Following an invitation of the Romanian-American University (RAU), Professor Bernd Hallier, a distinguished Member of the Editorial Board of „Holistic Marketing Management” Journal of the RAU’s Management-Marketing School, has participated, at the end of May and beginning of June 2011, to a series of Round Tables and Public Lectures (The intertwine of Culture and Trade; Introduction of the European Retail Academy; Branding: the successful example of EuroShop; Evolution Tornado Retail; the Global House of Harmony; Lifelong-Learning; Environmental Retail Management).
On this occasion , on the 1st of June, in the RAU’s Senate Hall, the ceremony of awarding the RAU’s Diploma for Special Academic Merit to Professor Bernd Hallier took place, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the promotion of the international transfer of know-how between business and universities, bringing more transparency on retail-research and retail-education, his successful involvement in the Social Dialogue project “Establishing a European Network for Anticipating skill needs in the commerce sector”, the attention paid to the evaluation of philosophies offered by the steady upgrade of retail-technologies, and his active involvement in developing cooperation between Germany and Eastern markets.
Before the award ceremony a working session took place concerning “EU-Study, EuCVOT, EuCoCo”, in order to form a national EuCVoT-Round Table (a significant pillar in this respect being the Universities already involved in the ECR Academic Partnership Romania: Valahia University of Targoviste/ECR Department, Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest/Department of Commerce, Romanian-American University/Management-Marketing Department etc.)
The special invitee of the Romanian American University, Professor Bernd Hallier, PhD, is Managing Director EHI Retail Institute (former EuroHandelsinstitut ), President of EuCVoT (European Competence Center for Vocational Training for Retail), President of the European Retail Academy (ERA), Chairman of the Advisory Board of EuroShop (world’s largest capital goods show in the retail sector), Member of the Board of AIDA Brussels, Member of the Astana Economic Scientists Club, Member of the Advisory Board of “Transparent Food” (the core relevance of transparency as a critical success factor and the need for the delivery of appropriate support by research has been emphasized in the Strategic Research Agenda/SRA of the European Technology Platform “Food for Life” from where this proposal evolved; it utilizes its links with the European-wide network of more than 30 National Technology Platforms to link up with stakeholders of the food chain including industry, consumers, research and sector representatives of different European countries),Chairman of the Board of the Orgainvent (the largest German labelling organisation in the beef sector; the purpose of Orgainvent business is the “development and coordination of identification, assurance and merchandise management systems between the agricultural industry and the food retail trade”), Trustee of EHI Retail Institute at GLOBALG.A.P (a private sector body that sets voluntary standards for the certification of production processes of agricultural products around the globe; serves as a practical manual for Good Agricultural Practice – G.A.P anywhere in the world; the work of the Board and Committees is supported by FoodPLUS GmbH, a non-profit limited company based in Cologne, Germany, fulfilling a secretariat function for GLOBALG.A.P.; the financial and legal ownership and responsibility for FoodPLUS GmbH is held by the EHI Retail Institute).
It is worth mentioning that Professor Bernd Hallier began many years ago a fruitful collaboration with the prestigious Professor Klaus Toepfer (former Federal German Minister for Environment, former director of the United Nations Environment Program UNEP and initiator of the Kyoto Protocol), and with Dr. Angela Merkel (today Chancellor of the Federal Republic, and who pushed “environment” to become a high political issue during the EU-Presidency of Germany, in 2007).