Mid September the SEFI 2016 Annual conference brought together more than 300 participants from over 30 countries. 4TU.CEE was well represented at the event, with main theme: “Engineering Education on Top of the World: Industry University Cooperation".
Better Make it Real
The first keynote entitled “Better Make It Real” was presented by Aldert Kamp, TU Delft on behalf of the 4TU.Centre for Engineering Education. The keynote inspired the audience with concepts and ideas how engineering students could be better connected and trained in skills that are gaining prominence in the coming decade, by making education more real and more related to society and engineering practice in industry and research. It was shown by backward mapping that these concepts and ideas have three cornerstones in common on which future-proof academic engineering programmes would have to be built: Innovation, Employability and Community. The keynote turned out to be the only speech that addressed the future of engineering education and was well received and referred to in later sessions. It also resulted in an invitation for 4TU.CEE involvement in the SEFI Working Paper “The London Agenda, 16 key questions for deans, directors and department heads in engineering institutions.”
Roundtable on teaching excellence
Jan van der Veen of University of Twente, on behalf of 4TU.CEE organised a roundtable on “Supporting and rewarding teaching excellence”. It was used to discuss how research intensive universities can support their teachers in handling their education tasks in a professional, academic way and how their efforts are then appreciated with respect to career opportunities. After the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK) SEFI will now also invest in new strategies. The participants of the roundtable Martin Vigild (DTU, Denmark), Malin Kjellberg (Chalmers, Sweden), Birgit Pepin (TU Eindhoven) and Jan van der Veen are now writing a so-called position paper that all SEFI members can use.
Workshop Innovation in Engineering Education
In a 4TU.CEE workshop on “Innovation in Engineering Education” participants worked with three real cases from our universities and discussed successes and suggestions for improvement of these innovations. After this, the innovation factors were clustered. This workshop will be offered in Twente on the Education Day of 27 October as well. 4TU.CEE SEFI contributions can be found here.