This contribution aims to provide a personal industrial perspective on higher education in product design and particle technology that builds on the 2017 Sheffield workshop and on own extensive experience in the industry sectors flavors and fragrances, material science, pharmaceutics, and pesticides. The personal perspective is based on 10 years of teaching a master’s class class in the field and on more than 25 years of industrial experience.

The attributes required in a graduate engineer are defined from that perspective, to support the establishment of a suitable syllabus. Three additions to the 2017 Sheffield concepts are proposed: (i) case study-based approaches for holistic understanding, (ii) extension of single-phase particle to multiphase disperse systems and (iii) a focus on digitalization. The graduate engineer will thus be enabled to personally grow according to personal strengths and aspirations, to compete successfully in the dynamic labor market and to thrive in an industry that is driven by an extensive change agenda related to the keywords of innovation, sustainability and digitalization.

After studies of chemical engineering at the Technical University Clausthal / Germany, at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Génie Chimique de Toulouse / France and at the University of California at Berkeley / USA, Dr. Jens Uhlemann worked with Bayer (from 1993 to 1997 and since 2008) and with Symrise (from 1997 to 2008), a global leader in the Flavor & Fragrance industries in various R&D and product supply roles. He has been active in the particle technology / product design and innovation management field since 1997. Since 2020, he is responsible for global regulatory affairs of the Bayer business unit Environmental Science. In the same year, he was appointed as Honorary Professor at the Institute of Particle Technology of the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg / Germany. His current focus is on developing new and innovative options.