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Braam, Wilco; Persaud, Stefan; van den, Mirjam Bosch; Troxler, Peter

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Trends and driving forces around us are moving fast in multiple directions. Technical developments in the fields of circular economy, internet of things, bio-based products, robotics, energy and materials are influencing and reshaping our transactional and contextual environment. To create integrated knowledge and practical solutions within these complex environments, the need for multidisciplinary and flexible collaboration is growing. This means that a broad range of disciplines have to work together and integrate their knowledge and competences to achieve interdisciplinary practical solutions. Educational systems need to reorganise to prepare students for work in the complex and dynamic context of the future. Therefore, educational systems must absorb, facilitate and stimulate this mechanism of integration. Useful models for developing an educational integration are Wenger’s model of the Seven Principles for Cultivating Communities of Practice [1] and the Quintuple Helix model by Carayannis [3] Combining these principles and models into practice, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences needed a different view of how to structure and organise our educational processes, competences, knowledge and resources. In this paper, we describe how we restructured our collaboration within the existing educational system. We studied the effects and outcomes of several principles within the context of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Keywords:

Community of Practice, Community of Technology