Abstract:

The wealth of people is created mainly by industry. Competitiveness is the ability and performance of a firm, sub-sector or country even continent to sell and supply products, processes and services in a given market.

The indicators measuring competitiveness of nations are:

• The gross domestic product (GDP) per capita along with human development index (HDI).
• The competitiveness of nations by World Economic Forum.
• The Scientific Impact of Nations in which the citations intensity is compared with its wealth intensity.

Europe has some 4,000 institutes of higher education; roughly 35% are dedicated to engineering either as independent technical university or separate faculties/schools in 45 countries, 1,000 of which are genuine "universities" on the basis of the criterion to award doctoral degrees.

The European Union has now 27 countries, 500 million population, Euro 12 trillion of GDP per annum. There are two different trends in the world now as the globalisation of economy and the fast improvement of small and medium sized enterprises (SME). The largest 100 multinational industries/companies provide 33% of world-economy rate, 40% of world trade, 75% of industrial products; 75% of research and technological development (RTD) belongs to highly developed OECD countries. The large European Single Market receives now 75% of export goods produced in other EU countries in comparison to the 30% ratio in 1993.

Three basic categories of industries are classified by the authors as hi-tech, traditional and outdated industry, firm or fabric. Hi-tech industry is generally highly competitive and so on.

Ranking methodologies are to measure the quality/efficiency of academic staff and universities. The main indicators are teaching (for BSc, MSc and PhD programmes), research and other activities (publications, membership of University bodies, etc.). Top 10, 100 and 200 Universities are chosen by various ranking methodologies. The authors worked out and will present a mathematical model for the evaluation of academic staff activities.

Research and technological development is in the focus of competitiveness. The Seventh Framework Programme, FP7 (2007-2013) sections are: Co-operation, People, Ideas, Capacities and Euratom on nuclear research. The EU member states cost roughly around 1% of GDP to RTD but the Lisbon Strategy expects 3% (2% private and 1% public) in the future.

The intensity of knowledge transfer between industry and academia is to be fairly good in Europe. The graduate ratio in the term of engineering graduates to the total number of graduates is another indicator for competitiveness since it is 1:7 in Europe, 1:4 in Japan and 1:9 in the US.

There is no income ranking methodology for universities: around 1% of GDP is devoted to higher education in many European countries.

Within the "Lifelong Learning: Erasmus, Jean Monnet" there was a European Commission Jean Monnet project granted under Decision n.2009-2865/001-001 to the professors being here as authors and effective from 1 September 2009 until 31 August 2012 with the title "Higher Engineering Education Contribution to a more Competitive European Industry". This paper presents also adequate tables, diagrams, graphs and computations deals with the background and new achievements in the course. It is to be taught to engineering students as an optional module. In addition, workshop, seminars, a new teaching material and publications will make the project colourful.

Keywords:

Information and communication technology, indicators for competitive industry, higher engineering education, ranking methodologies.