The University of Pannonia in Nagykanizsa received a community and creative space from SZABADICS Group

A dual open day was held at the Nagykanizsa campus of Pannon University on Wednesday, 29 January 2025. Not only did prospective students get a glimpse into the workings of the university, but a cooperation agreement between Pannon University and SZABADICS Építőipari Zrt. were officially signed, and Szabadics HUB, the university's newest community space, was also handed over.

Meeting the needs of education-research and industry

"Our aim is not just to provide expertise to help shape the educational agenda or to act as a professional consultant for training courses, or even to provide dual training places. This cooperation serves a much more complex and broader purpose: it provides opportunities for joint R&D projects, supports our recruitment objectives and we can achieve even greater results through joint tenders"

 - stressed Szabadics Roland, Chief Operating Officer of SZABADICS Group.

He also said that this is not just an educational agreement, whereby the company shares its experience to help the university's work, as they provide dual and co-operative training places and organise site visits, among other things, so that students can gain practical experience during their studies.

Win-win

"Joint R&D&I activity is also a strong leg, with an explicit intention to maintain industry-university knowledge transfer to jointly formulate business technology needs and challenges"

- emphasised the Director.

By linking market needs and academic potential, sharing infrastructures, research results can be rapidly exploited and, as a result, a joint output product can be created. A further link is that the SZABADICS Group's key strategic objective is to exploit the opportunities offered by digitalisation at a high level and to build sustainability and circular economy operations - and the University of Pannonia campus in Nagykanizsa is at the forefront of this.

"For our group - added Szabadics Roland -relationships with educational institutions are important. Such a cooperation when industry and education meet can usually be a win-win situation in several dimensions - for the university and for us, but also for our city if I look at a broader perspective. We will work on that!"

A new community space for the future

A community and creative space was inaugurated at the signing of the cooperation agreement in the lobby of the Nagykanizsa campus. The SZABADICS Hub or lounge is available to students in a green environment and aims to enable students to connect with each other in an inspiring environment, as informal knowledge sharing ultimately serves our common future.

"As a prelude to this, in December we introduced two spinning bikes for students, teachers and our own colleagues to use as part of the 'Cycle for University' campaign. During the two weeks, we donated the equivalent of one forint for every metre ridden to the Nagykanizsa Foundation for Higher Education"