University-industry collaborations. Connecting stakeholders on education. Strategies and challenges

The mission of the polytechnic universities as a provider of future engineers must take into account the needs of the stakeholders and promote collaborative activities that take into account the requirements of the industrial sector and, with the student's employability in mind, that will be close to the professional experience. Multidisciplinary approach is promoted in the curricular program and among the teaching staff. More recently, considering this integration, subjects with a transversal approach based on CDIO methodology have been implemented, to develop training in technological, managerial and social competencies. This paper presents the training methodology adopted for the subject "Development and management of industrial construction projects" at the School of Industrial Engineering of the Polytechnic University of Madrid and the interaction between teaching and industrial staff throughout the academic year, with the definition of the degree of participation, expected competences and degree of satisfaction. This subject is oriented towards project-based learning. The project will be carried out by groups of students with different specialties, who will start their project with a feasibility study and develop it into an extended basic project. The evolution of the work will be followed with the elaboration of technical workshops and partial deliveries. The role played by the collaboration of different industrial agents will be evaluated in this paper. The lessons learned in the experiences of the first and other four academic years linked to the multidisciplinary approach and the changes implemented after the annual analysis of results will be analyzed. The current degree of commitment of the companies in the definition of needs will be presented. The monitoring of this methodology has been carried out through surveys and interviews with industry representatives, teachers, graduates and trainees.