From Competencies to Initiatives

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From Competencies to Initiatives
4-5 May 2006, Tallinn, Estonia
2nd European Workshop
European Models of Synergy between Teaching and
Research in Higher Education
EUROPEAN COMMISSION Erasmus Thematic
Networks European Network on Co-operation between
University and Industry
Paul Dan CRISTEA, Rodica TUDUCE Bio-Medical
Engineering Center University Politehnica of
Bucharest Spl. Independentei 313, 060042
Bucharest, Romania Phone [phone],
40-745-117062 e-mail pcristea,
trodica_at_dsp.pub.ro
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The University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest

• Schools of
• Electrical Engineering 
• Power Engineering 
• Automatic Control and Computers
• Electronics, Telecommunications
• and Information Technology 
• Mechanics and Mechatronics
• Engineering and Management of
• Technological Systems
• Biotechnical Systems
• Transports 
• Aerospace Engineering 
• Materials Science and Engineering
• Applied Chemistry and
• Material Science
• Engineering in Modern Languages
• Applied Sciences

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Images from the University POLITEHNICA of
Bucharest
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Campuses of the University POLITEHNICA of
Bucharest
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Polizu campus
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This spring in the main UPB campus (9 April 2006)
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The Leu campus
Faculty of Informatics and Computer Science
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Students in an auditorium of UPB
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The University Politehnica of Bucharest

• UPB is the oldest and the most prestigious
  technical university in Romania.
• Its traditions are linked to the founding of the
  Romanian higher technical education.
• On 24 March 1818, by a Royal Edict, the premises
  of Saint Sava Abbey were converted into a
  technical school.
• In 1832 this school was re-organised, and exact
  sciences courses were given, such as applied
  trigonometry, geodesy, mineralogy, engineering
  graphics, principles of road and bridge building,
  elements of architecture, etc.

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• The first Polytechnic School was created by
  transforming the "National School of Bridges and
  Roads" into the "Polytechnic School of
  Bucharest".
• In 1890, a commission was set up at the National
  School of Bridges and Roads to issue equivalency
  certificates for the engineering diplomas
  obtained abroad, thus transforming this national
  school into a model for evaluating higher
  technical studies.
• During the years, many internationally well known
  personalities, such as Gogu Constantinescu, Elie
  Carafoli, Costin Nenitescu, and others, were
  professors at the "POLITEHNICA".

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• Level of study offered by the 14 Engineering
  Schools
• B.Sc. 4 years M.S. 1.5 years PhD 3-4 years
• 62 Departments
• 37 Research Centers
• Total academic staff 1674 (Full professors 533
  Ph.D. 1140)
• Undergraduate Students 22 000
• Master students 2 000
• Ph.D. students 2 426

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• Currently, the Bologna process is being
  implemented at UPB, and a transition to a
  teaching better responding to current societal
  demands is under way.
• The EUI-Net project could help in this phase by
  contributing to a smooth transition to real
  industry needs and EU standards.

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The Hi-PolyTech-Park

• Opportunity to valorize the intellectual
  potential for our students and researchers to
  develop new products with a high impact on the
  emerging knowledge based economy.
• Aims to attract the most important companies to
  integrate their management skills and financial
  resources with our potential to create new
  software and hardware product based on ITC.
• Main fields of competence in which our staff and
  students actively pursue research and applicative
  projects include
• Embedded systems
• Mobile communication and processing
• Pervasive computing
• Grid technologies
• Nanotechnologies and materials
• Spoken language technology and image processing
• Biomedical engineering applications
• Autonomous systems
• Distributed systems

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The Bologna Declaration

• The Bologna Declaration of June 1999 calls for
  the establishment by 2010 of a coherent,
  compatible and competitive European Higher
  Education Area, attractive for European students
  and for students and scholars from other
  continents.
• The European Education Ministers identified six
  action lines in Bologna and they have added three
  more in Prague in May 2001
• Adoption of a system of easily readable and
  comparable degrees
• Adoption of a system essentially based on two
  cycles
• Establishment of a system of credits
• Promotion of mobility
• Promotion of European cooperation in quality
  assurance
• Promotion of the European dimension in higher
  education
• Lifelong learning
• Higher education institutions and students
• Promoting the attractiveness of the European
  Higher Education Area

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Tasks of Socrates programme

• Mapping and enhancing education
• Facilitating European cooperation
• Defining and updating generic and specific
  competences
• Promoting synergies between teaching and research
• Reinforcing the link between education and
  society
• Creating links with other continents

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Tuning methodology

• Understand curricula and make them comparable.
• Chosen lines of approach
• generic competences,
• subject-specific competences,
• role of ECTS as an accumulation system,
• role of learning, teaching, assessment and
  performance in relation to quality assurance and
  evaluation.

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EUI-Net Project

• University - Industry cooperation in a
  knowledge-driven society
• Traditional U-I cooperation areas
• Curriculum development
• Professional insertion
• Research Development
• Production Services

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Workpackage SIG 1

• Generic and specific competences in the subjects
  relevant to the industrial sector, using the
  "Tuning" methodology.
• Coordinator UPB
• Partners
• Vraa College, DK
• IVIS Information and Telecommunication Systems
  LLC, Athens, GR
• Unibertsitate Eskola Politeknikoa Donostia, San
  Sebastian, SP
• Universite Paris 7 Denis Diderot, FR
• Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology
• High Technology Group SNC
• Henley Management College, Oxon, UK
• Technical University of Iceland, Reykjavik,
  Iceland
• Bussines Innovation Centre of Latvian Electronic
  Industry
• Baltic Education Technologies Institute
• University of PECS, HU
• Politehnica University of Bucharest, RO
• CANAM Steel Romania SRL, RO

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Generic and specific competences in subjects
relevant to the industrial sector

• Extend the TUNING methodology to the engineering
  field.
• Questionairs addressed to the following targeted
  respondents
• graduates (group G),
• employers (group E),
• academics (group A).
• Asked to answer two types of questionnaires each
  
• Generic skills in engineering (GESKE),
• Specific competencies in engineering (SPECOE).

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Current and foreseen activities

• Development of the E-environment for
  questionnaires distribution and data collection
• Survey and results processing
• Workshop for analysis and internal evaluation of
  Industrial related curricula
• Final Outcome elaboration of a synthesis book
  Tuning Industrial Educational Structures in
  Europe, part I
• External evaluation and elaboration of the final
  version
• Final report

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Teaching Training by Research PhD supervision

• Involvement of doctoral students in research
  projects
• CEEX programme participation of PhD students
• Project proposals submitted by doctoral students
• Enhancement of the organizational framework
• Doctoral schools new doctoral schools in
  Bioinformatics, Electrical Engineering, Applied
  Computer Science at UPB
• Stages in research institutes in European
  programmes

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Opening of the INTEL Wireless Laboratory at PUB
(9 September 2005)
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Successive phases of development of the INTEL
Wireless Laboratory at PUB
3rd year (2007-8)
2nd year (2006-7)
1st year (2005-6)
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The Ideas Projects workshop organized by the
students of the Faculty of Engineering of UPB
(30 April 2006)
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Actors of the Teaching Research process

• Strengthening actors involvement in research
  process
• academics,
• students, graduates,
• industrial partners,
• government representatives.
• New mechanisms for involving industrial,
  economic, social and educational actors.
• University, national, European and international
  policy.

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Continuously up-dating of teaching

• Integrating research results in teaching
• Restructuring teaching according to the newest
  developments in each scientific and technological
  domain
• Opening of new domains of teaching
• Interdisciplinary training
• Systems Biology
• Bioinformatics
• Technical Entrepreneurship

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Entrepreneurial spirit

• Competencies alone are not enough when it comes
  to convert knowledge into initiatives able to
  change world and society.
• The SIG1 module of the EUI-net project has
  extended its area of interest in the direction of
  developing Technical Entrepreneurship.
• Joint activities of universities and enterprises
  to create a real entrepreneurial attitude amongst
  engineering students.

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Basic requests

• Entrepreneurial spirit must be sustained by an
  adequate training providing
• necessary basic and specialized knowledge,
• direct and early involvement in the current and
  future trends of the industrial field they will
  contribute to shape during their professional
  careers.

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Environment for Growth
Source The Economist Intelligence Unit World
Forecast
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Extending Tuning

• Extend tuning not only horizontally
• Various generic and specific competencies
  offered by universities across Europe in response
  to current and future industry needs and
  requests.
• A new level that requires
• developing industry initiatives in universities,
• direct use of students' creativity,
• both technical and business-like skills.

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European Commission plans on education and
entrepreneurship

• February 10th, 2006
• Gunter Verheugen, Vice-president and Commissioner
  for DG Enterprise and Industry,
• Jan Figel, Member of the European Commission
  responsible for Education, Training, Culture and
  Multilingualism
• stated the intention of the Commission to
  cultivate a more entrepreneurial spirit amongst
  schoolchildren and students.

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EC recommendations for governments

• Including entrepreneurship in school curricula.
• Training teachers in business awareness.
• Improving cooperation between educational
  establishments and the local community.

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Entrepreneurship in Europe

• The European Commission has placed
  entrepreneurship high on the European agenda for
  several years.
• The commitment to promote entrepreneurship
  through Education is set out in the Lisbon
  Agenda.
• Memo with the title Promoting entrepreneurial
  mindsets Examples of good practice in Europe
  (February 13th, 2006) states that examples of
  entrepreneurship education in EU Member States
  show that good practice exists in Europe.

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Challenges

• Making good practice more widespread and
  systematic in Europe.
• Education is positively linked with higher
  entrepreneurial activity (20 of participants in
  mini-company activities in secondary school go on
  to create their own company after finishing
  studies).
• Education in entrepreneurship increases the
  chances of start-ups and self-employment and
  enhances individuals economic reward and
  satisfaction.

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• Curricula for schools at all levels should
  explicitly include entrepreneurship as an
  objective of education.
• Future engineers be prepared not only to enter
  the labor market as employees, just as an
  additional highly trained working force, but also
  as job creators.
• Graduates and even last year students will bring
  their fresh ideas, their initiatives aimed to
  technological advancement, able to change the
  future of both university and industry.

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Events at UPB

• March 31st, 2006 Visit of Dr. Craig Barrett,
  President of the Board, INTEL Corporation
• a more manifest presence of large companies
  within universities,
• forming engineer students as young entrepreneurs,
• opening of a course of Technical
  Entrepreneurship, given by professors from
  Berkeley University, USA (April 2006), for twenty
  professors of UPB, from all the technical schools
  of the university.

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Dr. Craig Barrett, President of the Board, INTEL
Corporation, visit at University POLITEHNICA of
Bucharest meeting the students
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Discussing the ways towards a creative training
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Dr. Craig Barrett, President of the Board, INTEL
Corporation, presenting Prof. Ecaterina
Andronescu, Rector of the University POLITEHNICA
of Bucharest, the first continuous wave silicon
laser.
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Entrepreneurship training at UPB

• The course of Technical Entrepreneurship has the
  role of a starting point in a training-of-trainers
  effort to extend entrepreneurial training in all
  the engineering studies organized in the
  university.
• Entrepreneurship education will be included in a
  large variety of courses, at Bachelor, Degree and
  Postgraduate levels, and will be offered across
  many different academic departments.

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• New courses comprise Business Studies
  Accounting and Finance Community Studies
  Cultural Resource Management various engineering
  specialties.
• A new course of Technical Entrepreneurship has
  already been introduced in the curriculum of the
  Faculty of Engineering in Foreign Languages.
• This means that, almost without exception, each
  of UPBs students will have the opportunity of
  completing an entrepreneurship module at some
  point during their studies.

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Entrepreneurship Programin cooperation with
Intel
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Celebrating the success of the first course on
Technical Entrepreneurship given at UPB by
professors from Berkeley University (3 April
2006)
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Thanks for your Attention!