Socrates programme

Demonstrate the high quality of the finalised products, considering particularly the extent to which they fulfil the general objectives of the Thematic Networks action (educational innovation, contribution to study area, European dimension, specific and European impact of the co-operation, wider application of good practice and dialogue between academic, socio-economic or any other relevant partner).

The monography with the title: "Towards the harmonisation of Electrical and Information Engineering Education in Europe" (370 pages) includes the description of educational systems in Europe prior to the Bologna declaration , the transition possibilities between different options in the same country and the evolution to the B-M-D system recommended by the Bologna document.

It has a precise description of educational systems in most of the European countries including countries outside of the Union such as Ukraine, for instance. Graphs summarise the educational structure and the transition possibilities from one educational system to another, for better understanding and visualisation. Links are available to the HEIs providing courses in Electrical and Information Engineering in each country.

After an introduction which explains the context in which this study has been set out, the more important chapters are the following:

- "Electrical and Information Engineering: outline of a disciplinary field": this part proposes to show how is defined our disciplinary fields (EIE) in the various European countries. It is also possible to get a translation of EIE in most European languages.

- "Actual implementation of the Bologna-BMD scheme in Europe": this survey is an observatory which allow to see how is approached the reflection about this process, and how are modified or implemented new curricula, taking account of the European recommendations.

- "Proposed Coordinated Structure for a Curriculum for a 3 years (180 ECTS) Bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering": This part proposes a scheme for a coordinated structure to a bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering integrating the various sub-fields of our disciplines. This structure is a first step to further propositions of bachelors and masters in Electrical and Information Engineering.

- "Overview per country" : This part, the most important of the monograph, consists in several files ; one per country, with a description of the respective Higher Education system in our fields, the delimitation of disciplinary fields, an explanation of the processes for the definition, the validation, and the accreditation of the contents of the curricula and the degree systems. Some statistics are provided, allowing interested people to get an idea on the weight of our disciplines in the various countries.

- Two appendices give the monograph a non negligible interest: Appendix A proposes a list of the institutions providing curricula in our fields, with their internet sites. Appendix B proposes, generally as tables, the list of degrees in our fields in each European university. Because of the present reflections about Bologna process, some of these tables will need to be updated quite soon, but the general interest to show which are the specificities of the universities as far as Electrical and Information Engineering is concerned, remains interesting.

The common curricula was agreed by all the partners grouped by speciality. The final results are bachelor courses in EIE, with a proper inclusion of soft and technical skills, in accordance with the Bologna Declaration and na appropriate distribution of ECTS. This work was coordinated by Prof. Olivier Bonnaud ( University of Rennes 1 ( France) and Prof. Jorge Esteves ( I.S.T., Lisbon, Portugal).