Національний Темпус / Еразмус+ 
офіс в Україні

The Project Baseline Study: Engineers prove not to be prepared for the knowledge economy (as the highest stage of the innovation), but continue to be educated to meet the needs of the industrial economy.

 The Purpose of the Project is to bridge the gap in the current engineering education, where, on the one hand, the professional-to-be must master an increasing amount of technical knowledge, and on the other, must all the more intensively develop professional skills related to various aspects of the real world technological developments.

 The Project Title: Updating the engineering education to meet the needs of the global knowledge economy

 Objectives:

- to boost universities’ interaction with the environment in identifying and building up competencies necessary for effective innovation activities of the engineering staff;

- to create the procedure for upgrading the educational environment of engineering education to the demands of the knowledge economy;

- to develop tools for building up innovative thinking and effective working skills of the audience majoring in engineering in a constantly changing environment;

- to improve the educational content and teaching methodology for engineering education, adapted to the conditions of the knowledge economy.

 Activities:

 Analyzing and summarizing the modern expertise of monitoring the engineer’s skills demanded under conditions of constantly changing environment, of adjusting the modern engineer’s educational trajectory, as well as of interaction among universities, authorities, businesses and society with the purpose to improve engineering education;

 Summarizing the practice of developing the students-engineers’ innovative thinking and skills to adapt to the changing environment;

 Holding a Round table discussion "Adapting Engineering Education to the Global Knowledge Economy" with the participation of representatives of universities, government, businesses and graduate students;

 Creating a procedure of developing the generalized competencies map for a contemporary engineer oriented on innovative activity;

 developing skills for methodological improvement of the engineering education content in accordance with the requirements of the knowledge economy (in terms of variable components of educational standards);

 Building up a mechanism for distant diagnostics of the level of engineer’s innovative skills development for a web-site;

 Cooperating in designing and holding trainings for teachers to improve the process of preparing students-engineers with innovative thinking and skills of effective operation in a constantly changing environment;

 Designing jointly the training courses promoting engineering competencies that match the knowledge economy;

 Improving the curriculum of one of the majors produced by partner universities in accordance with the requirements of the global knowledge economy;

Results:

 Establishing the Public Coordinating Council on the Issues of Improving Engineering Education;

 Setting up the structural department "The Center for Professional Adaptation" ensuring the engineering education adaptation to the terms of the global knowledge economy;

 Opening the site allowing users to tailor their own educational trajectory according to the map of modern engineer’s competencies (site will provide access to the latest map of generalized competencies, will provide the opportunity to remotely assess the level of development of modern engineer’s innovative competencies, will help to build an individual program of training depending on the test results);

 Writing the guidelines for adapting the engineering education to the global knowledge economy;

 Launching a modular professional development program for teachers of technical majors "Course and Syllabus Design for Engineering Subjects";

 Developing the methodological materials for training engineers adapted to the conditions of the knowledge economy, based on one of the higher school’s majors (a pilot project - "Engineer innovator");

 Publishing a handbook "Engineering Education in the Knowledge Economy."

 Contacts:

Dr. Eduard Pavlysh

eduard.pavlysh@iic.dgtu.donetsk.ua; strelokp@mail.ru

Dr. Lyudmila Shabalina

Luda_2270@mail.ru