Building a Global Network of Thinkers - Shouting out about Process Mining to the UK

Building a Global Network of Thinkers - Shouting out about Process Mining to the UK

The Celonis Academic Alliance pursues the goal to foster research and teaching in the area of process mining by building strategic partnerships with universities and other education stakeholders. Part of our work is to introduce process mining to software and talent hubs such as the UK to build new communities and bridges between academia and industry. 

I work as Academic Alliance Manager at Celonis and am bringing our Academic Alliance program to the UK academic world. Having studied in the UK and worked for British companies and government myself I knew right from the beginning how important these bridges can be when we think about the education of tomorrow’s workforce on a global basis.

Thinking Hub UK

As Times Higher Education rankings and Global Innovation Index confirm year after year, the UK is one of the world’s most important education and innovation hubs while at the same being one of the most important software and tech markets in the world producing over 132 Nobel Prize Winners, hosting 3 of the top 10 universities in the world (cf. The World University Ranking 2020) and ranking 4th for “qualified labour flow and brain gain”, i.e. attracting smart thinkers from across the world (cf. Invest in the UK 2016). No wonder that with these statistics the UK is also an important dialogue partner when we think about the Celonis take on processes. Fostering knowledge exchange, setting off new academic discussions and promoting co-innovation are the key objectives where the Academic Alliance comes in.

The Roadshow Approach

I am writing this blog post while traveling on my third academic roadshow through the UK. Our third roadshow takes us from places like King’s College and the London School of Economics to Oxford, Cambridge, to Southampton, Exeter and Birmingham and all the way up to Manchester, Leeds, and Edinburgh. During our tour, we’ll meet around 300 new student faces, give workshops for student clubs and data analytics classes, and do more in-depth seminars with dedicated Data Analytics and Artificial intelligence research centers like the AIAI in Edinburgh or Leeds Institute for Data Analytics. 

Connecting with the students and academics here is very special to me. Despite the fact that process mining has not quite been on the map of the research world here, I have been invited very openly and heartily by the people here. One of my personal highlights from these tours is to see how keen in particular the students were to gain more applied skills through workshop formats like this. The majority of students signed up for our online certification to become Process Mining Experts right after the sessions and even decided to form study groups for this. A couple of students even introduced me to their professors afterwards to bring process mining in their very own classroom. 

Getting to know a new market in such a personal way is an extreme privilege which I find enriching both on a personal and long-term strategic level. It allows us to shout out to the world about the groundbreaking technology that we have while at the same time preserving a very direct connection to both the thinkers of today and tomorrow. 

The Greater Purpose behind the Roadshows

The purpose of the academic roadshows goes far beyond partnerships with academic institutions. It’s about creating a global network of process mining enthusiasts by creating awareness and outreach for a data-driven understanding of processes. Our aim is to take up the conversation about process mining at several levels from creating general outreach and awareness through workshops and talks to fostering a long-term ecosystem with research and teaching alliances. We are excited about what this journey will bring.

Angela-Sophia Gebert

Academic Alliance Manager