Solimpeks is proud to be strengthening its internship partnership with Necmettin Erbakan University (NEU), building structured pathways that carry students from Konya's lecture halls into real-world renewable energy manufacturing. The collaboration pairs academic learning with hands-on workplace experience, and it is designed to serve students, industry and the region in equal measure.
A partnership built on structured pathways
NEU takes a deliberately structured approach to internships. Rather than leaving placements to chance, the university builds clear routes from classroom to workplace, so students graduate with practical training and employability skills aligned with what the labour market actually demands — in Turkey and internationally. It is the same philosophy that powers the world's best university–industry models, from MIT's Industrial Liaison Program to Cambridge's enterprise ecosystem: open collaboration between academia, industry and government, applied here to Konya's own strengths in manufacturing and renewable energy.
What an internship at Solimpeks looks like
For engineering-faculty students, the placement begins on the factory floor. Interns spend time at our Konya production site, where solar thermal collectors, PVT hybrid panels, storage tanks and heat pumps are built — learning how a decision on a drawing becomes a weld, a coating, a test result. Those drawn to development work join our R&D teams on live projects, from collector efficiency to thermal storage, where a fresh pair of eyes can genuinely move a problem forward.
None of it happens unsupervised. Each intern works alongside senior engineers who act as mentors — reviewing their work, explaining the reasoning behind engineering choices, and treating them as junior colleagues rather than visitors. Mentorship is the core of the programme.
From placement to payroll
The quiet ambition of the programme is that internships become careers. A placement lets a student and a company get to know each other properly — over months of real work, not a one-hour interview — and the best of these relationships have a natural next step. An intern who already knows the line, the products and the people is exactly the engineer a growing manufacturer wants to hire, and we see placements as a natural route into hiring.
Where the partnership goes next
The next phase is about making the collaboration durable: leaning into the region's strengths in agribusiness, renewable energy and technology; keeping structured feedback flowing between faculty, students and our engineering teams; and emphasising digital skills and sustainability in every placement. International exchange through programmes such as Erasmus+ will add the global perspective tomorrow's engineers need — and Konya is a very good place to start acquiring it.
