CDIO as a Foundation for Program Accreditation/Certification in Portugal

This document describes two initiatives for accreditation/certification of first and second cycles Bologna programs in Portugal. One initiative was started by the National Agency for Program Evaluation and Accreditation and is mandatory for all Bologna running programs. The other initiative was launched by the Portugese Professional Engineering Association and aims to certify, at the European level, engineering Bologna second cycles with the EUR-ACE quality seal. Both initiatives are essentially evidence-based and stress the importance of having a running quality assurance system to support and monitor program execution.

ISEP experience with the CDIO and EUR-ACE engineering frameworks is also described and strong points highlighted. In the end, we propose that combining CDIO and EUR-ACE may bring added value, because CDIO is more oriented to program operation and EUR-ACE more oriented to program management. We also propose the CDIO Syllabus as the link between CDIO and EUR-ACE, because program syllabus is a relevant document in those frameworks and CDIO describes very clearly how to produce and maintain a syllabus.