About us

Regional Centre North Rhine-Westphalia

Partner to the state and business community

Participants working on the comuter. Cipyright Inwent gGmbH/Nick White

Inwent’s Regional Centre North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) builds bridges between NRW as a centre of learning and business and the wider world. Strengthening NRW as a centre of international knowledge, innovation and technology is as much an element of our cooperation with the state as is development-related education. Cooperation with the federal government, the European Union and non-governmental organisations creates sensible synergies, as do our close ties to the business community.

Training and dialogue programmes

Successful foreign trade activities and sustainable global trade are dependant on people. Learning those skills that allow one to act on the international stage requires qualified local support. Inwent’s Regional Centre North Rhine-Westphalia has been organising training programmes for young professional from the Chinese partner provinces of Jiangsu, Sichuan and Shanxi for over 20 years on behalf of the state government. These programmes primarily address the topics of foreign trade, environmental protection, energy and administrative reform. Contact to alumni is promoted and continued through seminars, visits to trade exhibitions, and the Global Campus 21® virtual learning platform. All these activities provide important impulses for trade relations between North Rhine-Westphalia and China

Education for development

People who want to take an active role in development cooperation need intercultural skills and knowledge of international connections – in their home countries as well. Development-related education is one of the central tasks of Inwent’s Regional Centres. On behalf of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Inwent supports the activities of non-governmental organisations, which are primarily staffed by volunteers. These receive financial support and detailed information for North-South partnerships or in implementing projects in developing countries. Inwent also develops its own projects primarily directed at the business community, governmental institutions and representatives of the media. In so doing the Regional Centre relies on close cooperation with non-governmental organisations and their networks.

International encounters

The success of training programmes is in part dependant on the personal and social environment that welcomes training programme participants to North Rhine-Westphalia. Inwent’s Regional Centres are entrusted with the responsibility for holding dialogues to encourage contact with the German public, and providing advising services and housing. Volunteers donate their time to provide our foreign visitors with background information, impressions and personal experience of life in Germany.

Bridges to the business community

Cooperation with the business community is central to the Regional Centre and its work. Many North Rhine-Westphalia companies support Inwent training programmes by offering trainee positions and instructors. In return the business community of North Rhine-Westphalia can utilize the great potential offered by InWEnt alumni to benefit their subsidiaries and business contacts abroad. Many firms and economic institutions who support InWEnt’s efforts are members of the Carl Duisberg Working Group North Rhine-Westphalia, a central partner for Inwent in North Rhine-Westphalia.