CEPE, an organization representing the paints, printing inks and artists’ colours in Europe, is addressing the shortage of students interested in entering into the paint and coatings industry.
 
The paint industry is facing an ever-greater shortage of paint chemists with an academic degree. CEPE has release a three-minute video outlining  the range of opportunities for chemistry students.

 
What is the issue?
CEPE’s Working Group on Education has made assessments of the situation for the demand of paint chemists by the Industry and the numbers that graduate from the Universities. According to CEPE, there is and will be for some years a shortage which will limit the industry’s capacities in product development and innovation.
 
What has CEPE done so far?
To mitigate some of the shortage CEPE has set up with the ITECH institute (Lyon, France) an English  master course for paint chemists. It is expected that the English-speaking graduates can gain employment by paint companies across the EU. In order to attract the next generation of chemistry students to this three-year course CEPE has invited paint companies to consider sponsoring a student for this course. The sponsoring company funds the three-year course and offers the student the opportunity to do their study assignments at the company’s laboratory.
 
Tools and materials
Educating the next generation on the world of colour is one the goals of CEPE and ITECH Institute’s partnership. The paint industry is not very visible for the chemistry student. To change that CEPE has launched a video which illustrates that behind every paint there is a can full of chemistry.

“Since we started this program in 2015, we have seen the number of students increase for this English Master Program,” said Jan van der Meulen, managing director of CEPE. “Our members in Europe will get qualified chemists for their next wave of innovation programs.”
 
To promote the ITECH three-year course a poster (being a booklet at the same time) was designed and will be distributed across the relevant Universities where there are chemical faculties. The national associations will in the coming years have to be establish more relations with students and chemistry faculties to attract students from every part of Europe and where possible link them with a local sponsor
company.

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