The subscription deadline has passed so you can no longer sign up.
Interdisciplinarity has become a hot topic in the workplace, heralded as a vital counterforce to the excessive specialization that often falls short in addressing today’s complex, real-world challenges. Universities and research institutes are increasingly advocating for interdisciplinary approaches, and the same trend can be observed in engineering education. The goal is convincing: to prepare future engineers to tackle intricate socio-technical problems and engage with broader systems fruitfully.
As interdisciplinary programs, courses, and educational methods gain prominence, they also prompt a series of fundamental questions. What is interdisciplinarity, really? How does it connect to fashionable educational concepts like challenge-based learning, as well as broader recurring ideas such as multidisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity? And what are the implications of interdisciplinarity for engineering education practices, knowledge creation, and learning at large? While interdisciplinarity holds great promise, substantial understanding of its conceptual underpinnings still seems elusive.
To shed light on these questions, the 4TU Centre for Engineering Education, in collaboration with the Philosophy Department at the University of Twente, is hosting a symposium to explore the nuances of interdisciplinarity and its implications for engineering education. The event will feature two keynote presentations by Prof. dr. Perry den Brok (Wageningen University and Research) and Prof. dr. ir. Mieke Boon (University of Twente), offering insights on educational innovation and interdisciplinarity. In addition, a poster session will showcase the work of four doctoral and postdoctoral researchers – Richard Pretorius (Eindhoven University of Technology), Anke Swanenberg (Wageningen University and Research), Miriam Losse (Saxion, University of Applied Sciences), and Henk-Jan van den Brink (University of Twente), focusing on interdisciplinary practices within engineering education. Feel free to view more information about the presentors here. (https://www.4tu.nl/cee/pdf/presentations.docx)
Are you inspired by the potential of interdisciplinarity and eager to see it realized? Or do you find yourself questioning the clarity—or perhaps the hype—surrounding this concept? This symposium invites you to join thought-provoking and interactive sessions that will explore interdisciplinarity and its actualization in engineering education and beyond.