OUR CAPACITY BUILDING PROJECTS: A WORLDWIDE COMMITMENT

FACULTY NEWS

Even though the Faculty of Engineering Technology is one of the newest in KU Leuven, it boasts more than 20 years of expertise on all of its campuses in the field of capacity building projects: MMATENG, Physics, and STINT … are but a few examples in a long row. The first Tempus project with Slovakian universities started as long ago as 1991 on the Ghent Technology Campus.

Worldwide capacity development is in the DNA of our engineering technology study programmes, with dozens of projects in developing regions around Europe. Engaging in societal development – one of the priorities for any university programme – acquires an international touch through these projects.

Below we want to highlight some of the ongoing Erasmus+ capacity building projects on our campuses.

STINT

STINT The STINT project is aimed at more institutional development in the field of internationalizing a university (www.stint-project.net/).

All eight Bosnian Universities (Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian) participate in the project, which turns it into a unique example of academic collaboration in a country with the Balkan wars still fresh in mind. Geert De Lepeleer is the project coordinator who directs the whole project group and guides the partner universities on the track towards the Bologna process and more European integration.

Actually, the STINT project has already resulted in legislative changes in the field of recognition of foreign degrees in several regions in Bosnia. Other interesting spin-offs are the student and PhD exchanges that have been set up through an Erasmus+ KA1 credit mobility project.

DCT-REES

The Energy Engineering Technology study programme at the Diepenbeek Campus is involved (by Annick Dexters) in the capacity building project DCT-REES, with a number of South African universities. The project set-up is to create new curricula and capacity in the domain of renewable energies and DC technology. The EU partners are developing modules that include both the theoretical background and the design of applications and implementation in renewable energy sources.

The project has an additional “train the trainer” action, resulting in several short courses that have been developed so far. The project group is currently investi gating how the collaboration with the South African partners can be made sustain able after the end of the project period.

More info on www.dut.ac.za/dct-rees/

MMATENG

Supporting non-EU universities in their evolution towards a bachelor-master structure is a frequently reiterating theme in capacity building projects. This is also true for MMATENG (Modernization of two cycles (MA, BA) of competence-based curricula in material engineering), the project that has been coordinated by prof. Peter Arras in the field of Materials Science Engineering (www.mmateng.eu). Involving universities from Ukraine, Israel and Russia in one consortium has turned out to be a challenge in view of the recent international events in Ukraine. Still, the MMATENG project group have succeeded in successfully upgrading laboratories in the target universities (especially in Ukraine and Russia), organizing trainings and publishing several papers on materials science.

Sustainability of the collaboration has been guaranteed by e.g. a PhD student from Ukraine at De Nayer Campus, bilateral projects among researchers and an Erasmus KA1 exchange cooperation with three partners from the project.

RICH-Ed

The Faculty of Engineering Technology coordinates the ambitious, cross-campus Erasmus+ capacity-building project ‘RICH-Ed: Resources for Interculturality in Chinese Higher Education’. This project aims at intercultural learning at Chinese universities. In ‘RICH-Ed’, eight partners develop educational tools to prepare students at Chinese universities for a globalised working environment and to support internationalisation staff with intercultural learning. The Chinese partner universities will test the learning materials that were developed and spread the results of the project through study programmes, curricula and scientific publications.

RICH-Ed is coordinated by prof. Jan Van Maele, in cooperation with Katrien Mertens and prof. Wim Van Petegem from Group T Leuven Campus. Geert De Lepeleer and Ellen Matthijs from the Ghent Technology Campus provide strategic administrative support and advice.

More info is to be found on www.rich-ed.com

e-LIVES

With a Bruges Campus project team of prof. Jeroen Boydens, Venu Babu Thati and Sammy Verslype, the e-LIVES project already has an international component to it, even in our own faculty. E-Lives, “e-Learning Innovative Engineering Solutions, is currently developing e-engineering solutions and remote laboratories, to be introduced in universities in four MENA countries (Middle East and North Africa).

Our faculty contributes to the development and publication of good practices in e-engineering, and has also published a scientific conference paper in the summer of 2019. The existing contacts in Morocco, Tunesia, Algeria and Jordan have been intensified by this project, with our Bruges project team also training them in the use of open source study materials.

https://e-lives.eu

PRINTeL

PRINTeL – PRomoting INnovative Teaching and Learning to enhance student-learning experience in eastern partnership countries (www.printel.am) involves a large project group of universities in Armenia, Georgia and Belarus. The project focuses on new educational technologies, specifically digitalization in education. The aim is to result in more active teaching and learning in the target universities. The partners will innovate their educational methodologies to connect with the “student-centred learning” evolution that has been going on in European university education.

Wim Van Petegem, who coordinates the project for KU Leuven, has organised a weeklong international workshop in November 2018 on the theme of “active learning”, which was successfully taken by 25 participants from Armenia, Georgia and Belarus.

Hilde Lauwereys