Environmental issue through the international accreditation of engineering education

In the framework of European Higher Education Area - EHEA, the technical and methodological aspects related to protect the environment, to enhance the natural resources and to promote a resilient society, are of paramount importance. Challenges and problems to be faced are local and global at the same time. In this context, not only the capacity to communicate in a common technical language is necessary, but also the assurance of an adequate and common level of technical competences, knowledge and understanding. The international accreditation of the second cycle environmental engineering studies at University of Firenze is discussed here. The Europe-based EUR-ACE® (EURopean - ACcredited Engineer) accreditation system, operated by ENAEE - European Network for Accreditation of Engineering Education, is applied as the proper framework and accreditation system to provide the suitable measures to assess the quality of engineering programs in Europe and abroad. The importance of the accreditation to guarantee the quality and the status of environmental engineering graduates is also highlighted through the definition of the learning outcomes. Particularly, based on the learning outcomes related to “knowledge and understanding” and “applying knowledge and understanding”, the environmental engineering program of the School of Engineering of the University of Firenze is considered and discussed according to the engineering-focused EUR-ACE skill descriptors.