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In service to wider national strategies, the Plan for Educating and Training Outstanding Engineers (petoe) is a pilot reform initiative of higher education in China. It is a comprehensive, innovative, and unprecedented national plan putting forward four key tasks to establish a new multi-sector collaboration mechanism in engineering education. The new mechanisms include multi-sector coordination, participatory guidance of industry, joint training based on industry-university collaboration, and supportive policies of central and local governments. The purposes of the plan are to bridge the gap of supply and demand, promote the partnership between university and industry, and enhance the adaptability of engineering education to social and economic development. This paper discusses the above content with a focus on the challenges of Chinese engineering education, key mechanisms, program progress, impacts, and challenges for next steps.

To meet the needs of contemporary learners as future professionals we transformed the Maastricht University bachelor programme of Biomedical Sciences into a competency-based curriculum. Applying principles of constructive alignment, we designed a longitudinal range of teaching, learning and assessment activities, supporting students to become competent in four domains: biomedical expert (B-competency), communicator and collaborator (C-competency), investigator and scholar (I-competency) and professional and organizer (P-competency). This programme encourages students to discover and follow their personal passion and interests and it supports learners’ development into self-regulatory, life-long learners through the use of an e-portfolio and mentoring system. Students upload relevant evidence about learning and competency development to their e-portfolio. A mentor stimulates students to reflect on the feedback and assessment information in the portfolio to develop meaningful learning goals that can be used for their professional development and for career development. The programme is taught in English and aims at creating an international learning and working community through intake of international students and educational staff. In September 2016, the revised 3-year programme started with 320 students, with roughly 30% from outside the Netherlands. In general, staff feel that the international mix of students has a positive impact on students’ motivation and study attitude. First evaluation data show that students highly appreciate the mentorship. A remaining challenge for both students and staff is to make a shift from ‘studying for the exam’ to self-directed learning and an attitude of continuous performance improvement and competency development. A detailed evaluation of the new curriculum will follow after the first full run of the programme (2019). In conclusion, first evaluation data suggest that we successfully created a competency-based curriculum with congenial assessment re-design in our large-scale biomedical sciences programme. Implementation, however, is challenging and achieving changes in teaching and assessment culture requires a lot of time.

In recent literature, socio-cultural scholars have argued that new forms of organising work within and across organisations are emerging. Engeström (2008) describes it in terms of ‘from teams to knots’ and in a recent book Spinuzzi (2015) explores how some forms of work are carried out, not in stable teams inside an organisation, but rather as temporary convenings or ‘adhocracies’ that are formed dynamically around projects, to quickly disband and take their skills to new projects when the project ends. The value of these adhocracies (or their ‘edge’) relies on their ability to form links both inside and outside an organisation. Both accounts analyse how teams are becoming more dynamic, multidisciplinary and need to work across organisational, as well as geographical boundaries in quickly changing configurations of people. Spinuzzi, further argues how these changes are associated with new and emerging digital technologies, and how these technologies change how we communicate, coordinate and collaborate. In this paper, we critically discuss these conceptualisations in relation to long-term group work within the frame of problem and project-based learning, as it is organised for example in Aalborg University. We explore what these changes might mean for the competences students should acquire in relation to collaboration and working in teams, and how this might impact on our understanding and design of problem and project based learning. In recent literature, socio-cultural scholars have argued that new forms of organising work within and across organisations are emerging. Engeström (2008) describes it in terms of ‘from teams to knots’ and in a recent book Spinuzzi (2015) explores how some forms of work are carried out, not in stable teams inside an organisation, but rather as temporary convenings or ‘adhocracies’ that are formed dynamically around projects, to quickly disband and take their skills to new projects when the project ends. The value of these adhocracies (or their ‘edge’) relies on their ability to form links both inside and outside an organisation. Both accounts analyse how teams are becoming more dynamic, multidisciplinary and need to work across organisational, as well as geographical boundaries in quickly changing configurations of people. Spinuzzi, further argues how these changes are associated with new and emerging digital technologies, and how these technologies change how we communicate, coordinate and collaborate. In this paper, we critically discuss these conceptualisations in relation to long-term group work within the frame of problem and project-based learning, as it is organised for example in Aalborg University. We explore what these changes might mean for the competences students should acquire in relation to collaboration and working in teams, and how this might impact on our understanding and design of problem and project based learning