United Brains 4 Hydrogen

The hydrogen sector is advancing at an unprecedented pace, driven by urgent decarbonization goals and the growing need for sustainable energy solutions. The sector has a clear presence in the Brainport area, an area well-known for its ecosystems for high-tech enterprises. The rapid advancements in hydrogen necessitate a proactive and future-oriented approach to workforce development. Key workforce challenges include bridging the education-to-industry gap, accelerating workforce transformation, and preparing for lifelong learning in an unpredictable context. To address these challenges, this project examines a structured approach to design Learning Communities (LCs), that connect education and industry, foster continuous learning and innovation, and attend to human capital growth connectors. Within the Brainport region, several informal initiatives have been recently formed and most of them are committed to this project, which aims to structure, interconnect, and strengthen them. The overall research question is “How can a responsive ecosystem be developed that strongly integrates working, learning, and innovation, while bolstering knowledge and skills development for (future) hydrogen professionals, and reducing time-to-job transition in the Brainport region?” This central question is explored through three work packages, each addressing specific research gaps, respectively, designing and adapting LCs, interconnecting different levels of LCs, and applying advancing digitalization. Through combining action research with systemic design research, the project actively supports the building of one sustainable macro learning community (work package 4), i.e. the overarching goal of this project, while simultaneously generating new scientific knowledge. Research results from work packages 1, 2 and 3 are validated in Work package 4. The resulting macro-LC fosters innovation in hydrogen production knowledge aligned with regional economic, strategic and workforce priorities in North Brabant.