Educating the people
who keep our water clean.
INADE — Industrial Adult Education — is an EU-funded initiative that built a Modern Education Framework for wastewater management in Germany and Italy. The project closed in 2023. The mission did not.
Water doesn't retire.
Neither does knowledge.
Europe faces a quiet emergency: the engineers, operators and technicians who run our water infrastructure are retiring faster than we can replace them.
Demographic change, the legal framework update, climate adaptation, and the digital transformation of the water sector are reshaping what an adult worker needs to know — and how fast they need to learn it.
INADE answers that with a Modern Education Framework (MEF): a structured, transferable approach to formal, non-formal and informal adult learning in industrial wastewater management.
“Education has a fundamental role to counteract these processes, and can encourage changes in behaviour to promote a more sustainable society — in economic viability, social equity and environmental protection.” — INADE Modern Education Framework, 2023
Two publications.
One living framework.
Both documents are open, free, and still in active use by educators, employers and public agencies across Europe.
Analysis of Trends & Perspectives
A two-country analysis of adult education trajectories in wastewater management — comparing structures in Germany and Italy, with transferable findings for the rest of Europe.
Stakeholder lens
Industry, workers and government — one framework, three perspectives.
Formal & informal
EQF-aligned, vocational, academic, and post-graduate (CAS/DAS/MAS) tracks.
Sustainability built-in
Economy, ecology and social equity woven into every learning path.
Digital & decentralised
Tools that bring water-sector training to where the workers actually are.
Seven chapters.
One curriculum
for a sector in motion.
A working session — INADE training methodology in practice.
- 01
Introduction
The labour-market and climate forces reshaping water work.
- 02
Objectives of the MEF
Synergies across employer, worker and government needs.
- 03
Framework & action planning
From problem analysis to a concrete action plan.
- 04
Formal, non- & informal training
EQF mapping, vocational paths, academic & post-graduate routes.
- 05
Impact on other sectors
Sustainability, digital tools, financing models.
- 06
Case study: North Italy
Industrial water sector and transferability of the approach.
- 07
Conclusions
Recommendations for a modern educational framework for Europe.
Three institutions.
One European table.
INADE was built by a small consortium of practitioners and academics spanning Italy and Germany — and the collaboration outlasts the funding cycle.
Tecnoconsulting S.A.S.
Dr. Alexandra Tichindelean
Industrial water expertise · Italian case study
Bochum University of Applied Sciences
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Christian Kazner
Civil & Environmental Engineering · Academic backbone
Olpers Consulting GmbH
Klaus-Dieter Gründel (Dipl.-Verw.)
Project coordination · Framework architecture
Take the framework.
Teach the next generation.
Both publications are released under the INADE project for free use by educators, employers, public agencies and policymakers across Europe.
The Modern Education Framework
Gründel · Tichindelean · Ofiera · Kazner — Düsseldorf, Monza & Bochum
Analysis of Trends & Perspectives
Adult education in wastewater management — Germany & Italy
INADE — Project Overview
The consortium, the rationale, the deliverables