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Engineering Education 5.0: Continuously Evolving Engineering Education

November 2020
International Journal of Engineering Education 36(6):1814-1832

Authors:

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

This study presents the concept of ‘‘Engineering Education 5.0’’, a future educational paradigm linked to a vision of engineering education characterized by a need for continuous evolution, as a consequence of a challenging quest for a more sustainable and caring future. In a way, this forthcoming evolution emanates from very relevant advances in engineering education achieved in the last decades and from a view inspired by the Sustainable Development Goals, but beyond the Agenda 2030 in terms of temporal framework. Besides, it outruns current emergent approaches and innovation trends, linked to supporting the expansion and application of Industry 4.0 technologies and principles. Engineering Education 5.0 transcends the development and application of technology and enters the realm of ethics and humanism, as key aspects of for a new generation of engineers. Ideally, engineers educated in this novel educational paradigm should be capable of leading and mentoring the approach to technological singularity, which has been defined as a future point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible leading to unpredictable impact on human civilization, while ensuring human rights and focusing on the construction of a more sustainable and equitable global society.

Timeline of modern industrial and engineering education revolutions: Key transformations since 1760 to the end of World War II in 1945.

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continued). Timeline of modern industrial and engineering education revolutions: Key transformations since 1950 and current expectations towards 2050.

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Schematic construction of a universal engineering programme: (a) Areas of knowledge. Proposal of general structure for: (b) bachelor's and (c) master's degrees in engineering. (d) Implementation examples considering the complete bachelor's plus master's structure.

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Examples of programmes based on the proposed universal structure and types of engineers according to their curricular path and professional development.

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Engineering Education 5.0: Continuously Evolving

Engineering Education*

ANDRE

´S DI

´AZ LANTADA

Escuela Te

´cnica Superior de Ingenieros Industriales, Universidad Polite

´cnica de Madrid (UPM), c/ Jose

´Gutie

´rrez Abascal 2, 28006

Madrid, Spain. E-mail: andres.diaz@upm.es

This study presents the concept of ‘‘Engineering Education 5.0’’, a future educational paradigm linked to a vision of

engineering education characterized by a need for continuous evolution, as a consequence of a challenging quest for a

more sustainable and caring future. In a way, this forthcoming evolution emanates from very relevant advances in

engineering education achieved in the last decades and from a view inspired by the Sustainable Development Goals, but

beyond the Agenda 2030 in terms of temporal framework. Besides, it outruns current emergent approaches and

innovation trends, linked to supporting the expansion and application of Industry 4.0 technologies and principles.

Engineering Education 5.0 transcends the development and application of technology and enters the realm of ethics and

humanism, as key aspects of for a new generation of engineers. Ideally, engineers educated in this novel educational

paradigm should be capable of leading and mentoring the approach to technological singularity, which has been deﬁned as

a future point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible leading to unpredictable

impact on human civilization, while ensuring human rights and focusing on the construction of a more sustainable and

equitable global society.

Keywords: Engineering Education; Industry 4.0; Engineering Education 5.0; Agenda 2030; Sustainable Development Goals

1. Introduction

Engineering has helped to advance technology for

solving societal problems for more than six millen-

nia, if we consider the more technological deﬁnition

of engineering, although modern engineering ema-

nates from combining science and technology [1].

Since the dawn of history, engineers have helped to

construct civilizations and to reshape society,

through technological developments progressively

bringing well-being and enhanced capabilities to

interact with the environment. Pioneering eﬀorts in

civil, hydraulic and naval engineering led to the

construction of the Egyptian pyramids, to the raise

of the lighthouse of Alexandria, to the irrigation

systems of ancient cities in India and Egypt, to the

ﬁrst diversion dams in rivers in China and to the

domination of the seas and the establishment of

commerce routes and cultural development

throughout Asia, Europe and Africa.

Progressively, technology education evolved,

usually connected to arts and crafts and following

a trainer-trainee scheme. However it was not until

the second half of the 18th Century that modern

engineering education was established, as a conse-

quence of the ﬁrst industrial revolution, with the

foundation of pioneering technical universities.

Nowadays, most studies explain the evolution of

modern engineering, as the result of four industrial

revolutions [2]: the ﬁrst linked to the invention of

steam machines and their application to transport

and production; the second resulting from advances

in chemistry and electricity, involving also the

discovery of new energy sources and transport

methods; the third associated to the transition

from analogue to digital electronics, often referred

to as ‘‘digital revolution’’; and the ongoing fourth,

based on interconnected smart technologies, com-

monly denominated ‘‘Industry 4.0’’ [3, 4]. Accord-

ingly, it is possible to establish a direct connection

between industrial revolutions and derived trans-

formations in modern engineering education, as

further explained in Section 2. For example, the

concept of ‘‘Engineering Education 4.0’’ has been

recently proposed [5], as a reformulation of engi-

neering education to facilitate the uptake and

spread of technologies linked to the Industry 4.0

paradigm. Interestingly, the technologies (artiﬁcial

intelligence, internet of things, additive manufac-

turing, virtual reality, master-slave schemes for

production machines, digital twins. . .), from

which the concept Industry 4.0 emanates, have

been already researched and applied at technical

universities for at least two decades now.

In any case, it is clear that technological revolu-

tions are taking place at an increasingly rapid pace

and some authors predict the coming advent of

technological singularity, as ‘‘a point at which

technological growth becomes uncontrollable and

irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable changes to

mankind ’’ [6]. With or without technological singu-

larity, it is clear that our global society is already

* Accepted 27 April 2020.1814

IJEE 3990 PROOFS

International Journal of Engineering Education Vol. 36, No. 6, pp. 1814–1832, 2020 0949-149X/91 $3.00+0.00

Printed in Great Britain #2020 TEMPUS Publications.

facing relevant challenges and exceptional threats,

as the Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Develop-

ment Goals put forward [7, 8]. At the same time,

concepts such as ‘‘Society 5.0’’, ‘‘a human-centred

society that balances economic advancement with the

resolution of social problems by a system that highly

integrates cyberspace and physical space’’ [9] and

‘‘Life 3.0’’, ‘‘human life in the age of artiﬁcial

intelligence’’ [10] have been lately proposed. These

concepts are clearly connected to a coming future,

in which scientist and engineers will have to develop

and mentor important technological advances with

a fundamental impact on society and human rela-

tionships, as we understand them. We may well be

initiating a technological revolution with much

deeper implications than those arising from Indus-

try 4.0. In consequence, engineering education

should also evolve towards an ‘‘Engineering Educa-

tion 5.0’’ in the era of Society 5.0.

To the author’s best knowledge, the concept of

Engineering Education 5.0 is presented for the ﬁrst

time in this study. Such future educational para-

digm is linked to a vision of engineering education

characterized by a need for continuous evolution in

a challenging quest for a sustainable, caring and

fascinating future. In a way, this forthcoming

evolution emanates from very relevant advances

in engineering education achieved in the last dec-

ades and from a view of inspired by the Sustainable

Development Goals, but beyond the Agenda 2030

in terms of temporal framework. Besides, it goes

beyond current emergent approaches linked to

supporting the expansion and application of Indus-

try 4.0 technologies and principles. Such applica-

tion-oriented models are in some cases referred to as

Engineering Education 4.0, as previously men-

tioned [4], and prove interesting. However, the

concept of Engineering Education 5.0 is clearly

diﬀerent, as it transcends the development and

application of technology and enters the realm of

ethics and humanism, as key aspects of for a new

generation of engineers. Engineers educated in this

novel educational paradigm should be capable of

leading and mentoring the approach to technologi-

cal singularity, while ensuring human rights and

focusing on the construction of a more sustainable

and equitable global society.

In the following section, a historical development

of modern industrial revolutions and related educa-

tional engineering transformations is presented, in

order to better contextualize Engineering Educa-

tion 5.0. Afterwards, the most relevant character-

istics of the new educational model are proposed,

together with possible topics and structures for

versatile engineering programmes aimed at promot-

ing dynamism, ﬂexibility, holistic training and

personalization, among other relevant aspects. Spe-

ciﬁc suggestions for implementation, according to

modern professional roles of engineers, are also

discussed. Finally, very recent and ongoing engi-

neering transformations, which share many of the

key features of Engineering Education 5.0, are

analysed and connected with a roadmap proposal

for eﬀective implementation.

2. Modern Engineering: Industrial and

Educational Revolutions

The brief overview of modern industrial revolutions

and of related engineering education transforma-

tions presented below shows a clear pattern: when-

ever a scientiﬁc-technological revolution takes

place, a transformation in engineering education

follows, as pattern previously described by other

authors [11]. Furthermore, such scientiﬁc-techno-

logical revolutions take place at an increasingly

more rapid pace, as authors predicting the

approach to singularity have already highlighted

[5]. In addition, the lag between industrial revolu-

tions and engineering education transformative

responses decreases, as modern academic institu-

tions see change as an opportunity to learn and

improve and, fortunately, are no longer static

‘‘temples’’ of knowledge.

2.1 Overview of Modern Engineering Education

Transformations

2.1.1 Engineering Education 1.0

The technological advances of the ﬁrst industrial

revolution made a fundamental impact on produc-

tion, transport and infrastructures, hence comple-

tely changing societies. These revolutions

importantly impacted military technology as well.

In fact the corps of engineers were fundamental,

both in the US Independence War and in the

Napoleonic Wars. A new imperialism wave,

linked to the expansion of Western powers and

Japan in the second half of the 19th Century, was

possible due to the technologies from the ﬁrst

industrial revolution (and also complemented by

those from the second industrial revolution).

Anyhow, modern engineering education was

established as a consequence of the ﬁrst industrial

revolution and in connection with the growing

demand of engineers, both as civil servants for

designing and developing infrastructures, as men-

tors of mechanization and production and as tech-

nicians for innovating and applying military

technology. The foundation of E

´cole Polytechnique,

which gathered some of the most relevant mathe-

maticians and experts in mechanics of that age,

supposed a new beginning for engineering educa-

tion [12]. Even if some technical universities had

been already operating for some decades in Prague,

Engineering Education 5.0: Continuously Evolving Engineering Education 1815

Berlin, Istanbul and Budapest, the international

impact of Polytechnique’s model for the system-

atization of modern engineering education is out-

standing. The traditional trainer-trainee model for

disseminating technological mastery in workshops

was replaced by a systematic knowledge-based

approach taught at universities. The ‘‘polytechnic’’

(from poly3 w ‘‘many’’ and te3 xnh ‘‘art’’) model rapidly

spread, ﬁrst through continental Europe and then

through the US and Britain, and supported the

training of technology experts or polytechnic engi-

neers, with a wide background in science and versed

in most civil, mechanical, and military technologies

[13].

2.1.2 Engineering Education 2.0

The second modern engineering education evolu-

tion lasted approximately from 1880 to 1940 and

progressed in accordance with the pace established

by the second industrial revolution. It was con-

nected to a continuous search for a balance between

theoretical and practical aspects of engineering; to a

view of technology, arts and crafts as a global unity;

to the establishment of chemical and electrical

engineering, as independent disciplines; and to the

incorporation of the new concepts to engineering

education, inspired from the heyday of European

physics. The Arts and Crafts movement (around

1880 to 1920) started in Britain and spread through-

out Europe and North America, inﬂuencing several

industries. It emerged as a reaction to the lack of

charm and creativity of mass-produced objects and

to the alienation of workers, consequence of the

technologies and processes from the ﬁrst industrial

revolution [14]. Some connections may be found

with contemporary trends, trying to bring together

mass-production and mass-personalization.

These decades saw also the ﬂourishment of the

Bauhaus, founded in 1919 and lasting until 1933,

which reformulated industrial design and architec-

ture and profoundly impacted education, focusing

on a holistic conception of professional training,

through which trainees acquired technical, social,

human and artistic education. Being an art school

and focusing on the creation of a ‘‘Gesamtkunst-

werk’’ or total work of art, it transcended art and

importantly interwove with engineering, whose

education helped to transform by inﬂuencing

many important technical schools, both in Europe

and in the US [15].

2.1.3 Engineering Education 3.0

Between the 1950s and 1980s, following the digital

revolution, the ﬁrst programmes in some contem-

porary engineering disciplines started to appear,

including: biomedical engineering, electronics,

computer engineering, robotics and mechatronics,

to mention some examples of disciplines from

engineering, which are now fundamental. This

emergence of new topics and programmes reshaped

importantly the landscape of engineering and, in

turn, motivated the rise of international accredita-

tion agencies, as a way of bringing order to the vast

number of programmes arising those decades. This

supported the settlement and promotion of

common principles for the new disciplines and, at

the same time, contributed to the increasing inter-

nationalization of programmes and engineering

students.

In terms of internationalization, the foundation

of the ERASMUS programme in 1987 [16] was a

result of this period of changes and contributed to

the transition towards more modern student-

centred paradigms. Other important advances, per-

formed along these decades, were linked to the

incorporation of information technologies to edu-

cation and management, to laboratory and research

practice, to a transition from analogue to digital

records and to the implantation of computer-sup-

ported quality management systems.

2.1.4 Engineering Education 4.0

The turn of the XXI Century brought a relevant

change of focus to higher education in general and

to engineering education in particular. The Bologna

Declaration (1999) and the consequent process,

aimed at the implementation of the European

Area of Higher Education [17], contributed to a

change of focus from a traditional teacher-centred

scheme to a learner-centred approach. Classical

master lessons started to be complemented and

replaced by more active methodologies. Alongside,

since the late 1990s, the CDIO (conceive-design-

implement-operate) concept was formulated and

deployed in 2000 with the foundation of the Inter-

national CDIO Initiative. The founders, MIT,

KTH, Chalmers and Linko

¨ping universities,

rapidly established a truly global community,

counting now with more than 120 universities

worldwide, working towards a common framework

for supporting a transition to learner-centred meth-

odologies, in many aspects synergizing with the

Bologna process. CDIO relies on active learning

methods for helping students acquire technical

knowledge, apply it to the engineering of complete

products, processes and systems and, hence,

develop their professional skills [18].

Through the establishment of the EHEA and the

CDIO actions (standards, conferences for sharing

good practices, support to new partners) engineer-

ing education was reformulated once again. Many

other teaching learning experiences, including inter-

national makers and design competitions, summer

schools, ‘‘hackathons’’, progressively contributed

Andre

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to the valorization of student-centred activities and

to the dissemination of CDIO-related methods

among all engineering disciplines. Interesting

experiences include: the ‘‘CAN-SAT’’ satellite con-

struction challenges (since 1998), the ‘‘FIRST Lego

League’’ robotics competitions (since 1998), the

‘‘Solar Decathlon’’ competitions focused on eﬃ-

cient buildings (since 2002), the James Dyson

Design Competitions (since 2007) and the

‘‘UBORA’’ medical device design schools (since

2017), to cite some examples. Apart from these, it

is necessary to point out the pioneering examples of

the ‘‘Formula SAE/Student’’ automotive chal-

lenges (dating back to 1981) and the ‘‘IARC’’

competition on aerial robotics (ongoing since

1991).

This systematic promotion of active learning

roles, experiences and environments helped to

incorporate, to engineering programmes world-

wide, the technologies and methods of the ‘‘Indus-

try 4.0’’. Cloud computing, cyberphysical

interfaces, internet of things, big data, simulation

methods, digital twins, autonomous robots, addi-

tive manufacturing, among other, had already been

researched at universities at least since the 1990s

and well before the oﬃcial coining of the term

‘‘Industry 4.0’’ in 2011 [3, 4]. Nowadays, these

technologies and methods are widely applied in

most engineering programmes at all levels.

‘‘Engineering Education 4.0’’ is, consequently,

characterized by student centred methodologies,

by a systematic promotion of project-based learn-

ing, through which professional skills and transver-

sal outcomes are acquired and put into practice, by

an intensive application of technologies from engi-

neering professional practice and by a growing

number of connections between training and

research.

In addition, other authors have put forward the

relevance of e-learning (and b-learning) methods,

the interesting employment of e-portfolios, the

progressive use of virtual laboratories and the

increasing importance of internationalization in

engineering education along the last two decades

[5]. Other innovations, which can be considered

part of the revolutions achieved in the ‘‘Engineering

Education 4.0’’ period, are open lectures and mas-

sive open online courses [19–21], which have also

supported a democratization of education through

a more equitable access to knowledge. Making

reference to the ground-breaking examples of Wiki-

pedia and of the Khan Academy is necessary.

2.2 The Revolutions Ahead: A View Beyond 2030

In the last ﬁve years, the aforementioned innova-

tion trend has lost momentum. For instance, the

European convergence has not been yet eﬀectively

achieved and the countries from the EU still train

engineers through extremely varied programmes, in

terms of structure and length, which prevents the

interoperability of degrees and the approach

towards more universal programmes and, at the

same time, limits the swift operation of existing

joint degrees.

Besides, even though methodological changes

have been progressively incorporated to engineer-

ing programmes, to complement the classical

master classes, there are still many professors

reluctant to change, who believe that the engineers

of the future cannot match the excellence of the

engineers of the past. In 2020, in the middle of the

SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, with most universities

worldwide closed and resorting to e-learning meth-

ods, too many professors are reluctant to ﬁnding

and applying innovative assessment methods, dif-

ferent from the traditional written examinations,

which generates additional stress and helps to point

out the need for evolving engineering education

again and continuously.

In addition, the more recent topical changes or

incorporations to engineering programmes have

been just focused on including minors or electives

about innovative technologies from the Industry

4.0 arena. The creation of mini-degrees on internet

of things, artiﬁcial intelligence and machine learn-

ing, big data, cybersecurity, advanced production

technologies, among others, is also common.

Nevertheless, such recent concern about the speciﬁc

techniques from Industry 4.0, in a way, diverts the

focus from the real challenges ahead and from the

Agenda 2030.

Seeing that we are now in a transition from

Industry 4.0 towards Society 5.0, possibly

approaching technological singularity, and consid-

ering the global challenges ahead, a related evolu-

tion of engineering education, presented in this

study as Engineering Education 5.0, is foreseeable

as well. Such evolution should go a step further and,

not only focus on the progressive incorporation of

new-development technologies, but reassume the

quest for global engineers, as proven right in so

many intellectual revolutions (Renaissance,

Enlightenment, ﬁrst decades of the XX Century,

among others previously mentioned).

To contextualize all the aforementioned evolu-

tions, the timeline of Fig. 1 is prepared. It sum-

marizes historical, scientiﬁc-technological and

related educational advances, since the ﬁrst indus-

trial revolution, and presents some predictions and

possible directions with year 2050 in the horizon, in

connection with the provided explanations and

with the establishment of Engineering Education

5.0, whose key features are detailed in the following

section.

Engineering Education 5.0: Continuously Evolving Engineering Education 1817

3. Engineering Education 5.0: Key

Features

Engineering Education 5.0 should combine the

beneﬁts of well-established and validated engineer-

ing education models, taking inspiration from the

past for constructing the future, while incorporat-

ing radically innovative aspects and relying on

advanced technologies, as a necessary complement

for more eﬀectively and eﬃciently transform engi-

neering, in order to successfully face global societal

and environmental challenges. Inspiring criteria

and proposals from well-established accreditation

agencies [22], from recent worldwide initiatives

focused on educational innovation [18], from pro-

fessional and research organizations reformulating

professional training [23], and from relevant state-

of-the-art reports [24, 25] and recent special issues

of the International Journal of Engineering Educa-

tion, have been considered for describing the novel

paradigm. Accordingly, Engineering Education 5.0

should be characterized by 16 interwoven key

features, listed together for the ﬁrst time and

explained below:

1. Dynamic and continuously evolving: In a con-

tinuously evolving world, with scientiﬁc

advances and technological discoveries emer-

ging constantly, engineering programmes

should be able to dynamically evolve, so as to

Andre

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Fig. 1. Timeline of modern industrial and engineering education revolutions: Key transformations since 1760 to the end of World War II

in 1945.

better adapt to societal needs and human

challenges. Nowadays, engineering education

institutions in many countries suﬀer from the

bureaucratic burden of veriﬁcations, accredita-

tions and reaccreditations, whenever a new

engineering programme is proposed or even

when minor modiﬁcations are thought appro-

priate. This burden prevents the speed of

response to scientiﬁc-technological changes

and limits the positive impact of advanced

research on engineering education, which

should incorporate advances, more dynami-

cally, as soon as they are achieved. Continuous

accountancy, possibly aided by artiﬁcial intelli-

gence tools [26], instead of periodic evaluations

and accreditations may be the correct approach

thinking beyond 2030. In this way, cost and

time eﬃciency will be also importantly pro-

moted.

2. Modular and ﬂexible: Professional roles of

engineers (see Section 4 for more details) are

also evolving with a progressive blend between

professional ﬁelds. The frontiers between

science, technology and society are also gradu-

Engineering Education 5.0: Continuously Evolving Engineering Education 1819

Fig. 1 (continued). Timeline of modern industrial and engineering education revolutions: Key transformations since 1950 and current

expectations towards 2050.

ally dissolving, as a consequence of the extre-

mely varied ﬁelds of application of modern

technologies. One can easily imagine a chemi-

cal engineer collaborating with a nouvelle cui-

sine chef, a mechanical engineer supporting the

restorers of an art museum, a materials engi-

neer working with designers from the fashion

industry or a computer engineer working

together with anthropologists and linguists, to

cite some examples. Engineering is entering so

many areas that engineering education will

require more ﬂexible programmes, so as to

better respond to the needs of society and the

wishes of students. This can be achieved

through modular approaches for the imple-

mentation of engineering programmes (see

also Section 4).

3. Personalized for joint personal and professional

development: The aforementioned ﬂexibility is

clearly aligned with a desire for engineering

education personalization, conceiving univer-

sities as places that support both the personal

and professional development of students,

helping them in their path to fulﬁl their

dreams. Accordingly, in a student-centred uni-

versity, students should also responsibly decide

and take a more part in their curricular plan-

ning, not just by choosing a degree and a

specialization, but by continuously selecting

formative modules adapted to their desires,

by planning their internationalization strategy

from the ﬁrst years of the degree, by approach-

ing in a more calculated way the enterprises or

institutions, in which a co-op or academic

external practice can be performed, among

others. Mentoring by professors with experi-

ence in human resource management and sup-

port from more experienced peers, in a

Montessorian style, should be considered, as

part of the transformations required.

4. Sustainability and solidarity focused: For dec-

ades now, we understand that sustainability

must be intrinsic to development. Environmen-

tal and social impacts should guide research,

innovation and all engineers throughout their

professional life. Sudden worldwide emergen-

cies, such as the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak and the

related COVID-19 disease, make us aware of

our limitations and weaknesses, as global

society, and of the need for solving current

challenges in a more balanced way than ever

before. After some decades of placing perhaps

too much faith in radically innovative technol-

ogies and of pursuing technological singularity,

we should now better understand our bound-

aries and put the focus on engineering towards

sustainability and solidarity, which should be

actively developed, as essential learning out-

comes in all engineering programmes.

5. Combining knowledge-based and outcomes-

based approaches: More traditional approaches

to engineering education were mainly knowl-

edge-based, while more recent trends have been

linked to outcome-based strategies with a focus

on professional and soft skills [18, 22]. The

future educational models for engineering

should make both approaches compatible,

not juxtaposed: fundamental scientiﬁc and

technological knowledge is essential for suc-

cessful professional practice and for developing

eﬀective, eﬃcient and safe engineering systems.

However, a focus on professional and soft skills

is also crucial for any engineer dealing with

complex projects, especially considering that

current global challenges and threats require

from multidisciplinary teams, adequate com-

munication, creativity, leadership, respect to

other people’s and partners’ opinions and cul-

tures, in order to be solved.

6. Holistic: All engineering disciplines are now

deeply interconnected, so building down fron-

tiers between traditional engineering ﬁelds may

be an interesting approach, towards a more

holistic and impactful engineering education.

In my life I have seen chemical engineers

mastering robotics and manufacturing technol-

ogy, electrical engineers developing methods

for calculating gearboxes and mechanical engi-

neers focused on biofabrication and molecular

biology, just to cite some close examples. Last

decades have seen a progressive specialization

of engineering degrees, with super-specialized

paths within already specialized programmes

of study. Even if specialized engineers are (and

will be) needed, it is also true that super-

specialization may become a problem of

modern engineering, as has already happened

in contemporary medicine. The transformative

power of engineers relies on their capability of

interpreting complex problems as a whole and

of interacting with the many diﬀerent proﬁles

present in multidisciplinary teams. Driving

scientiﬁc technological research and innova-

tion to success requires also from insights on

technology commercialization, entrepreneur-

ship and industrialization. Perhaps it is time

to see engineering as an integral entity and to

ideate schemes for ‘‘universal’’ engineering

programmes (see Section 4), capable of provid-

ing students with a comprehensive mastery of

engineering fundamentals. Specialization

comes always through professional practice

and lifelong learning in the adequate moment.

7. Humanistic: The engineers of the Renaissance

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were capable of modernizing the world through

a judicious combination of science and technol-

ogy, thanks to a deep study of ancient tradi-

tions and cultures, and by resorting to a close

relationship between technical and ﬁne arts. In

many cases, inspiration from nature was also

present, in a continuous desire for developing

better transport methods, ﬁner instruments,

larger buildings, more eﬃcient mechanisms,

faster processes and more precise weapons.

Such desire to know and the establishment of

synergies between diﬀerent ﬁelds of knowledge

should inspire us in our transition to Engineer-

ing Education 5.0. We must ﬁnd ways for

incorporating social, cultural, historical,

anthropological, philosophical, etc., in sum-

mary: human aspects, into the engineering

programmes, as the problems that engineers

approach and solve are always human pro-

blems [27]. Resorting to modular and ﬂexible

structures can provide a compromise solution

for incorporating such human aspects, without

aﬀecting to the necessary scientiﬁc core and

engineering fundamentals, as explained in Sec-

tion 4.

8. Guided by ethics: Ethical issues arise with the

development of transforming technologies with

the potential for reshaping society. Artiﬁcial

intelligence, wisely applied, can lead to more

eﬃcient and eﬀective products, processes and

systems. However, several concerns linked to

gender and racial biases observed in AI-based

decision-making systems have been already

reported [28]. The abilities developed in the

decades for reinventing healthcare, from the

birth of tissue and genetic engineering to pio-

neering results linked to biohybrid systems and

artiﬁcial life, have placed mankind in a posi-

tion, in which ‘‘redesigning’’ humans and

extending life may soon be feasible. These

examples help to put forward the urgent need

for more actively ensuring that engineering

advances are mentored with the highest possi-

ble ethical standards [29]. Ethical issues are

currently seen as secondary aspects in most

engineering programmes, while focusing on

the application of standards and regulations

is widely spread, which in a way partially

compensate the lack of speciﬁc courses or

teaching-learning activities specially concen-

trated on ethics. This should be corrected for

an adequate implementation of Engineering

Education 5.0 and courses on ethics and pro-

fessional deontology should be part of the core

fundamental of any engineering degree.

9. Collaborative and open source: Collaboration

and knowledge sharing are fundamental for

fostering steady scientiﬁc technological

advances, as shown by current trends in open

science and research, including the progressive

adoption of FAIR (ﬁndable, accessible, inter-

operable, reusable) data principles for research

[30] and the rise of open publishing schemes.

The engineering universities of the future will

beneﬁt from increased collaboration through

innovative schemes, both in research and train-

ing tasks, and from sharing knowledge, for

instance by means of open source teaching-

learning materials, which will support a more

equitable access to higher education. Colla-

boration between groups of students in inter-

national design experiences and courses,

international hackathons and student competi-

tions for jointly approaching complex pro-

blems, e-twinning schemes for establishing

global classrooms, are some options towards

more collaborative universities. The sharing of

their results as open source technologies has the

potential to facilitate the desired educational

transformations. In fact, some of the most

interesting technologies recently developed

and widely used in engineering education,

already rely on open-source schemes, like the

Arduino and Bitalino electronic boards, the

Tensor Flow open-source machine learning

framework or the Taiga.io environment as

open source project management platform,

among others.

10. Involving international experiences: Deeply

linked to collaboration, internationalization

of engineering universities, through the experi-

ences of their professors, researchers and stu-

dents, is necessary for constructing a global

society capable of facing the complex uncer-

tainties ahead. The extraordinary results of the

ERASMUS programme along its history have

led to the creation of the more recent ERAS-

MUS+, through which the programme struc-

tures international collaboration well beyond

the borders of the EU and the European Area

of Higher Education. These pioneering exam-

ples, which share several key features of Engi-

neering Education 5.0, are further discussed in

Section 5. Through internationalization and

collaboration, engineering students become

more prepared for large scale projects, under-

stand the potential of diverse, international and

multicultural teams for achieving creative engi-

neering solutions and experience more enjoy-

able or even fascinating professional

developments, while hopefully trying to create

better conditions for our global society.

11. Including external academic internships: Pro-

motion of professional and research skills can

Engineering Education 5.0: Continuously Evolving Engineering Education 1821

be straightforwardly achieved through

enhanced collaboration between academia

and industry. External academic internships

should be a relevant part of any engineering

programme (in some countries it is even com-

pulsory for decades now) as such internships

help students to deploy their knowledge in real

work environments and with an adequate men-

torship. Such internships should be correctly

organized and students should be continuously

supported by professional development men-

tors, with experience in human resources man-

agement, for increasing the degree of

personalization in higher technical education.

Assessment of the external academic intern-

ships should take into account the input from

the professional mentors, working with the

students in the external industrial or research

environments, but also the self-reﬂections of

students regarding the development of their

professional skills. Mentors from academic

institutions should supervise the correct impli-

cation of the external partners with the students

and the formative value of the proposed exter-

nal internships.

12. Supported by project-based learning activities

hybridized with service learning: The relevance

of project-based learning experiences for

achieving ABET professional skills and as a

central element of the CDIO model, which is

reinventing engineering education, is beyond

doubt [18, 22]. Towards the future, it is neces-

sary to further increase the social impact of

already excellent project-based learning experi-

ences and PBL-supported educational

schemes. This can be done through a hybrida-

tion between project-based learning and ser-

vice-learning [31], starting from real, relevant

and unsolved societal problems, which receive

a concrete answer in the form of a project,

product, process or system. The development

of such ‘‘PBL-SL’’ experiences in international

contexts can be truly transformative and help

to rethink, not just engineering education, but

also several industries [32].

13. Technology-supported and artiﬁcial intelligence-

aided: New opportunities for more eﬀective and

eﬃcient teaching-learning methods and pro-

cesses arise thanks to the support of technol-

ogy. In the last decades, we have experienced

how capstone projects, ﬁnal degree theses and

project-based learning initiatives in general,

have beneﬁted from a widespread incorpora-

tion, to the teaching-learning process, of: com-

puter-aided design, engineering &

manufacturing technologies, simulation

resources, rapid prototyping and rapid tooling

machines, low-cost and open source electronic

boards, just to cite some examples. At the same

time, artiﬁcial intelligence (AI) has the poten-

tial of transforming universities, helping us

reach an AI-aided engineering education, in

which many processes may be optimized and

automated and purposeless bureaucracy con-

verted into useful information for continuous

quality improvements [26]. Technology-sup-

ported and AI-aided engineering degrees may

even go in the direction of a more equitable

access to engineering education, if technologies

are sensibly interwoven with contents and

applied throughout the teaching-learning pro-

cesses at universities.

14. Oriented to lifelong learning: Lifelong learning

has been put forward as a key outcome of

modern engineering programmes, at least

since the 1990s [33]. Once again, considering

that technological revolutions take place at an

increasingly rapid pace, which directly impacts

on the roles of engineers in society, learning to

learn will be progressively more and more

relevant. Such ability should be actively pro-

moted in engineering programmes through

strategies involving: increased collaboration

between academia and industry [34], establish-

ing university-community research and train-

ing partnerships, providing continuing

education for adult learning, developing

mechanisms to recognize the outcomes of

learning in diﬀerent contexts, in connection to

more ﬂexible approaches to higher education,

among others, as previously detailed [35].

15. Enjoyable for enhanced results: Neuroscientists

have demonstrated that enjoyable learning

produces enhanced results, especially when

resorting to ‘‘learning through play’’ strategies,

which should be conceived and implemented to

be: joyful, meaningful, socially iterative and

actively engaging [36]. All this applies to engi-

neering education as well, as several studies

have also veriﬁed [37]. In fact, the true essence

of university can only be achieved, when stu-

dents and professors learn together and inspire

each other in mutually enriching and joyful

experiences, as any professor who has learned

from his/her students may agree. In addition,

learning through play is also connected to more

holistic learning experiences, hence supporting

other key aspects of Engineering Education 5.0

previously described.

16. Equitable, aimed at ‘‘engineering education for

all’’: The challenges of our global society

cannot be solved without applying the ‘‘leave

no one behind’’ motto. In fact, leaving no one

behind is the central promise of the 2030

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Agenda and of the Sustainable Development

Goals (SDGs) [7-8]. Understanding that engi-

neers play a fundamental role for achieving

such SDGs and that talent is equally distrib-

uted (although opportunity is not), it is com-

pulsory to work towards an equitable access to

engineering education, following ‘‘engineering

education for all’’ principles [38]. Excellent

initiatives and global movements (Khan Acad-

emy, MOOCs, open source software & hard-

ware movements [19–21]) have already

demonstrated that the dream of an equitable

engineering education is possibly. To face the

challenges ahead, we rely on the best possible

trained engineers for further developing and

mentoring the technological advances that are

reshaping the present. The gathering of genius

and motivation can no longer be hindered by

reasons linked to social status, race, religion,

political opinions, sex or sexual orientation and

a more equitable access to engineering educa-

tion should be supported, so as to construct

Engineering Education 5.0 and, through it,

transform the world [38].

Enlightening engineering education to incorporate

all the aforementioned essential features, towards

Engineering Education 5.0, is challenging and

requires time and collaborative eﬀorts, as even the

characteristics of educators may need rethinking.

Probably the traditional knowledge-generator/

knowledge-transmitter role of engineering educa-

tors will further co-exist with the more recent role of

learning facilitator and mentor (even if the ﬁgure of

mentor dates back to ancient times). Besides, new

roles and types of interactions with students will

prevail, especially if online methods demonstrate

eﬀectiveness and eﬃciency, and appear, once arti-

ﬁcial intelligence and robots are broadly incorpo-

rated to higher education. This may progressively

transform educators into designers of learning

experiences and managers of information and

tasks. Anyway, the proposed universal structure

for engineering degrees according to modern engi-

neering roles, further described in Section 4, and the

results from some pioneering experiences, pre-

sented in Section 5, which share many of the

above described key characteristics, may help to

guide such transition.

4. Universal Engineering Programme

Structure for Contemporary and Future

Engineering Roles

In order to promote the 16 key features of Engi-

neering Education 5.0, together with the required

pedagogical evolution, it is necessary to transform

the structures and contents of engineering pro-

grammes and, almost certainly, the structures and

processes of academic institutions (as further

detailed in Section 5). Regarding the structure and

contents of engineering programmes, a proposal for

universal engineering programme structure, con-

sidering contemporary and future engineering

roles, is described below and schematically illu-

strated in Figs. 2 and 3.

Summarizing, a whole 6-year programme, based

on a 4-year bachelor’s degree plus a 2-year master’s

degree, can very adequately provide students with

fundamental scientiﬁc technological knowledge,

specialized professional and transversal skills, neces-

sary ethical values, and even give them important

opportunities for personalization and professional

planning. This can be achieved through modularity,

through collaboration with other programmes, uni-

versities and institutions, through the promotion of

international mobility and external internships and

through a more ﬂexible understanding of all the

possible types of experiences that contribute to a

holistic training of engineers. In fact, engineering

students may beneﬁt from all areas of knowledge

schematically presented in Fig. 2a.

Considering the proposed general structure

towards a universal Bachelor’s Degree in Engineer-

ing, as schematically presented in Fig. 2b, it is

important to highlight the following aspects: 60

credits, according to the European Credit Transfer

System (1 ECTS corresponds to between 25–30

hours of student dedication), are devoted to engi-

neering fundamentals during the ﬁrst two years of

studies. 60 ECTS credits are dedicated to the

promotion of transversal and professional skills

also during the ﬁrst two years, including: compul-

sory courses or activities focused on ethics and

professional deontology; participation in student

competitions, hackathons and capstone or CDIO

experiences, as a way for acquiring and deploying

leadership, creativity, teamwork and communica-

tion skills; internships in research groups or enter-

prises, as preliminary introduction to the working

experience; collaboration with student associations

and other project-based learning and service learn-

ing experiences. Along the third and fourth years of

studies 60 ECTS credits are focused on specialized

engineering ﬁelds (mechanical, chemical, industrial,

materials, aeronautics, naval, agricultural, biome-

dical, civil, ICT) and 60 ECTS credits allow stu-

dents to ﬂexibly organize and personalized their

degree. These 60 credits for personal curricular

planning may be taken from any ﬁeld of knowledge,

help to achieve a more in depth knowledge of

engineering fundamentals and of concepts of the

chosen specialization, allow for the study of a

second specialization or additionally contribute to

Engineering Education 5.0: Continuously Evolving Engineering Education 1823

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Fig. 2. Schematic construction of a universal engineering programme: (a) Areas of knowledge. Proposal of general structure for: (b)

bachelor’s and (c) master’s degrees in engineering. (d) Implementation examples considering the complete bachelor’s plus master’s

structure.

promote the acquisition of personal and profes-

sional skills. A 15-ECTS to 30-ECTS ﬁnal degree

thesis connected to the chosen specialization(s) is

also part of the 60 ECTS block for personalized

curricular planning.

Taking into account the proposed general struc-

ture towards a universal Master’s Degree in Engi-

neering, as schematically shown in Fig. 2c, it is

necessary to mention the following: 30 credits are

devoted to specialized engineering topics, in the

area of knowledge of the Master’s degree, during

the ﬁrst year. 30 credits along the second year are

dedicated to the promotion of professional and

transversal skills. Along the two courses, 60 credits

are conceived for personalizing the Master’s degree,

from which 15 to 30 ECTS are linked to a ﬁnal

degree thesis again in the specialized area of knowl-

edge of the degree.

Engineering Education 5.0: Continuously Evolving Engineering Education 1825

Fig. 3. Examples of programmes based on the proposed universal structure and types of engineers according to their curricular path and

professional development.

The proposed general structures towards univer-

sal Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Engineering

can dynamically evolve, combine necessary basic

engineering fundamentals with a focus on required

professional and transversal skills, should promote

the personalization of engineering education and

may lead either to very specialized or to highly

multidisciplinary engineers.

However, the true potential and versatility of

these structures will only be deployed if the two

levels are combined and implemented as a whole 6-

year training programme. A complete 6-year pro-

gramme allows for providing vast knowledge of

engineering, which can be complemented with in

depth specialization in desired topics, enriched

through the incorporation of humanities and

social sciences, focused on the development of

professional skills and supported by international

and practical experiences.

In terms of the duration of the studies, a 6-year

bachelor’s plus master’s degree structure (4 + 2) is

already common in countries well known for their

training of engineers, including: Russia, China,

India, Japan, Spain and Turkey, even if it is not

yet the most common duration in the European

Area of higher Education or in the US, which

typically resort to 3 +2 schemes.

The versatility of the proposed structure is illu-

strated in Fig. 2d and Fig. 3. Fig. 2d provides

examples of adaptation of the general structure to

diﬀerent alternatives, some more holistic, some

more specialized, typically for technology develo-

pers and researchers. Even the training of engineers

for obtaining two specializations is possible. In the

case of Fig. 3, examples of programmes, based on

the proposed universal structure and on the possible

types of engineers according to their curricular path

and professional development, are presented. These

examples consider diﬀerent types of engineers, the

possible curricular structure more adequate for

them and the usual professional activities they

may perform, on the basis of the training received.

In fact, the search for versatile engineering pro-

grammes, which also give students possibilities for

personalization, is a very relevant current trend, as

has been put forward by some very interesting

programmes worldwide, selected as reference edu-

cational innovation programmes in the MIT-

NEET report [25]. At the same time, the holistic

vocation, which should also characterize Engineer-

ing Education 5.0, has been previously highlighted

as necessary for XXI Century engineering educa-

tion, which also should beneﬁt from interaction

with all key stakeholders to promote students’

multidisciplinary abilities and global view [24].

It is interesting to mention that the increasing

connection between engineering disciplines may

contribute to a progressive dissolution of borders

between the classical specializations of the pro-

grammes of studies. Probably, structuring pro-

grammes according to the modern professional

roles of engineers, which are more stable than the

continuously evolving and nascent engineering

majors, as proposed here, may be an adequate

solution for constructing versatile, dynamic and

universal engineering programmes. Nowadays,

the professional roles of engineers go well beyond

the more classical roles of ‘‘product engineers’’,

‘‘process engineers’’ and ‘‘management engineers’’

[39], as engineering increasingly aﬀects are larger

number of sectors, not just industry, and helps to

reshape society in all its aspects.

Current and near-future professional roles of

engineers, to which the proposed general structure

is particularized in Fig. 3, include, among others:

1. Products, processes and systems engineers: The

classical role focused on designing, implement-

ing, maintaining and managing products, pro-

cesses and engineering systems and

infrastructures in general, as well as related

R&D tasks, which requires both fundamental

and specialized engineering knowledge.

2. Management and business engineers: Dealing

with managing responsibilities in companies,

with process reengineering and with strategic

planning, tasks beneﬁting from combining

knowledge from engineering, economics and

business sciences, as well as an understanding

of applicable law and politics.

3. Scientiﬁc and research-oriented engineers: Engi-

neers as research, development and innovation

mentors, dealing with R&D activities at all

levels and looking into the future of science

and technology, for helping with its construc-

tion, all of which requires a combination of vast

engineering knowledge and of both basic and

applied sciences.

4. Political engineers and regulators: Focusing on

the creation, application and supervision of

technical standards, quality management pro-

cedures and science- and technology-related

policies, which requires from a very broad

training, with technical studies complemented

with humanities, social sciences, economics,

politics and law.

5. Social and humanistic engineers: Technical pro-

fessionals with a deep understanding of social

and human aspects of science and technology,

hence especially suited for supervising the ethi-

cal aspects of technology development projects

and for supporting design for usability meth-

ods and the development of aﬀective technolo-

gies.

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6. Media & arts and cultural engineers: Profes-

sionals with an understanding of basic and

applied engineering disciplines and with a

background in humanities and arts, which

proves interesting for applying technology to

innovative products, to arts and culture, to the

protection of cultural heritage and to areas

including music, cinema and gastronomy.

7. Environmental and urban planning engineers:

Occupied with the design, construction and

management of future human environments,

including space colonies, placing environmen-

tal sustainability, optimal management of

resources, comfort and usability in the fore-

front, which requires a multidisciplinary train-

ing in technology, natural sciences, policy

making and law, complemented by humanities,

social sciences and even art.

8. Biomedical and biological systems engineers:

Engineers devoted to fostering scientiﬁc tech-

nological developments in all types of biotech-

nology (blue, green, red, white) and dealing

with the approach to the biohybrid engineering

systems of the future, which requires knowl-

edge from basic and applied engineering dis-

ciplines, but also important background in

natural, biological and basic sciences, as

needed for interacting with healthcare profes-

sionals, biologists and scientists.

Once the general programme structure, the con-

tents and some possible implementations for the

promotion of Engineering Education 5.0 have been

presented and discussed, the following section con-

centrates on analysing inspiring experiences and

proposing a plan of action for the construction of

this novel archetype for higher technical education.

5. Constructing Engineering Education

5.0: Inspiring Experiences And Actuation

Roadmap

Some recent inspiring experiences share may of the

key features of Engineering Education 5.0 and

contribute to rethinking the structure and content

of engineering programmes, as well as the structure

and processes of institutions concerned with engi-

neering education. Describing some of them may

help to propose an actuation roadmap for construc-

tion Engineering Education 5.0, as detailed below.

5.1 The Pioneering Case of Pan-European

Universities

The idea of creating university consortia or feder-

ated universities to achieve an adequate critical

mass and more comprehensive infrastructures for

carrying out large scale research projects and,

hence, attract investments for R&D and promote

public-private partnerships, is not new. For

instance, in 1991 in Paris, a set of technical uni-

versities associated for creating ‘‘Grandes e

´coles

d’inge

´nieurs de Paris’’, which were renamed as

‘‘ParisTech’’ in 1999. In 2007 its status changed to

a ‘‘public establishment for scientiﬁc cooperation’’,

which in many ways acts as a super university, with

intimate collaborations both in research and educa-

tion. Also in Holland, the 3TU federation of

technical universities was founded in 2007 and

renamed to 4TU in 2016, with a similar orientation

to that of ParisTech. However, the impact of such

national consortia is very limited, if compared with

the transformative potential of international, multi-

disciplinary and transsectoral consortia, especially

as regards the training of global engineers.

In Europe, the establishment of international

consortia of universities has important social and

political implications and may constitute a funda-

mental strategy to further vertebrate the European

Union. In 2017, during the 30th anniversary of the

Erasmus project, Erasmus+ launched a special

programme, the ‘‘European Universities Alliance’’,

to create around 20 transnational European ‘‘super

campuses’’, which should be already operative in

2024. These pan-European universities will share

students and professors and arrange international

programmes of study, along which students will be

able to study in several countries without the need

for recognitions.

Flexibility, personalization and internationaliza-

tion, some of the key characteristics of Engineering

Education 5.0, will be importantly fostered through

this exciting initiative. The ﬁrst selection of 17 pan-

European universities alliances has been already

done and it may help several technical universities

to complement their topics with those from social

sciences and humanities, so as to promote a more

holistic training for the engineers of the future.

In a way, this and similar initiatives may com-

pensate the current topical limitations of technical

universities (both in terms of research and training).

Perhaps the model of the classical technical uni-

versities, focused just on engineering, should be

reformulated and evolve towards more multidisci-

plinary schemes. A good start may be the establish-

ment of long-term interuniversity collaborations

for training and research in strategic areas. To

mention a pioneering example, the MIT-Harvard

Program in Health Sciences and Technology dates

back to 1970 as a fruitful and inspiring collabora-

tion. More recently, Humanitas University and

Politecnico di Milano have joined forces for a

highly innovative programme, the MEDTECH

Degree Programme, which provides 6 years of

training to deliver graduates in medicine and in

Engineering Education 5.0: Continuously Evolving Engineering Education 1827

biomedical engineering at the same time. This

constitutes another example of how more ﬂexible

and collaborative training schemes may lead to

valuable professionals with skills for the engineer-

ing roles of the future.

5.2 Other Initiatives from the EACEA

The ‘‘Education, Audiovisual and Culture Execu-

tive Agency’’ (EACEA) of the European Commis-

sion supports projects and activities in the ﬁelds of

education, sport, cultural and creative sectors.

Several EACEA’s programmes focus on interna-

tional partnerships and on the promotion of inter-

national mobility of students and staﬀ. Fostering

solidarity and supporting humanitarian actions are

also within EACEA’s key tasks.

Of special relevance to higher education, ERAS-

MUS+ transcends the initial vision of the ERAS-

MUS programme (founded in 1987) as EU student

exchange facilitator. In ERASMUS+, subpro-

grammes such as KA107 oﬀer student and staﬀ

mobility between EU and partner countries. Since

2014, this has helped to establish educational col-

laborations and to implement innovative higher

education programmes (i.e., ERASMUS Mundus

Joint Master Degrees) and courses, in which most

countries of the world have already taken part.

Apart from support to student and staﬀ mobility

and to the creation of programmes and courses with

an international component, the EU Commission,

through EACEA, also supports capacity building

in higher education, which is of special relevance for

engineering studies, due to the necessary practical

component of engineers for their professional

development. Software and hardware resources,

well-equipped laboratories, materials and consum-

ables, are required for an adequate training in

modern engineering education, if highly-rewarding

project based learning strategies are to be used.

Among pioneering capacity building projects in

higher education, supported by the EU, it is impor-

tant to highlight: the ALIEN (Active Learning in

Engineering Education) project, aimed at imple-

menting high quality PBL approaches across

Europe and Asia, and the ABEM (African Biome-

dical Engineering Mobility) project, focused on

translating the philosophy of the ERASMUS pro-

gramme to African countries in the ﬁeld of biome-

dical engineering. Such transformations, achieved

through international collaboration for increased

learning, share many of Engineering Education 5.0

principles and show the path to renewing engineer-

ing education with a focus on solidarity and sustain-

ability.

5.3 Global Learning and Innovation Communities

Considering that the establishment of interna-

tional universities is challenging and will require

time and considerable political and economical

eﬀorts, another option for constructing highly

beneﬁcial learning environments may be through

the collaborative eﬀorts of international innova-

tion communities, in many cases connected to the

makers’ movement. These communities are often

arranged as non-proﬁt international associations

or as social enterprises and emerge from interna-

tional R&D projects, thanks to partners with the

wish to further work together. In addition, these

innovation-fostering associations normally oper-

ate online, beneﬁt from the use of e-platforms or

online infrastructures and involve public and

private partners, both from academia and indus-

try, which provides an excellent substrate, not

just for innovation, but also for training pur-

poses. Their international and multidisciplinary

nature, their connection to open-science and

technology movements, their appreciation of

change as driver of innovation, are among the

aspects that help to promote the dynamism of the

learning environments and training events orga-

nized within these innovation communities: inter-

national design competitions, hackathons and

intensive training weeks, summer courses, short-

term visits between members, research-oriented

theses, among others.

To cite a recent example, the UBORA commu-

nity is fostering a change of paradigm in the

biomedical industry, towards more equitable

healthcare technologies through a fostering of

open source medical devices. In connection with

such essential objective, several training initiatives,

including international competitions and express-

CDIO experiences, are developed on an annual

basis [40]. Besides, UBORA training materials

(recorded lessons, presentations, case studies

share through a medical device ‘‘Wikipedia’’)

are made freely available (please see: https://platform.

ubora-biomedical.org/).

Besides, several online maker spaces and tinker-

ing websites are helping educators to use extremely

varied hands-on experiences for teaching technol-

ogy at all levels [41], even reformulating the peda-

gogical strategy and contents of uncountable

university courses. Websites like Thingiverse,

GrabCAD, Shapeways, MyMiniFactory, 3DEx-

port, among others, are reshaping the way product

engineering is approached and taught. Open source

CAD ﬁles, open source software, open source hard-

ware (i.e., BITalino and Arduino boards, Prusa 3D

printers) and freely shared training resources are

completely aligned with a more equitable access to

high-quality technology education.

Furthermore, it is important to highlight that

these communities are making technology educa-

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tion (and STEAM in general) more attractive high-

school students, as the ‘‘eCraft2Learn’’ project has

helped to put forward, and constructing a path

toward more gender-equal technology education

[42]. All these eﬀorts may help to compensate for

the current lack of technological vocations and

support the training of a new generation of engi-

neers, in accordance with Engineering Education

5.0 principles.

5.4 Hybrid Training Programmes Involving

Academia and Industry

Interesting proposals to evolve engineering educa-

tion are being also developed by the European

Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT), with

a clear focus on innovation and entrepreneurship.

The EIT is an independent body of the European

Union set up in 2008 to deliver innovation across

Europe. It brings together entrepreneurs, innova-

tors, academia and students to train a new genera-

tion of entrepreneurs, to deliver innovative

products and processes to society and to power

start-ups. It constitutes the largest community of

innovators in Europe and counts with involvement

of universities, research centres and companies for

innovating in sectors including health, ICT, manu-

facturing, raw materials, food, energy, climate and

urban mobility.

As regards higher education, EIT is supporting

remarkable engineering education programmes in

Europe by awarding the ‘‘EIT label’’ to pro-

grammes of excellence. These programmes should

be capable of integrating business, education and

research and of transmitting students a passion for

innovation and entrepreneurship. EIT has already a

well-established set of Master and PhD pro-

grammes, highly connected to topics of Industry

4.0, but also focusing on internationalization and

holistic education, as students from EIT pro-

grammes typically live through 2 to 4 mobilities

among programme partners (universities, research

centres and enterprises from several EU members

and partner countries worldwide). These pro-

grammes demonstrate how international public-

private partnerships may contribute to training

engineers with highly demanded skills, such as

creativity, leadership, entrepreneurial view, appe-

tite for innovation and international orientation, all

of which connects with Engineering Education 5.0

views.

5.5 Actuation Roadmap

Regarding a possible actuation roadmap, it is

interesting to plan the transition to Engineering

Education 5.0 in two stages. The ﬁrst stage corre-

sponds to the next 5 years and the proposed

actuations, some of which are listed below, are

very straightforward measures to support the key

features of the new educational paradigm. The

design and implementation of such short-term

actuations, in fact, depends only on the will of

change of professors, deans, rectors and of eﬀec-

tively involving students in the change wave.

Once the beneﬁts of the proposed evolution are

demonstrated, through the initial direct actuations

and related pilot studies, the second stage, corre-

sponding to the period 2026–2030, can be

approached. Carrying out the related medium-

term actions will require from the implication of a

wider set of key stakeholders, including policy

makers, funding bodies and sponsors, research

institutions, companies, employers’ associations,

professional guilds and representatives from citi-

zens, among others, so as to promote impacts and

construct a sustainable continuous evolution trend.

Some of the actuations that can be considered for

the two mentioned stages are listed below as illus-

trative example.

Proposed actuations for the period 2021–2025:

All teaching resources and lessons are made open

and freely shared through online infrastructures

contributing to ‘‘engineering education for all’’

principles.

Ethics and professional deontology are progres-

sively incorporated to all engineering pro-

grammes, first as minors and electives, then as

necessary complement to majors.

Humanities and social sciences courses are pro-

gressively incorporated to engineering studies,

initially as electives, and valued as relevant for

the success of engineers.

Makers’ events, hackathons, international design

competitions and summer schools are considered

eligible for credits, as part of the eligible curri-

cular planning activities. This contributes to

making education more enjoyable, international

and collaborative.

Self-directed learning is promoted, as a way of

underpinning the relevance of lifelong learning.

Students are motivated and mentored to get

involved in their curricular planning.

Service-learning partnerships with the third

sector are established, as a way of transforming

highly rewarding project-based learning activ-

ities and making them even more holistic, while

working towards solidarity and equity.

Entrepreneurial and technology commercializa-

tion experiences become progressively eligible for

credits, again as part of curricular planning

options.

Pilot studies related to all the points above to

develop best practices guidelines.

Meetings between educators, students, accredita-

Engineering Education 5.0: Continuously Evolving Engineering Education 1829

tion bodies, certification agencies and profes-

sional guilds help analyse Engineering Education

5.0, its possible impacts, the viability of imple-

mentation according to proposed structure and

to modern engineering.

Proposed actuations for the period 2026–2030:

Previously detailed pan-EU universities grow,

most technical universities adhere to several con-

sortia and this transformation inspires similar

schemes worldwide, as a way of promoting the

international and multicultural component of a

new generation of engineers.

Strategic public-private partnerships are con-

structed for the development of joint engineering

programmes, with schemes similar to the detailed

EIT labelled programmes, so that multidisciplin-

ary and transsectoral programmes constitute the

norm, not the exception.

The research and internationalization strategies

at universities are developed together with their

educational models. Research groups cooperate

with educational innovation groups and perform

joint projects, through which research and train-

ing are further interwoven.

Accreditation processes are reformulated and

their bureaucracy minimized, as a necessary con-

sequence of a desire for dynamism and flexibility,

counting with the support of artificial intelligence

methods already under development.

Universal engineering programmes are progres-

sively established worldwide following schemes

similar the ones proposed here and focusing on

the promotion of as many features of Engineer-

ing Education 5.0 as possible.

Engineering itself evolves in consequence, from

the traditional definition by ECPD, predecessor

of ABET: ‘‘The creative application of scientific

principles to design or develop structures,

machines, apparatus, or manufacturing processes,

or works utilizing them singly or in combination; or

to construct or operate the same with full cogni-

zance of their design; or to forecast their behaviour

under specific operating conditions; all as respects

an intended function, economics of operation and

safety to life and property’’, towards a more

global concept connected to modern roles of

engineers and to current and forthcoming

global challenges. In this new world engineering

may be defined as: ‘‘The development and appli-

cation of scientific and technical knowledge to

the discovery, creation and mentoring of tech-

nologies, capable of transforming human socie-

ties and environments, for increased well-being

and life quality and, hence, necessarily following

sustainability and equity principles’’.

6. Conclusions

The magnitude of human challenges and threats

ahead requires from transformations in engineering

education, which should go well beyond the current

trend of innovating for supporting the expansion

and impact of Industry 4.0 and related technolo-

gies. In a sense, several engineering education

evolutions have been consequence of industrial

advances, with universities and educators acting,

in many cases, in a too reactive way. We are on the

verge of unprecedented changes, which will be

accelerated thanks to the increasing pace of scien-

tiﬁc and technological discoveries. At the same

time, we are facing already the dramatic eﬀects of

the unsustainable growth from last decades and we

now understand that our faith in science and

technology can be rapidly washed away by unex-

pected natural outbreaks. Besides, important ethi-

cal issues are continuously arising, with several

innovative technologies daily invading our privacy,

dealing with our data and programmed with intrin-

sic social, gender and racial biases, which is alarm-

ing.

Consequently, in order to train a new generation

of engineers, capable of leading and mentoring the

next technological advances and their application

towards a more equitable and sustainable world, a

reformulation of engineering education is urgent.

This reformulation should chorally integrate the

views of the key societal stakeholders, including:

professional associations, engineering institutions,

representatives from the industry, policy makers,

accreditation boards, organizations from the third

sector, students, educators and their representa-

tives. Accordingly, this study presents Engineering

Education 5.0 as a personal vision supported by

evidence for the desired educational transforma-

tion. The key features of such evolution, an analysis

of possible structures for engineering degrees cap-

able of supporting this transition, in accordance

with modern professional roles of engineers, and

some pioneering cases of educational experiences,

which share many of the characteristics desired for

the future of engineering education, have been

analyzed and discussed. An intention of generating

future constructive debates and international and

multidisciplinary collaborations, so as to guide the

mentioned educational renovation towards a fasci-

nating future, has driven the whole study. The

author would be delighted to discuss with collea-

gues about Engineering Education 5.0 and to

arrange a working group for deﬁning and support-

ing future implementation actions.

Acknowledgements – Images from the historical timeline were

taken from Pixabay, as free downloadable images shared for all

Andre

´s Dı

´az Lantada1830

purposes. The image of the Watt machine was taken from

Wikipedia’s ‘‘Watt steam engine’’ article. It was shared by

Nicola

´s Pe

´rez under CC BY-SA 3.0 license. The description is

as follows: ‘‘A beam engine of the Watt type, built by D. Napier

and Son (London) in 1859. It was one of the ﬁrst beam engines

installed in Spain. It drove the coining presses of the Royal Spanish

Mint until the end of the 19th century. In 1910 it was donated to the

Higher Technical School of Industrial Engineering of Madrid

(part of the UPM) and installed in its lobby’’.

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https://www.iste.org/

Andre

´s Dı

´az Lantada is Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Universidad Polite

´cnica de

Madrid (UPM). His research interests are linked to the development of mechanical systems and biomedical devices with

improved capabilities, thanks to the incorporation of smart materials, special geometries and complex functional

structures, mainly attainable by means of additive manufacturing processes. Recently he has been fostering the emergent

ﬁeld of open source medical devices aimed at transforming biomedical industry. As regards educational activities, since

2005 he has incorporated several courses, linked to biomedical engineering, to design and manufacturing with polymers

and to product engineering, to diﬀerent engineering programmes at UPM and contributed to the creation of the UBORA

educational model, which hybridizes project-based learning and service learning in international contexts. He has received

the ‘‘UPM Teaching Innovation Award’’ in 2014, the ‘‘UPM Young Researcher Award’’ in 2014, the ‘‘Medal to

Researchers under 40’’ by the ‘‘Spanish Royal Academy of Engineering’’ in 2015 and the ‘‘UPM Award to Educational

Innovation Groups’’, as group coordinator, in 2020. Since January 2016 he has the honour of being Member of the

Editorial Advisory Board of the International Journal of Engineering Education.

Andre

´s Dı

´az Lantada1832

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Nov 2020
Int J Eng Educ

Artificial intelligence (AI) is already starting to transform the way engineering systems are conceived, designed and managed, helping to maximize the chances of successfully achieving their goals. Engineering science, technology and research clearly benefit from AI and engineering educators should be able to make students aware of its potentials, teach them the necessary fundamentals of this field of study and guide them through the application of these algorithms and technologies to the development of real engineering projects, as necessary aspects in modern engineering programmes of study. However, the more relevant impact of artificial intelligence in engineering education goes beyond the application of a set of novel resources to solving specific engineering problems: In fact, the concept of ''artificial intelligence-aided engineering education'' refers to utilizing artificial intelligence techniques and resources for improving the teaching-learning process in higher education, especially in connection with scientific-technological studies. In this study, we concentrate on how AI techniques can support the teaching-learning process in engineering and we describe how AI can be swiftly introduced into any engineering programme. We also analyze the potential impact of AI on improving the overall operation of universities, as extremely complex systems managing myriads of data and countless processes and interactions.

Project Based Learning Meets Service Learning on Software Development Education

Article

Jan 2019
Int J Eng Educ

This contribution presents several case studies performed using Project Based Learning and Project Based Service Learningmethodologies. The case studies have been carried out for two years in a Software Engineering degree. Qualitative methods likesurveys, observations and interviews have been used to investigate both methodologies. The results obtained lead to usefulguidelines for those Engineering teachers who intend to use these methodologies in a productive and enriching way. The dataindicate that motivation, soft skills and technical abilities of the students are improved using these methodologies. Critical issueslike project selection, communication with clients, session performing, conflicts prevention and evaluation methods are addressed.Recommendations to implement successfully these methodologies are stated.

Towards Open-Source and Collaborative Project-Based Learning in Engineering Education: Situation, Resources and Challenges

Article

Sep 2019
Int J Eng Educ

Several strategies have been proposed for the promotion of successful and sustainable project-based learning (PBL) activities, whose benefits for higher education institutions include: improvements in student learning outcome, given the more holistic learning environments that provide the complex implications of the engineering practice; the engagement of the community of professors, which get involved in a shared dreams environment and increase their mutual communication ; the promotion of technological and research vocations and the enhanced interconnections between academia and industry derived from PBL experiences devoted to solving real societal and entrepreneurial challenges. The incorporation of collaborative creation or collaborative design methods and the use of open-source resources may provide additional benefits to this teaching-learning methodology, by helping to make these experiences more formative, more easily replicable, sustainable and cost-effective. In this study we concentrate on the promotion of active learning experiences linked to collaborative engineering and supported by open-source tools and resources. To this end, we analyze available resources for supporting educators in planning and students in living open-source collaborative PBL (OSC-PBL) experiences. Then, a case of study linked to OSC-PBL in the biomedical engineering field is presented and examined. Finally, lessons learned and current challenges for the future success of these teaching-learning experiences are discussed.

A Brief View of the Evolution of Technology and Engineering Education

Article

Oct 2017

The purpose of this study is to review and investigate the evolutionary course of technological education together with engineering before and after the industrial revolution. A brief history of technology and engineering is provided in this study with regards to Daniel Bell's documents who believed that mankind has so far experienced three technological revolutions. The first one is the invention of heat pumps, the second a result of advancements in chemistry and electricity, and the third revolution, which occurred after world war 2, is when new information technology and communication and thought technology entered the era of post-industrialism. This period was divided into 5 segments including before the industrial revolution, the emergence of the industrial revolution until 1913, from 1913 to the launching of the Sputnik satellite, from 1950-1980, and from 1980 to now. Considering the developments taken place, it can be concluded that educational approaches for engineering have changed following the changes in technological education.

Engineering Education 5.0: Continuously Evolving Engineering Education

Abstract and Figures

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