increasing their opportunities for a smoother transition from higher education to the labour market. Each ŠI:UM (NOO) project assignment brought together students from different, but exclusively professional higher education study programmes at the first-cycle level at the University of Maribor, thereby fostering interdisciplinarity and networking among students from different disciplines and fields of expertise.
Over the three-year period, we successfully implemented 38 ŠI:UM (NOO) in four rounds across all 13 UM faculties that offer professional higher education study programmes, involving:
- 304 students,
- 46 academic mentors and
- 38 industry mentors.
All completed challenges are available on the University of Maribor Student Challenges website. One of the challenges, “SolarHEAT – Hybrid Solar Systems as an Alternative Technology Source for District Heating in the Šaleška Valley,” a project carried out by the Faculty of Energy Technology of the University of Maribor, received a special ED.VITA award in the category Student Projects/Initiatives.
