Formación Doctores en Ingeniería. Un proyecto en Red hacia el Fomento de la Innovación en Colombia

Published in: Proceedings of the 13th Latin American and Caribbean Conference for Engineering and Technology: Engineering Education Facing the Grand Challenges, What Are We Doing?
Date of Conference: July 29 - 31, 2015
Location of Conference: Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Authors: Cesar D. Guerrero
Julian E. Guerrero
Diana T. Parra
José Daniel Cabrera Cruz
Jaime Quintero Restrepo Helga
Helga Patricia Bermeo Andrade
José Luis Rodríguez Sotelo
Julio César Rivera Rodríguez
Refereed Paper: #223

Abstract:

In Colombia as in many other developing countries, the education of doctors in engineering presents different problems that become opportunities for new doctoral program initiatives. First, the number of existing programs and the annual graduation rate is well below other countries of Latin America and much further from developed countries like the United States. Additionally, the few existing programs in Colombia are located in two major cities leaving other regions with few engineering doctoral education possibilities, which has an important impact on the regional development. Beyond this, it is necessary to strengthen the importance of educating Doctors in Engineering being aware of local and global needs and being source of potential innovations to generate welfare to society. This paper presents the state of the art of the engineering doctoral education in Colombia and describes an experience of Colombian universities belonging to the Mutis University Network to create a PhD program in Engineering. It is shown that collaboration in research among universities is not only possible but also encouraged to develop a joint program at this level. The program finds its value proposition on promoting potential innovations from research and technological development generated by their students.

Keywords—Doctoral education, Innovation, University Collaboration.