Nachwuchsbarometer Technikwissenschaften. Careers in Science and Engineering: Trends, Expectations and Attitudes of Young People

The results of the „Nachwuchsbarometer Technikwissenschaften“ (Barometer) provide important empirical findings regarding technological socialisation and technological education in Germany, and thus offer a well-founded basis for developing a systematic approach to promoting young peoples‘ career choices. The Barometer provides guidance and information on major interrelated life phases of children, youths and young adults as well as on the context and influence potential of the home, school, career counselling and orientation offerings, higher education, business and politics.

The „Nachwuchsbarometer Technikwissenschaften“ was jointly proposed to the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) by acatech and VDI, and the BMBF provided the necessary funding. The University of Stuttgart was responsible for the academic research concept and its empirical implementation. The target groups of the in-depth surveys were school pupils, students, engineers and natural scientists – both male and female in each case. This short version of the results of the „Nachwuchsbarometer” concentrates on the main initial findings and the conclusions from empirical surveys of 3,500 pupils, around 6,500 students and a member survey of eight engineering and natural-science associations (approx. 3,200 respondents).