Forward thinking businesses in the process automation value chain have lately been responding to the dearth of talent affecting many tech fields (and many industries in general since 2020) by partnering with colleges and universities to help train a new generation of potential employees. The most recent is German process mining firm Celonis, which has established an engineering and innovation lab in partnership with Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) Aachen University.
RWTH Aachen is the largest technical university in Germany and, according to the QS World University rankings in 2022, it is among the top 50 engineering and technology universities in the world. The Chair of Process and Data Science at RWTH Aachen is Wil van der Aalst—a pioneer in research on workflow management and process mining, as well as acting as Celonis’ chief scientist.
Van der Aalst and others on the university’s campus expect the partnership with Celonis to radically advance the study of process mining and expose the industry to students who are considering post-education career options in technical fields.
“By installing a Celonis Engineering and Innovation Lab right on RWTH Aachen campus, entrepreneurial innovation intersects with a unique knowledge community, whose joint research and collaboration will undoubtedly yield advancements in process mining and execution management,” van der Aalst said.
Partnerships like this and the RPA Initiative at George Mason University in Virginia are examples of the burgeoning process automation industry’s understanding that it needs a strong pipeline of trained engineering talent to sustain growth.