Engineering grand challenges and the attributes of the global engineer: a literature review

Technology has been changing world in ways never imagined. The ever-evolving society and rapid development posed different demands and challenges to the engineering profession. Addressing these challenges means to re-vision and reform the ways we educate future engineers and the attributes need to be enhanced. This paper reports a literature review with aim to (1) understand the different stakeholders’ perspectives, namely students, educators, and employers, (2) understand the profile of the global engineer (i.e. knowledge, competences and skills), and (3) outline and discuss learning strategies. As a result, the paper presents the main gaps in the existing knowledge, formulates research hypothesis, and proposes a research design for a follow up empirical study to investigate further the engineering grand challenges, the attributes needed to solve them, and the learning environments required.