Anette Kolmos

The concepts of competencies and skills in engineering education are widely used yet inconsistently defined across regions, disciplines, and policy frameworks. This chapter explores the semantic, historical, political, cultural, and research dimensions of competencies, with a particular focus on Europe, while situating developments within a global context. It begins by tracing the utilitarian roots of competencies in psychology and vocational education, followed by an analysis of how supranational initiatives such as the Bologna Process, ENAEE, ABET, and CDIO have shaped their institutionalisation. The chapter then examines the broadening scope of competencies to include transferable skills, driven by globalisation, digitalisation, and pedagogical innovation. Regional and cultural diversity is shown to influence both terminology and enactment, complicating efforts toward harmonisation. Educational research reveals persistent conceptual ambiguity and methodological fragmentation, further challenging coherence. Through critical reflection, the chapter argues that competencies must be understood as a dynamic, context-dependent construct. Rather than seeking uniformity, engineering education should embrace plural definitions and foster reflexivity, transparency, and intercultural sensitivity. In doing so, it can prepare graduates for meaningful engagement in a complex and interconnected world.

In various problem- and project-based traditions, interdisciplinarity is part of the definition, and there have been a few conceptualizations of interdisciplinary projects. However, with the increasing application of interdisciplinary projects, it is necessary to develop a more varied understanding. A recent study in a PBL context defines four interdisciplinary project types, and this article aims to develop a conceptual understanding that can inform the design of project types. To design interdisciplinary project collaboration, it is necessary to understand the characteristics of the disciplines involved. In the literature, we identified three major dimensions: knowledge, culture, and approach to learning, all of which play a role in the understanding of problems and collaboration. Furthermore, it is important to understand the move from the disciplinary to the more interdisciplinary project types. In this regard, problem design and team collaboration are chosen areas to exemplify the complexity of this move. As an outcome of this paper, a conceptual framework is developed combining the three dimensions of disciplinary understanding with the interdisciplinary project types. This creates an understanding of what to take into consideration in a design process moving from disciplinary to interdisciplinary projects, especially in the design of problems and interdisciplinary project collaboration.

Interdisciplinary collaboration in engineering education: Anette Kolmos, Jette Egelund Holgaard, and Henrik Worm Routhe from Aalborg University discuss findings from the InterPBL research project and highlight the advantages of interdisciplinary collaboration in engineering education. Sustainability and climate issues can only be understood and resolved through interdisciplinary collaboration across various disciplines. Technological solutions are system-oriented, necessitating extensive collaboration between stakeholders from academia and society. As a result, it is critical that engineering students gain experience and knowledge of cross-disciplinary collaboration. However, interdisciplinary collaboration across disciplinary boundaries is extremely difficult. InterPBL, a research project at Aalborg University funded by the Grundfos Foundation, seeks to improve interdisciplinary collaboration in engineering education. In the InterPBL project, we discovered that the approach to interdisciplinary projects was overly simplistic due to a lack of understanding of the various forms that interdisciplinary projects can take. A framework was created based on empirical data, with six categories of disciplinary and interdisciplinary problem-based projects. These are defined by two dimensions: the type of knowledge, which ranges from disciplines to narrow and broad interdisciplinary problems. Figure 1 illustrates the project collaboration pattern, which ranges from single project teams to multi-teams with multiple student teams working together.

The growing complexity of technological systems, which has been elaborated upon in previous chapters, has increased the focus on the sociotechnical dimension of engineering, which engineers must increasingly address.

In Chap. 2, this chapter discusses the nuances of complex systems, accentuating that human communications and technology are integral parts of our social systems. Whenever humans are positioned at the centre of any system, complexity emerges. Interventions in complex systems are very difficult, due to feedback loops and their associated time delays and the presence of many interacting components. Each element within a complex system intertwines with others, making any intervention a precarious act, where intervening in a part of the system invariably affects other parts. Engineering education is a complex system, and it is evolving under the new AI technologies. Interventions are required and the relational dynamics among students, as well as between students and educators, are critical axes around which educational experiences must revolve. The dynamic educational ecosystems, burgeoning with myriad informal and formal, verbal and non-verbal communications,shape the educational experience and outcomes in profound ways. Ensuring that interventions do not inadvertently disrupt or diminish these interactional ecosystems requires an adept understanding of the inherent complexity embedded within the educational systems.

As identified earlier, engineering curricula must develop three categories of skills and knowledge—(i) design and problem solving in complex, sociotechnical situations, (ii) the technical knowledge to support the design process, and (iii) the interpersonal skills to support engineering team processes. Traditional curricula, based on teaching the technical knowledge and skills, under-deliver developing the design and interpersonal skill sets. Studios are a place where all three categories of skills can be developed.

Aalborg University has grown out of a certain educational mindset based on reform pedagogy and German critical theory back in the 1970s. Aalborg University has developed problem and project based learning as the core principles for education at a systemic level. In this chapter, the history and contemporary principles and the educational practices are presented.

As we discussed in part 1, humanity is facing many critical challenges, most of which are open-ended and complex systems, and they require broad input and experiences to address. We expect students and educators to be engaged in such societal issues and form multidisciplinary teams to address them. The increased complexity of technical methodologies and know-how expected of future engineers, challenges existing curriculum strategies. The deep learning needed to dig into a discipline, to understand and apply it, must be combined with a learning strategy to increase the ability of students to relate to, and connect with, other disciplines in a meaningful way. It is not a matter of substituting students’ learning of core technical competencies; it is a matter of creating synergy in the learning process so students will experience the inevitable interaction between technical and contextual learning.

We have learned that technologies are becoming more complex both in terms of technical combinations and in terms of the societal problems that must be solved. But what is often forgotten is that behind the technologies, there are humans. As technology becomes more complex, more humans will have to collaborate and there will be many more boundaries to cross. These include academics with different disciplinary backgrounds and users with different levels of education and social position in society. In this chapter, there is focus on the understandings of competencies and learning necessary for interdisciplinary collaboration.