Fields of Expertise

Cooperative Education in Engineering

 

The employability of graduates in the engineering sciences is currently a popular topic of discussion. Combining a solid academic education with relevant experience in an industrial enterprise is not only an innovative approach in the tertiary education sector, it also provides a means of ensuring the employability of engineering graduates.

As Austria's first cooperative education programme, the Production Technology and Organisation course is a flagship project at FH JOANNEUM. The expertise gained from developing and extending the degree programme, including its conversion to the Bachelor/Master system, and the associated knowledge of the opportunities and risks offered by cooperative education were successfully integrated into international research and development projects. FH JOANNEUM is unique within Austria's tertiary education sector in that it is part of a global network dedicated to developing "cooperative education" as an alternative to traditional educational formats.

Experts at the Institute of Applied Production Sciences work together with numerous European and non-European universities on international development projects to create new higher education models in the engineering sciences. “Work based learning and transformative teaching in universities” is just one of many projects which is developing approaches to solving the ever more complex demands of the industrial sector.