THE LEADING LADIES OF THE EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR ENGINEERING EDUCATION

FACULTY NEWS

‘Driving Engineering Education to Meet Future Challenges’. The European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI or Société Européenne pour la Formation des Ingénieurs), the largest and most important network of all those involved in training engineers on this continent, is flying this flag.

Since October 2019, Prof. Yolande Berbers (Faculty of Engineering Science) heads this prestigious organisation with Professors. Tinne De Laet (Faculty of Engineering Science) and Greet Langie (Faculty of Engineering Technology) at her side as directors. They tell the story of SEFI and the course they will take.

The new president takes off immediately. “KU Leuven was co-founder of SEFI in 1973 and has all these years played a prominent role in the management and operation of the organisation. Our university delivered several chairs, but as far as we know it is the first time that three female KU Leuven professors hold a seat on the Board of Directors, consisting of 22 directors”.

The Leuven triad obviously is not caught unprepared. Prof. Yolande Berbers previously held the position of Vice- President of SEFI. Prof. Tinne De Laet has been Director and Chair of the Special Interest Groups on Engineering Education Research for three years. And Prof. Greet Langie was Chair of the Special Interest Group on Physics and is currently Committee Chair of ‘Capacity Building’.

Education

“SEFI is not an association or exclusive club of engineers”, explains Yolande Berbers. “Our core business by the way is not engineering per se, but education for engineers. Numerous actors play a role in this versatile task. Engineers, obviously, but also educational developers, supporters, technologists, researchers and providers. Our members include not only some 120 universities and institutions of higher education, but also rectors, deans, professors, students and representatives of both professional associations and the industry. We can state that SEFI gathers some 1 million engineering students and 150,000 academics. By unceasingly working on innovation and excellence, we strive to improve the image of the engineering profession and highlight the indispensable role that engineers play in business and society”.

Priorities

“SEFI’s scope is so wide and comprehensive that one inevitably has to make choices,” Yolande Berbers continues. “That is why five priorities have been set. These include questions such as How do we make engineering education (more) attractive to young people? How do we close the gap between education and work? How do we stimulate students’ and graduates’ mobility in Europe and in the world? How do we introduce digitisation into education and which educational technologies do we preferably adopt? And finally yet important, how do we put engineering education on the map as a field of research? After all, it is clear that educational innovation in the long term may have an impact, provided it is underpinned by sound scientific research. In the education industry, too, research and development are inseparable”.

How it works

“SEFI acts at different levels”, says Prof. Tinne De Laet. “The field work takes place in the so-called ‘Special Interest Groups’. There are currently eleven such groups with themes ranging from ‘Mathematics’ and ‘Physics’ to ‘Ethics’ and ‘Gender and Diversity’. Each group frequently organises workshops and study days where experiences and best practices are exchanged.

There is also the ‘European Engineering Deans Council’ and the annual ‘European Convention for Engineering Deans’, of which the 2019 edition took place in Leuven. The high mass is undoubtedly the ‘SEFI Annual Conference’, where all findings are presented and imperative policy decisions of the institutions are clarified”.

As a European organization, SEFI plays an important role in projects such as ERASMUS+ and HORIZON 2020, for example Prof. Greet Langie’s PREFER project. “PREFER stands for ‘Professional Roles and Employability of Future Engineers’. It aims to help future engineers identify their strengths and growth potential and to familiarise them with the professional roles they may play in their future careers. It is worth mentioning that the competence tests resulting from this project will be implemented in 2020-2021 in the renewed education programme of the Faculty of Engineering Technology. This example illustrates that SEFI’s accomplishments find their way into educational practice”.

Heading

The Leuven triad does not lack ambition. Key concepts in the course to be followed are: strengthening, deepening and broadening.

Prof. Greet Langie, Prof. Yolande Berbers and Prof. Tinne De Laet

Prof. Yolande Berbers wants to use the presidency to further develop SEFI as an organisation, both quantitatively and qualitatively. In practice, this means attracting more members and engaging more top universities. For example, she is planning a ‘Tour de France’ in order to gain a firmer foothold among our southern neighbours.

Prof. Tinne De Laet will further concentrate on the ‘Special Interest Groups on Engineering Education Research’, more specifically on a better matching of supply and demand and a more efficient flow of research results throughout and outside the organisation. Vital supporting tools are the bimonthly ‘European Journal of Engineering Education’, the monthly electronic newsletter, the SEFI Annual Reports and a wide range of papers.

Prof. Greet Langie sees her mission as essentially broadening, and wants to make the European organisation a credible player on the world stage. “SEFI already engages with global organisations like UNESCO, the World Federation of Engineering Organizations, the International Society for Engineering Education and the American Society for Engineering Education. It is time to sharpen the viewer’s focus on the East, on China, India and South-East Asia amongst others. The network that the Faculty of Engineering Technology has built up there may serve as both a starting point and an entry point. Because here too, the saying goes: when the tide is out, the beacons are set”.

One thing is certain: these are busy days for the Leuven triad. The ladies’ response is unanimous: “We did not come in this by chance. It is the culmination of many years of dedication”.

Jelle De Borger, Yves Persoons