The Challenges of Implementing an Interdisciplinary Engineering Education and the Strategies to Address Them
摘要
Complex challenges facing modern societies require effective and innovative solutions emanating from interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaborations, as a disciplinary-siloed approach to solving grand challenges has become inadequate. Undoubtedly, what is urgently needed is a concerted effort from various social actors (e.g., experts and academics, citizens, government agencies, the business sector, and nonprofit organisations) to mitigate the undesirable effects of grand challenges. An important point that reverberates throughout this volume is the increasing demand for a new breed of engineers equipped with relevant knowledge and skills for interdisciplinary problem solving. Such a demand has considerable implications for how an engineering education is organised and delivered. In this chapter, the challenges confronting the design and implementation of an interdisciplinary engineering programme and the measures taken to address them are discussed.