RWTH Supports International Master's Program in West Africa

Two-year degree program in Energy and Green Hydrogen

 

With its new International Master’s Program in Energy and Green Hydrogen, the West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use, WASCAL for short, wants to educate and train future experts in the area of “Green Hydrogen.” RWTH Aachen University and Forschungszentrum Jülich, as partners of the program, will provide support teaching and learning and contribute to supervising students on site and online.

The two-year master's program has been designed along the lines of existing WASCAL graduate school programs. Students in the program will be trained in accordance with international standards and best practices. The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is supporting the program with eight million euros, initially until 2025, as part of the Innovations for the Energy Transition initiative.

In its first year, the program has an intake of 60 students from all fifteen West African countries, who will spend one semester in Germany to gain practical experience and to complete their final thesis. Four leading West-African higher education and research institutions will contribute to the teaching and learning activities: Université Felix Houphouet Boigny (Ivory Coast), Université de Lomé (Togo), Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar (Senegal), and Université Abdou Moumouni de Niamey (Niger).

West Africa has enormous potential to generate solar and wind energy and produce green hydrogen from it – more than it will need for its own needs. In future, the continent could export so-called green hydrogen – that is, hydrogen produced with renewable energy, on a large scale. However, in order to fully exploit the available resources, appropriate expertise is needed.