Achievements of Internship Program implementation in Khorasan Electricity Industry

Internship is one of the most effective programs in human development. This program, which is an industrial research project based internship, has proved to be very effective in human resources development and university – industry relations, while many industrial problems were solved with minimal expenses. Khorasan Regional Electricity Company and Ferdowsi University of Mashhad started the internship program since 1382 (2004) with 25 projects in the first year and have completed 165 projects in 6 years. 72 university faculty members cooperated with the program and supervised the projects. 354 students found the opportunity to take part in the program as interns and to experience the industrial research and team work. 162 experts and managers from the industry cooperated with project teams and benefited from the experience of academic team work. Improved relation and confidence of industry and university management in research cooperation, increased interest of industry in defining new problems and outsourcing these projects to university, and enhanced cooperation between industry engineers and students and faculty members are some results of the internship program