THE PROFESSIONAL OF TEACHING, THE RESEARCHER, AND THE PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE IN THE FRAMEWORK OF BOLOGNA'S ENGINEERING

Beyond what it means the Bologna’s process in the implementation of the new degrees, we have been witnessing over the last decade another process that affects directly to the quality of the education, and more specifically to the teaching staff. It is the process of clearance and national accreditation of university teachers in the technological disciplines.

Nowadays three types of profiles can be foreseen in the roster of teachers:

- The professional of teaching.
- The researcher.
- The expert in the professional practice.

Ideally, each of the teachers should have and had experience at each and every one of these skills. The reality presents us a horizon in which each of these profiles drifts away further and further of the remaining ones. Article 32.1 of the Organic Law of Universities, which states that "research is the base of teaching" has been the root of changing the selection criteria for teachers, which has evolved from having a technical, technological and professional profile, to a full time scientific researcher. This situation can lead into a conceptual change in the engineers and architects to come, for whom the future reality with regards to projects and construction might be scarce.

Starting from the isolation of the departments to the system of drafting and producing indexed articles, to the loss of recognition of the professional experience, and up to the use of new methodologies for innovation and teaching in most of the cases just to achieve external targets or to improve a curriculum, we analyze in this article all these factors in depth, revealing the strong and weak points that appear to us are setting the universities' pace in the last years, all this within the framework of the current economic crisis that is affecting the development of the EEES where the individual work of the pupil is encouraged.

All data, information and views expressed in this study have been obtained from the Escuela de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos, and the Escuela Universitaria de Ingenieros Técnicos de Obras Públicas de la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.