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| The fact of placing competences and outcomes learning at the heart of the academic activity means overhauling the curricular architecture of higher education in Europe. Some universities have undergone important transformations moving toward a competence-based learning environment, while others maintain traditional curriculum packaged formats. In the realm of the European Higher Education Area, this paper examines the use of competence-based initiatives in curricular development for engineering degrees with special focus to the Spanish case. Although the concept of competence and competence-based learning has a long history in education and training research, these terms are still very diffuse and demand a clear conceptualization. In the first part of this paper, we provide a conceptual overview and a critical reflection of competences as implemented in a wide range of settings, including its origins, key concepts, and definitions.Next, we discuss the purposes, principles, pitfalls, and processes that enable defining a map of competences within engineering education. Lastly, we present a pilot project involving curriculum development and faculty enhancement within a competence-based learning initiative in Electronic Engineering.

In this paper we present the results of exploring students' ideas about innovation and entrepreneurship concepts and the way that they perceive that innovation and entrepreneurship competences are developed or improved by engineering education. Comparisons are made between two samples (N= 119 students) at the School of Design Engineering (Polytechnic University of Valencia) by using a questionnaire-based methodology. The results show that the majority of students reported not receiving enough training in innovation and entrepreneurship competences. Thus a greater attention is to be paid to embed innovation and entrepreneurship competences into the current curricular reform in engineering education in Spain having in mind that an innovative and enterprise culture are vital to promote growth and development, increase productivity, create jobs and reinforce the knowledge based economy in Europe.

El propósito de este trabajo es presentar una visión global de la actual situación de emergencia planetaria, estudiando sus causas y posibles soluciones, con objeto de evitar los tratamientos reduccionistas de este componente esencial de la educación ciudadana. Utilizando una red de análisis basada en dicha visión global, hemos estudiado la atención que la educación científica (profesores y libros de texto) está prestando a la situación del mundo.