A collaboration agreement was signed today at Palazzo Sardagna between the University of Trento and the Associations of Engineers of Belluno and Treviso. The Departments of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Engineering and Information Engineering and Computer Science of UniTrento will conduct joint initiatives to provide continuous education and keep up to date with the latest developments in the sector
The engineering departments of the University of Trento expand their reach and begin to collaborate with the Associations of Engineers of Belluno and Treviso, as they did last year when they signed a collaboration agreement with the Trento section of the association. The agreement was signed today at Palazzo Sardagna by the representatives of the parties: the three department directors - Oreste S. Bursi for Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering, Alessandro Pegoretti for Industrial Engineering, Paolo Giorgini for Information Engineering and Computer Science – the president of the Association of Engineers of Belluno, Eleonora Dalla Corte, and the president of the Association of Engineers of Treviso, Eva Gatto. The rector of the University of Trento, Flavio Deflorian, was present.
These two new agreements, like the one entered into with the Trento association, provide the framework for carrying out new activities in particular as regards the continuing professional development of engineers. Continuing education is in fact one of the strengths of the University of Trento, that has started to work in this area with several professional associations, and also ensures the opportunity to stay in touch with the world of professions. In fact being aware of the professional development needs of the various sectors places the University at a vantage point in the design of courses for younger generations of professionals, who will be more prepared when they will start searching for a job. In this sense, the two agreements signed today allow lay the foundations for the co-design of education and training for future and current engineers and for those who participate in the monitoring the training needs of the civil and industrial sector.
The purpose of the collaborations is to strengthen the organizational and technological innovation capacity of the region, thus facilitating its development and competitiveness at the national and international level. This calls for investments to develop and update skills and knowledge in science and technology, with training that can be designed in the academic environment side by side with professional engineers.
A variety of aspects must be taken into account given the current and future challenges. The engineers of tomorrow will be trained based on a wide array of skills and disciplines that, for the most part, are offered by the engineering departments of UniTrento, are integrated with knowledge provided by other departments and benefit from relations with the private sector and with society.
On the part of the university, this engagement is among the activities that are put in place to establish a relationship with society and the productive world at the local level by making available its skills and infrastructures. This relationship, which goes beyond education and research, falls within the "third mission" of the university. Engineers, however, are required by charter to participate in continuous training "to maintain their professional skills up to date with the latest developments in technology, legislation, and the state of the art of the profession".
The associations' representatives and the department directors who met today at Palazzo Sardagna underlined the added value of the exchange of experiences, which makes university education more complete and provides new ideas for research. "This agreement will give professional engineers the opportunity to make their expertise available to train future engineers. But it will also be useful to design even more effective continuous training initiatives that will help professional engineers keep up with technological advancements", Dalla Corte and Gatto underlined.