Materials Engineering Degree in the Technical University of Madrid (UPM): The challenges of a new technology

The year 2010 was considered the deadline of the Bologna Process in higher education in Spain; however it can still be considered a work in progress. Although it could be argued that syllabus reform is practically completed, methodological renewal is the battle that is being fought on the day-to-day implementing of new degrees. In this paper, the work undertaken across an undergraduate course in generating a local capacity for innovation and fortifying the implementation of a new degree supported by methodological renewal is discussed. The use of an Educational Innovation Group (Grupos de Innovacion Educativa, UPM) as a tool to generate new practices and support services, to make resources available for innovation and to influence the learning environment at the educational centre is exemplified. In our scenario, a current situation in which the feeling of nothing-is-going-to-change has already became ingrained, innovation should be considered more a change planned as a response to the problems we perceive at our educational centres and on our degree courses, rather than thinking of it as the introduction of a new method or methodology. In this sense, the view of a degree course as a unit and common project is indispensable in channelling the initiatives required to improve education and learning. The generation of an environment and local capacity for innovation in the educational centres is the route to be taken in achieving real methodological renewal.