Promoting excellence and recognition seal of European aerospace Universities

ended

The proposed action is expected to contribute to better meeting the needs of the aerospace sector for highly skilled workforce and to enhance the mobility of aerospace students and professionals across Europe. Taking into consideration the complex skills needed by the aerospace sector, the action will develop the required learning outcomes and competence profiles for aero-engineering curricula and propose the aerospace specific accreditation criteria that would complement the existing European, national or regional accreditation systems for engineering education. The action will be developed in three distinct phases. The first phase is a conception phase. The learning outcomes and procedures will be defined looking at current practices and involving the main stakeholders of the higher education chain, from Universities to Industries and Research Establishments. The result should be a staged accreditation system, thereby gradually enhancing the quality level of the higher education degrees. The second phase is an implementation phase. The identified processes are tested on 6 aerospace curricula, from different EU countries. The third phase is a refinement phase. The results of the testing phase are compared to the expectations and the processes are updated taking into consideration the lessons learned from the testing phase. Suggestions for harmonizing the curricula and simultaneously developing knowledge and emerging technologies as well as facilitating students’ exchanges across the EU will be proposed. In parallel to the three phases, a dissemination and outreach activity is implemented to diffuse the culture of best practices among the EU higher education courses in the area of aerospace engineering and attract talented students to such studies. The consortium members include representatives of aerospace industry, research establishments and education institutions, participating in the major existing EU networks such as PEGASUS, EASN, ENAEE, EREA and EACP.