Diversity In Cultures And Teamwork

European countries have long and strong historical, cultural and educational traditions, which they all want to protect, preserve and defend. Simultaneously, there is a strong wish to join the European Union to cooperate and collaborate, and to develop together in a common cause for a strong competitive EU. International awareness, considerations, courage and concern are extremely important elements to take seriously, if we want to be up front in international business and competition. We have to teach our students what that all means. Students must be involved and learn to identify and develop skills needed to communicate, cooperate and collaborate in groups and environments with people from diverse cultures and different disciplines. This paper will describe what our students are exposed to, in order to develop the entrepreneurial and soft skills needed, and how we assess the activities involved. It is also a report of nine years of experience with international teamwork in cooperation with and participation of more than 40 universities mainly across Europe. Students from US, Chile, China and Australia are also now joining. All projects, on this international teamwork semester, are real projects done in cooperation with local or foreign companies. We do reach out to industry to develop programmes of mutual interest. Projects are located in the technical engineering areas with supporting wide-range activities including marketing and business. The focus is on the overall realisation process rather than on any specific science or skill. In this way our students are exposed to appropriate activities to value and appreciate diversity. This is recognized to be an important part of the career of the future engineer.