This research-to-practice WIP paper describes a new educational approach for an engineering under graduation program. The willingness to grow, make difference, and impact the world is in human nature. It is the force that moves humanity ahead always full of hope for the better. Engineering is a career that provides individuals the opportunity to fulfill this objective. For young men, it is the construction and transformation of the world, and for young ladies, it is the opportunity to help people on a larger scale. It has been named “Leonardo 21 Project”. It is expected to be implemented in 2025.

This research-to-practice WIP paper describes the project developed for a mechanical engineering program to enhance the new skills demanded by the work market. The main idea is to offer an elective course just in the first year of a mechanical engineering program, a course for 2 semesters. It is a way to offer a different element as philosophical discussions to provide a breeding ground for thinking “out of the box”. It is a way to improve the student's use of critical thinking as a support for communication. It is expected the growth of this capability is necessary in a globally connected business environment.

- COPEC's educational research team designed the Engineering Program Freshmen Motivation Week for 2023. It was specially designed to provide first-year engineering students with time to receive guidance and be motivated to keep going even when things are not going well. just as good in years to come. The proposal is to show future engineers the good and bad sides of any undertaking in life and that giving up is not an option. They have special classes the week before the beginning of the semester with special subjects related to “thinking outside the box”, with practical exercises and guest speakers. The central core is the vision of the whole of being an engineer with a focus on the aspect of contributions to human well-being. This is a proposal for an Engineering course at a private university, whose objective is student retention over the years. A first experiment was carried out and another week is planned for the next semester to reinforce and collect data on the effects of the “Out of the Box” week, as it was designated. They are 100% in-class, and face-to-face due to the nature of the activities carried out throughout the week.

This paper presents findings on participants of a massive open online course named "Educational Robotics for all" developed under Open edX platform. The document describes the organization and structure of the MOOC and some of its preliminary results. As an example, Module 2 about Gender and STEAM is presented and discussed.

This paper is a work in progress research to practice project developed in order to enhance the quality of engineering programs. It is a fact that the so called global work market has become challenging and increasingly multicultural The not so new trend for university programs is the internationalization that is a strategic element to raise the quality of courses and thus attracts more students. This trend has made many universities to revise and update their strategies so that their students and their graduates can have the essential academic and professional skills that allow them to enter and to stay in the work market. Although it is not the only measure that guarantees a good course it adds value for the formation of the new professional. The objective is to make it more attractive and promote the double diploma in order to higher the quality of the offered programs.

The Professional of today needs to acquire a dynamic ability to absorb information, adjust to organizational goals, and navigate in a complex work environment. For this reason, a classic approach seems to be more useful for the demands of today's job market. It is at least interesting to notice, that the classic approach is being neglected, at a time when its product might be more interesting than ever. The Engineering Education Team of COPEC — Science and Education Research Council has designed a program that is knowledge centered and specially challenging, which integrates classical engineering approaches and real experience in order to achieve a high level of engineers ready to perform as professionals or researchers. It aims to form the Engineer — a professional that is capable to learn for life and be creative in many ways.

Retention is an issue that has been faced by many engineering colleges due to the difficulties and lack of knowledge about what it really is to be an engineer. The first 3 years of the course are particularly intense and hard. A way to overcome this period might be achieved by implementing a new kind of course, more enticing and dynamic. That is the idea of COPEC's engineering education research team, to embed a program with a more interesting activity for students in the first year. It is what has been named after “The Year of Discovery”, a short-term workshop in order to show students the possibilities of performing as engineers in a global environment - a project developed for a private university, in order to decrease the retention rate in their engineering programs.

This paper shows the course designed by COPEC — Science and Education Research Council education research team, for engineering students what is called “working with communities course”, which provides the students of engineering in 3rd year the chance to work with consultancy for the entrepreneurial community, in the region. It is for an engineering school of a private university and the goal is provide the needed resources to enable interdisciplinary efforts to prepare engineering students to tackle real-world challenges in engineering, entrepreneurship and new business ventures as professionals. The process is designed in order to offer a space that has been named after “innovative office”, where local entrepreneurs go with a problem or project to discuss and to find sustainable solutions under the consultancy of young engineers. So far the program has been working well and is opening doors for young engineers.

Utilizing emerging technologies to provide expanded learning opportunities is critical to the success of future generations. So teachers have to be prepared to motivate and entice the students about getting knowledge pertinent for their formation as engineers. This paper describes the "International Engineering Educator" developed by the engineering education research team of COPEC — Science and Education Research Council. It is offered by the International Institute of Education of COPEC, which is a certification organization in accordance with the Ministry of Education of the Country referring to the National Law of Higher Education. It also offers a professional register as "International Engineering Educator" of the International Society for Engineering Pedagogy for those who are interested in such certification as something else. The target attendees for this program are the engineering community of CPLP — Community of Portuguese Language Countries. It is successful and many interested professionals are attending the program.

Knowledge in Basic Sciences, Basic Sciences of Engineering and Specifics of Engineering are fundamental for the education of an engineer. However the insertion in labor market demands sometimes some practice or experience that should also be provided by the engineering schools. Taking this into account, the Engineering Education Research Team of COPEC - Science and Education Research Council has designed a program for an engineering school which main goal is to prepare engineers for the future work market, the engineer for the future. It is an interdisciplinary environmental engineering program that intends to offer students an exciting opportunity to focus their technical capabilities on evolving science that affects human quality of life in an international scale and can simultaneously help preserve and restore areas in which they work. Emerging issues challenge environmental engineers in public health, conservation and restoration of natural systems, water and wastewater treatment, pollution prevention, and more.

Following the new trend in education, more focused on a global perspective, COPEC - Science and Education Research Council is offering an MBA, online, in Social Engineering for all Countries of CPLP - Portuguese Language Countries Community. The goal is to cover these countries' engineers, which are also seeking for opportunities, as the majority are countries of growing economy based on their very rich resources. The idea of an online program is the possibility of reaching a broader audience and at the same time of enriching the experience of offering and implementing a program that can disseminate ideas and concepts, which fits the needs of the target audience. The Education Research Team of COPEC is convinced that Engineers with proper knowledge and skills can take action in order to solve social problems, as engineers are problem solvers.

The Portuguese-speaking countries are home to more than 240 million people located across the globe but having cultural similarities and a shared history. The CPLP (Community of Portuguese Language Countries) nations have a combined area of about 10,742,000 square kilometers (4,148,000 sq. mi), which is larger than Canada. The proposal of this paper is to show and discuss with some details how engineering education is developed in countries of Portuguese languages due to the peculiarities in the historic development of the countries.

Western world is presently immersed in a spiral of challenging economical environment where globalization allied with technological achievements are shaping completely new work relations as well as personal. The era after the Bologna Process in Europe is now about to graduate a global engineer, and not only the European engineer. Motivated teachers inspire students to pursue the success in the profession. The teacher is a key element in the formation of any professional. The quality of an engineering program depends not only on good labs, libraries and etc but also the teachers qualification as educators too and not only as engineers. No matter the field of expertise civil, electronic, chemical, environmental it is more and more evident the importance of engineering sciences applications in the global world. This paper has the objective to discuss and propose issues for reflections on the formation of engineering teachers in present challenging academic community.

The globalization phenomenon that started in the second half of the 20th Century has instigated in scientists, educators and some politicians worldwide the search for sustainable development with social promotion of individuals and society. It is one of the key elements for the surviving of human kind on earth. It is not only a matter of environmental issues that need to be solved but also the social aspects of the mutant world that contemporary society is living in the 21st. Century. It is the application of science to help society to reach the goal of achieving the same level of development as the technological. Sustainability has become an important aspect for any project development. Engineering is the key factor that drives the development of present society and so it can add to the discussions of social goals no matter the community. Many educational institutions are addressing this new demand for the formation of engineers and developing programs that include sociology and practical experiences in loco. The results are very humble however this can not discourage the initiatives. It is important to keep searching for ways to enhance social awareness in the students of engineering programs.

The large Continent of America has in its territory besides overseas regions, dependencies and colonies 35 sovereign countries, 25 in North America and 12 in South America. Among them there are two big countries Brazil, which official language is Portuguese and Argentina, which official language is Spanish. Both are of political and economical importance in South America. They both belong to the so called Iberian America, which is a term used since the second half of the 19th century to refer collectively to the countries in the Americas, which were formerly colonies of Spain or Portugal. The Iberian countries in Europe are Portugal, Spain, Andorra and Gibraltar. The objective of this paper is to present the history and he current status of engineering education in Iberian America countries Brazil and Argentina followed by the countries that originated the engineering education in these countries, Portugal and Spain.