Crisis and catalyst: the impact of COVID-19 on the global state-of-the-art in engineering education

The systemic transformation of engineering education has its roots in the decade before the Covid-19 pandemic.  Engineering faculty and their institutional leaders across the world were driving forward changes in the engineering curriculum to ensure that tomorrow’s engineers have the competencies needed to tackle the economic, social and environmental challenges of the 21st century.  But the pandemic has been an additional catalyst for change, necessitating major reforms to program design and delivery and the wider student experience.  Together, these changes are set to have a major impact on the future trajectory of the engineering education sector. 

The talk will discuss findings from the Crisis and Catalyst report, which examines the impact of Covid-19 on engineering education worldwide.  Drawing on interviews with members of the engineering education community from across 36 countries, the talk will explore the likely impact of this systemic shock on the direction of travel of the sector and the state-of-the-art in the field.

Further information on the study: https://www.ceeda.org

The seminar takes place in an online format:

Zoom: https://chalmers.zoom.us/j/63123289126

Password for the seminar is obtained when registering for the seminar.

Link to registration

Presentation slides:

Crisis and Catalysis - The Impact of COVID-19 on Global Practice in Engineering Education

About the presenter:

Dr Ruth Graham, Higher education consultant

A Mechanical Engineer by training, Dr Ruth Graham specialised in aeronautical fatigue, working with BAE SYSTEMS for a number of years. In 2002 she moved to Imperial College London and later became Director of the EnVision project, which sought to transform the undergraduate education across the university’s Faculty of Engineering.

Ruth has worked as an independent consultant since 2008.  Her work is focused on fostering change in higher education across the world, helping to improve teaching and learning worldwide.  Ruth’s recent projects have included:

• a global initiative to improve the reward and recognition of teaching in higher education that is now supporting reform to academic career pathways at over 50 universities worldwide (www.advancingteaching.com);
• a global study on the lessons learnt from the current period of ‘emergency teaching’ resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and how this might impact the trajectory of engineering education in the future (www.ceeda.org);
• a cross-institutional and multi-year survey to capture and track the culture and status of teaching amongst faculty, in which 21 universities from 10 countries are participating (www.teachingcultures.com).

Further details can be found on Ruth’s website – www.rhgraham.org – which provides an outline of recent projects as well as copies of her published reports.