Need For a New Paradigm In Offshore Industry-University Cooperation Available to Purchase

Industry, and the offshore industry in particular, has always been generous in providing support to universities and participating in academic programs. With the changes in available technology, affecting both the way we can teach and the way engineers will work in the future, and with the emphasis on research at the so called "research universities" it has become apparent that there is a need for significant changes in engineering curricula. Among others there is a need for earlier and increased exposure of students to real engineering problems and cases, a need that cannot be fulfilled by faculty lacking practical experience and exposure to engineering practice. We must, as a result, develop a new industry university partnership with a stronger participation of professional engineers in the educational process in close collaboration with faculty members. In this paper we outline some of the needs and possible means of collaboration. Introduction. A number of panels composed of industry, university and government representatives, workshops organized by research/education agencies, and conferences on engineering education have been suggesting in recent years that there is a need for substantial changes in our engineering curricula. These changes are required in part by the advances in electronic computation, diminishing in importance the role of the routine analyst, and by the simultaneous developments in communications, facilitating teamwork in a global scale. At the same time the various reports and papers emphasize the need to expose engineering students earlier in their studies to real, or realistic, projects and to the practice of their profession. Because of the changes that have taken place over the years at the so called "research universities" this can only be achieved satisfactorily through a close collaboration in the educational process between industry and the universities.