School of Engineering Hosts UNITECH International Student Exchange Programme
Posted on: 24 January 2011
Some of Europe’s brightest engineering students attended UNITECH International Student Exchange Programme hosted by Trinity’s School of Engineering this month. UNITECH International is a unique consortium of nine leading European universities and 16 corporate partners from the engineering and technology sector. The core of UNITECH activities is an integrated programme for Masters level engineering students involving an academic exchange at a partner university and an internship with one of the corporate partners. The programme supplements the participating students’ engineering education with additional professional learning activities that focus on the acquisition of specific business know-how, social competence and the capacity for multicultural understanding. Its aim is to prepare students for careers and leadership positions in international corporations within the engineering and technology sectors. Following completion of the programme, students also become members of the UNITECH Alumni Association enabling them to maintain a network of peers across the European engineering sector.
In 2010-11, a total of 90 students from across Europe are participating in the programme, including 12 students from Trinity College Dublin. On January 3rd-7th last all of these students came together in TCD to complete a set of project assignments developed by the corporate partners arising from their real-world business activities. Twenty professional coaches and engineering case advisors from the corporate partners provided tuition and guidance to the student groups throughout the week. The group assignments addressed a variety of topics under the theme of ‘Leading Change’, ranging from innovative product development through business network design to organizational change leadership.
UNITECH students, coaches and corporate case advisors assembled in Trinity College Dublin for the 2011 Mid-Term Week programme.
The UNITECH International academic partners are: Trinity College Dublin, Politecnico Milan, ETH Zurich, RWTH Aachen, TU Delft, Ecole Centrale Paris, UPC Barcelona, Chalmers University Gothenburg and Loughborough University.
The UNITECH corporate partners are major European engineering companies: Evonik, Siemens, Schott, Hilti, Schlinder, Vodafone, E-On, SKF, Infineon, Enel, Agbar, Holcim, Lhoith, Danfoss, Vorwerk and Acer.
The entry of Trinity College to UNITECH forms part of the School of Engineering’s plans to expand its undergraduate engineering course into a five-year Masters programme, and build upon its position amongst the top 1% of engineering schools worldwide. Professor Brian Broderick, Director of Postgraduate Teaching and Learning in the School of Engineering emphasises: “UNITECH is an exciting new venture for our School as it brings together two priority areas for the development of engineering education at Trinity – collaboration with leading industrial partners and the promotion of student mobility through European student exchange networks.”
The UNITECH Mid-Term Week is a key learning activity within the programme, designed to exploit the combined resources of the academic, engineering and business worlds. For our students, participation in UNITECH broadens their outlook, widens their employment opportunities after graduation and strengthens their long-term career prospects”.
Further information on UNITECH International is available at http://www.unitech-international.org/ and from Conor Spillane in the TCD School of Engineering: conor.spillane@tcd.ie