Design of flexible cost-efficient international engineering curricula at Public University of Navarre

The need for stablishing International Programs at the universities is particularly relevant in the case of the Engineering Degrees. In a context of progressive industrial globalization, the new engineering students have to be not only competent in technical aspects but also exhibit good skills in terms of foreign languages and intercultural knowledge. In order to attract new students, and particularly the best of them, the Schools of Engineering propose every year an increasing number of International Curriculum Programs. However, the design of these Programs is not an easy task. The need for organizing both a specific enrolment and separate classes makes the design of these Programs very expensive and therefore difficult to implement in small and medium-size universities. In order to avoid these problems, specific cost-efficient International Curriculum Programs have been designed and set up in the School for Industrial and Telecommunications Engineering of the Public University of Navarre (UPNA). These programs do not imply an extra cost for the University and are highly flexible to changes in the number of students interested every year. The results since the Programs were implemented are very satisfactory and show their high effectiveness in terms of reduced costs, positive academic results and high interest of the students.