The Internationalization of Engineering Education

The fast development of industrial processes that involve production and serve international markets has created the need for a new breed of professionals that are as much at ease with technical problems as with the perception of market opportunities and international operations. Engineering education has been the first area of higher education to respond to the several changes that have occurred in the production process and the markets. This paper analyses the current trend towards the internationalization of engineering education, including the intrinsically necessary deeper interaction with industries, the entrepreneurial trend towards the creation of small, knowledge-based enterprises, and the mechanisms related to double degrees. The increasing importance of Engineering Education is not restricted to the education of Engineers in the POM area and should span the entire field of Engineering.