Purchasing education and research for European competence transfer Firms are nowadays struggling to find effective and efficient ways to cope with a low depth of production and a high reliance on international suppliers. This highlights the need for employees possessing the necessary skills and competences in the field of purchasing & supply management {PSM). PSM does not have any harmonized PSM higher education curriculum yet. Companies often have to hire university graduates with other specializations and spend years bringing them up to an appropriate skilllevel. For students, a significant challenge lies in finding university courses to match their course portfolio during international exchanges. lf a harmonized PSM curriculum in higher education was implemented, the currently unused human potential could be made available to European companies and student mobility in international programs could be increased significantly. This project's main target is the development of a pan-European, empirically validated harmonized European Curriculum for PSM education. The international studying program is supposed to be implemented by the participating universities, but simultaneously it can be disseminated through the relevant associations and be thereby available to any higher education institution in Europe. Therefore, the project improves the quality and relevance of higher education, contributes to the development of a European Area of Skills and Qualifications considering the increasing labour market relevance of PSM. The PERFECT project includes the following main activities and outputs: 1. PSM Skill Concept (IO1/Al) 2. Benchmarking study (IO2/A2) 3. Company survey (IO3/A3) 4. Harmonized European purchasing curriculum (IO4/A4) 5. PSM skills self-assessment tool (IO5/AS) 6. Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) (IO6/AG) ln order to achieve the objectives and milestones, a consortium is formed which brings tagether leading universities, European project management competence and practical exposure with a very strong background and international network in PSM. The consortium consists of Prof. Dr. Michael Henke, Technische Universitaet Dortmund, Prof. Dr. Holger Schiele, University of Twente, Dr. Stephen Kelly, Staffordshire University, Prof. Dr. Lydia Bals, Hochschule Mainz, Prof. Dr. Jukka Hallikas, Lappeenranta University of Technology, and other researchers of the mentioned institutions joining the project team. So far, the first project activity (Al) "Development of Purchasing & Supply Management (PSM) Skills Concept" is terminated. Several sources have been analysed with regard to required PSM skills and summarized in a "Maturity Modell PSM Skills Concept" (IO1/Al) and published as a white paper. The results represent a collection of the current status of PSM competences in literature, up-todate papers and studies with an outlook to trends and future skills, job advertisements, associations' and universities' PSM programs. The second activity (A2) "Development of Benchmarking Cases" is running. Interviews are being conducted and transcribed to code and analyse them in the coming weeks. The first two intellectual outputs act as a basis for the coming activities. ln summary, the impact envisaged with the project results is to increase the awareness for the procurement field and to pay attention to the importance of procurement in times of changes in the industry (e.g. digitalisation, industry 4.0). The curriculum/study program will provide well educated employees for procurement functions and improve student exchange possibilities.