About CDIO

The CDIO Initiative is an innovative educational framework for producing the next generation of engineers.

The framework provides students with an education stressing engineering fundamentals set in the context of Conceiving — Designing — Implementing — Operating (CDIO) real-world systems and products. Throughout the world, CDIO Initiative collaborators have adopted CDIO as the framework of their curricular planning and outcome-based assessment.

The CDIO Initiative was developed with input from academics, industry, engineers, and students and was specifically designed as a template that can be adapted and adopted by any university. Because CDIO is an open architecture model, it's available to all university engineering programs to adapt to their specific needs and it is being adopted by a growing number of engineering educational institutions around the world. CDIO is currently in use in many university programs (e.g. aerospace, electrical and mechanical) as well as non-engineering programs.

CDIO collaborators (participating universities) recognize that an engineering education is acquired over a long period and in a variety of institutions, and that educators in all parts of this spectrum can learn from practice elsewhere. The CDIO network therefore welcomes members in a diverse range of institutions ranging from research-led internationally acclaimed universities to local colleges dedicated to providing students with their initial grounding in engineering.

CDIO Collaborators regularly develop materials and approaches to share with others. CDIO has open and accessible channels for the program materials and for disseminating and exchanging resources. CDIO collaborators have assembled a unique development team of curriculum, teaching and learning, assessment, design and build, and communications professionals. They are helping others to explore adopting CDIO in their institutions.

Here on the CDIO website and in regular CDIO gatherings, you’ll gain access to a wealth of development material, ranging from model surveys, to assessment tools, to reports from institutions that have implemented CDIO programs.

"Participating in the CDIO™ Initiative has been immensely rewarding both for me professionally and for the institution I serve, Queensland University of Technology."

“In the case of the former, CDIO resources and gatherings of like-minded academic leaders from throughout the world has given me vast perspective on an oft-neglected side of engineering education. In the case of the latter, the tips and techniques I’ve picked up through my participation in CDIO have informed the project-based learning aspects of the courses we offer to engineering undergraduates at QUT.”

— Duncan Campbell, PhD, Associate Professor of Engineering Education, Queensland University of Technology

How Does it Work?

The CDIO Syllabus Report is the definitive document on the creation of a CDIO program based on the first version of the CDIO syllabus (updated versions of the syllabus can be found on the CDIO Syllabus page). The Report explains how the Syllabus was adapted to the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.