From 2015 onwards, the project was organized for five consecutive years under the name Logistics Practicum and primarily involved Logistics students of the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences. After a pandemic-related pause, and because the project had become well recognized by both industry partners and students, the name and concept were revised in order to increase the number of participants and partner companies. The plan is to open participation to third-year undergraduate students and first- and second-year graduate students of Transport, ITS, and Logistics. Transportikum is designed so that students of the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences spend a three-month period researching solutions to project tasks from the real sector that were defined in cooperation with industry.
The implementation model is straightforward: students apply through a public call, after which teams are formed based on the final number of participants. Following company visits, task presentations, and a three-month problem-solving period, the process concludes with a final one-day event where student teams present their solutions. The event is conceived as an interactive exchange in which industry partners question the teams and evaluate their proposals. Because company representatives act as evaluators, they also select the best teams. The final stage of the project is paid student practice for selected students, with the goal of increasing knowledge, strengthening competences, and opening employment opportunities after graduation. Students often continue the research they started through Transportikum and implement solutions in real systems. They also use this work as a foundation for scientific papers and graduate theses of greater applied value because they are based on real-world research rather than theory alone. Since students come from different components and study directions of the University of Zagreb, it is especially interesting to see which teams ultimately achieve the strongest results.
