To stimulate young scientists for retail and wholesale in the German speaking countries the EHI Retail Institute and its 50 percent subsidiary GS 1 Germany awarded one BA-, one MA- and one PhD student as well as one Retail University Chair with a total sum of 40.000 Euro. The Minister of Innovation, Science, Research and Technology of the German State of North Rhine-Westphalia stressed the importance of such sponsorships as essential for the growth and competitiveness of the commerce sector.

The event took place at Europe's leading annual trade fair for IT and Security in retail EuroCIS which in 2011 will be part again of the world-leading triennial exhibition EuroShop . On the photo from the left: M.Gerling/EHI, Prof G. Werner/president of dm, Prof. Dr. Pinkwart/Minister of NRW, Prof. Dr. Creusen/Chairman EHI Scientific Board, J. Pretzel/GS 1, Dr. Krings/Scientific partnership GS1, Prof. Dr. Hallier/president EuroCIS and EuroShop.
 

At the stage of 5,000 CDs for blended learning at the Metro-Group in Germany distributed and starting tests in two REWE regions in Germany the EuCoCo Advisory Board decided in its meeting with Prof. Dr. B. Hallier on February 17th 2010 to pass on EuCoCo for the next stage to the EuCVoT-headquarter. The future structure will be:

At the CZ Retail Summit 2010 in Prague in a special slot of Human Resources Prof. Dr. Hallier and P. Mare/Kenniscentrum Handel NL introduced in a panel with P.Adam/Ahold CZ, A.Borej/Macro CZ, J.Nussbauer/dm CZ, M.Vajskebr/Spengler Fox UK the necessity for life-long-learning, national Round Tables for vocational training and the concept of an European Competence Center for Vocational Training (Retail/Wholesale) as a sector coordinator.

Under the leadership of I. Savoini/EuroCommerce and F.Warneck/Uni-Europa the Social Dialogue started for 2010 a new EU-project with the title „Establishing an European Network for provisional management of skills in the commerce sector“ . The steering committee of the project decided to run three regional meetings in Europe as “European Hearings”. That road-show will start in Vienna on April 21st 2010 followed by Helsinki on June 15th 2010. A third Hearing will be in Southern Europe on September 27th followed by the final presentation of all stakeholders on November 17th in Brussels.

The Vienna-Hearing will be organized by N. Piljic from GPA-djp Trade Union Austria and cover Central Europe and South East Europe; the organizer of Helsinki (Scandinavian and Baltic countries) is L. Aro from Pam Finland . The structure of the Hearings and the final reports will be supported by experts: H. Karlsson from ITM Worldwide/Sweden and P.Mare/Kenniscentrum Handel /Netherlands coordinated by Prof. Dr. B. Hallier
 

The 15th International Conference on Technology Supported Learning and Training in Berlin/Germany was supported by 104 exhibitors from 20 countries. 400 speakers from 37 countries from all over the world delivered 14 keynote speeches and supplied input to 85 parallel sessions for more than 2000 registered participants of which roughly 45 percent came from the educational sector and 36 from business. The complete programme can be found here

The input for the retail-slot came from Olaf Bursian/Real Hypermarket, Pasqualino Mare/Kenniscentrum Handel, Dr. Gwendolin Rugen/Telefonica O2, Olaf Stieper/Metro.