New Year’s message of the President

To all SEFI members, volunteers, leaders, and enthusiasts:

I wish you a happy and healthy New Year. May 2020 bring new goals, new achievements, and abundant inspiration into your life! But also, may 2020 be a year in which you find, cherish, and protect a perfect work/life balance.

SEFI looks back on a successful year, filled with engaging and stimulating meetings. Our conference in Budapest, for instance, attracted nearly 400 attendees! Similarly, for 2020, SEFI has many events ready to look forward to. Our next year’s conference will take place in Twente, The Netherlands, and will feature Engaging Engineering Education. As it is together that we ensure a strong and fruitful conference, I invite all of you to send in abstracts! You will find all necessary information on the call for papers.

We also look forward to our annual Dean’s convention, where Engineering Deans, Directors, Department Heads, and Deputy Rectors responsible for engineering education will convene to discuss hot topics in Education Management and Policy, focusing on the theme “Shaping Engineers for Responsible Impact”. This convention will be jointly organized by SEFI and “Universidad de Carlos III” and will take place in the city of Madrid, Spain, from April 2^nd to 3^rd (2020).

I am convinced our SIGS also have interesting activities lined up! We are proud that the SIG on Ethics successfully organized a workshop in December 2019 in Eindhoven on educational methods, student experiences, and assessing the impact of ethics education. For 2020, the SIG Mathematics are planning a workshop on Mathematical competencies in didactic research, how to assess competencies, and the goal of teaching. This Mathematics workshop will take place in June, in Norway. And the SIG on Engineering Education Research is organizing a first true Summer School in July in Leuven!

2019 was a great year for SEFI, and that is thanks to the outstanding work and motivation of all our members! Together with you, I look forward to a challenging, interesting, and successful 2020!

Yolande Berbers, SEFI President