Resilience-Related Competencies In Engineering Education – Mapping Abet, Eur-Ace And Cdio Criteria

In view of the increasing intensity and frequency of natural disasters due to climate change, engineers need to be able to design systems and infrastructures that are resilient to disruptions. Resilience, here, describes the ability of systems to not only be prepared for sudden crises and to recover from these, but also to learn in order to build adaptive capacity. However, research has shown that there is a lack of system resilience and related competencies in engineering education at various levels. First, there are only a few studies that address resilience on a system level in engineering education. Second, studies on teaching experiences show that engineering students have little knowledge about resilience and skills to design resilient systems. And third, an analysis of engineering programs in Europe has shown that resiliencerelated topics and competencies are rarely addressed in curricula. Based on these results this study will explore the extent to which resilience-related competences are included in accreditation guidelines and frameworks such as ABET, EUR-ACE and the CDIO Syllabus. This will then be discussed in the context of previous research on the qualification objectives of engineering degree programs, questioning to what extent these are consistent with accreditation guidelines and frameworks regarding systems resilience. This provides a baseline for recommendations for curriculum development in engineering.