Implementation of problem based learning in global engineering teams

An increasing percentage of modern industry is active on the global market. Their work is increasingly organized in projects consisting of globally distributed engineers. For this they must be able to rely on special competences often not learned from university courses. Professional intercultural collaboration requires competences that are rather acquired from training on the job than from ex-cathedra teaching. Filling this gap at the university level is a major challenge of modern engineering education. To face this challenge the Technische Universität Berlin (TUB), Berlin, Germany, the University of Sao Paulo (USP), Sao Carlos, Brazil, are collaborating since 2004 in a special course named Global Engineering Teams (GET). Here students work for six month in teams evenly composed of future engineers from the involved university partners. The projects are actual problems from the reality of the involved industrial partners. There are no case studies or training exercises involved, so the project results are desirous expected by the industry. The concept of GET was constantly improved and is accompanied by constant action research. During the last six years GET included more global university partners every year. Today GET consists of five partner Universities: SOCIESC, Brazil, Stellenbosch University (SBU), South Africa, TUB, Germany, University of Botswana (UoB), Botswana, and USP, Brazil. In this paper the idea and working principle of GET is described. The benefits for the students engineering education are explained. An overview over the projects of the year 2008 will be given. The effects on competences of this form of project oriented engineering education will be discussed.