International student mobility in engineering education

Engineering students are, compared to their counterparts in other disciplines, less mobile resulting in limited intercultural skills. Globalization requires professionals being excellent in their fields and being able to work on a global scale at the same time. So far, engineering education has put too little stress on integrating intercultural competences into curricula. This paper shows new approaches to incorporate international experiences into higher engineering education. First, it analyzes the current situation of international student mobility in Germany, before emphasizing the general motivation for international student exchange especially in engineering science. A consortium of three excellent German engineering universities was put up to introduce new measures for increasing student mobility as is described subsequently. This paper represents work in progress. Thus, further results will be published continuously.