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Volume 13, Issue 2, 2024

Online ISSN: 2182-1054

Volume 13 , Issue 2, (2024)

Published: 18.10.2024.

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01.12.2014.

Professional paper

Identifying most important skills for PhD students in Food Science and Technology: a comparison between industry and academic stakeholders

Nowadays, there is an increasing need of new skills for PhD students to face the future labour market prospects. PhD graduates must have qualities attractive not only in academia but also outside, in both manufacture and service-oriented enterprises, in small innovative companies, and in the civil services and public administration, among others. To know what the needs of these future employees are, is of great importance to be able to improve their personal and academic formation. The aim of this work was, in the framework of the EC-funded ISEKI_Food 4 network, to evaluate the most desirable specific and soft skills that PhD students should acquire by the end of their doctoral studies. To this aim, several surveys were conducted and sent to the different stakeholders (academia and food industry partners) in order to collect the information needed. Results showed that competences related to research skills and techniques, research management, personal effectiveness and communication skills were considered to be the most valuable skills to be acquired by our PhD students to meet the future needs of the labour market.  The importance of these skills was appreciated differently, depending on the stakeholder. To sum up, some recommendations to integrate such valuable skills into the curricula of the PhD student are given.

Chelo González-Martínez, Peter Ho, Luis Cunha, Oliver Schluter, Paola Pittia

18.04.2014.

Original scientific paper

The Regulation of Food Science and Technology Professions in Europe

The regulation of a profession is justified when it improves consumer protection and public health. Higher education food science and technology (FST) degrees, widely offered in many universities in Europe open to a wide range of jobs in the food sectors where the employees could cover different positions, roles and carry out diverse activities dealing with the food production and the quality and safety of the food products.This work reviews the state of the art of the FST regulated professions requiring higher education qualifications in the European countries. The research was carried out by collecting specific information on regulated professions by contacting unions, professional associations, public servant categories/professions, and by visiting national and EU websites.  The data collected for each regulated profession were: country, training/education required, date of implementation of regulation, professional training (if required), capability test (if required) and acts required by law to be signed by a regulated professional. Only professions that required a higher education diploma were included in this search.Few countries were found to have a regulated profession in FST, in particular: Food Engineering (Turkey), Food Technologist (Greece, Iceland, Italy and Slovenia), and Oenologist (Italy, Portugal and Spain). FST regulated professions in Europe are thus scarce and have a rather limited history. The Food Technologist in Italy and the Food Engineer in Turkey were found to be the only completely regulated professions found in Europe. Food and professional regulation have been evolved over the years and raised the debate on the regulation of FST professions. Academia as well as other policymakers has to further contribute to this discussion to keep high the standards for quality of education and training of the qualified workforce and professionals in the food sector.

Rui Costa, Sonja Smole Možina, Paola Pittia

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