Internationalisation of undergraduate civil engineering students: a collaborative European network

Taylor, Mark D; Smith, Ian; de Klerk, Peter J; Bierlaagh, Gerard J

Abstract

Internationalisation in higher education can be defined as the process of integrating an international and
intercultural dimension to teaching. The need for preparing civil engineering graduates to work in an
increasingly international society combined with the demand from employers for employees who can manage
international markets has led to a greater emphasis being placed upon the role of internationalisation in civil
engineering undergraduate degrees. A European Universities Civil Engineering Departments network has been
established with the objective of delivering an annual International Project Week (IPW) for students from a
range of European nations. The IPW has been designed to assist the students in understanding the European
context of their studies and to boost their command of spoken, written and technical English. The network
comprises five core European universities: Hogeschool van Amsterdam, Edinburgh Napier University, Lyon
IUTA Universite Claude Bernard, the Frankfurt Fachhochschule and the Engineering College of Copenhagen.
To date two IPWs have run: Amsterdam (May 2007) and Copenhagen (April 2008) to phenomenal acclaim by
the profession. In May 2009, Edinburgh is the host city and over 300 European civil engineering students will
participate. This paper presents a review of the previous IPWs together with details of the forthcoming event in
Edinburgh. Based upon these findings, some recommendations are provided for the development of the
international components of civil engineering education.
Keywords: civil engineering, undergraduate, internationalisation.

• Conference Name: 37th Societe Europeenne pour la Formation des Ingenieurs Conference (SEFI)
• Start Date: Jul 1, 2009
• End Date: Jul 4, 2009
• Publication Date: 2009
• Deposit Date: Apr 14, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 14, 2015
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: Civil engineering; undergraduate; internationalisation
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/id/eprint/7754
• Publisher URL: http://www.sefi.be/?page_id=1698
• Contract Date: Apr 14, 2015