International Collaboration In The Reform Of Engineering Education

In October 2000, with support from the Wallenberg Foundation, four universities launched an international collaboration designed to improve undergraduate engineering education in Sweden, the United States, and worldwide. This is a closely coordinated program with parallel efforts at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Linköping University (LiU) in Linkoping, Chalmers University of Technology (Chalmers) in Göteborg, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The vision of the project is to provide students with an education that stresses engineering fundamentals set in the context of Conceiving-Designing-Implementing-Operating (CDIO) real-world systems and products. The collaboration calls for three face-to-face meetings per year, alternating venues among the four institutions. Videoconferencing, email, and a dedicated Web page facilitate collaboration between meetings. This paper describes the results of the first year of the collaboration, the impact of the reform efforts, and the plans for the next three years.