Circle is an university network founded in 2004 : the idea are annual conferences rotating ln the Circle-member countries for students to present their MA or PhD papers in English under the supervision of international professors. Prof.Dr.Hallier is part of that supervisor team.

The Plekhanov University in Moscow is one of the largest economic universities in Russia. It was formed in 1897 by businessmen of Moscow; in 1903 it started Commercial Courses. Today Plekhanov is also institutionalized in 27 Russian cities as well as in Bishkek in the Kyrgyz Republic.

The IFS (International Featured Standard) was created in 2003 by the German Trade Association HDE and its French counterparts FCD ; later Italian Trade Associations joined. Today IFS is acting worldwide.The basic idea of IFS is the fact that on the one hand side the European Law and National Laws require from food companies or food outlets to implement all relevant actions to secure food safety and on the other hand also individual suppliers/retailers develop marketing profiles with „add-ons“ to the legal requirements to gain higher margins. Those companies then need a control/audit for their claims. IFS’s ambition is to harmonize those individual demands to one level of control to get more efficiency via an unified standard.

- A: full compliance with the requirements (20 points)

- B: almost full compliance – but small deviations (15 points)

- C: only a small part of the requirements are implemented (5 points)

- D: the requirements are not implemented

All scorings are reported and explained in an IFS Audit Report. Based on the first evaluation all enterprises have the chance to secure and improve their market position by an action plan of continuous optimization of their products and services.

TUN is a Life Long Learning idea: TUN covers therefore vocational training as well as higher education. The input is designed by universities and providers of international standards of the food business.

Global imbalances between supply and demand within the Total Supply Chain need a constructive dialogue about the understanding of how modern supply chains work and how commercial practices could be optimized.