Fostering creativity in engineering education: The CEDE project and the design of a European e-learning platform

Engineering education increasingly requires creativity, critical thinking, digital competences, and problem-solving abilities alongside technical expertise. However, creativity remains insufficiently embedded in many engineering curricula. This study presents the Erasmus+ CEDE (Creative Engineering) project, which addresses this challenge through the development of a transnational framework aimed at fostering creativity and related transversal competences in engineering higher education.

The study adopted a Design-Based Research approach that combined comparative curriculum analysis, collaborative instructional design, and iterative stakeholder validation. Engineering curricula from five European countries (Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Slovakia) were analysed to identify how creativity and related competences are currently addressed. Based on these findings, the consortium co-designed the CEDE framework, consisting of five complementary modules delivered through a shared e-learning platform. The framework was subsequently evaluated through stakeholder round tables involving students, academics, university staff, professional associations, and industry representatives, whose feedback informed successive refinements of the modules and platform.

The comparative analysis revealed substantial differences in the integration of creativity-related competences across engineering programmes, with creativity frequently addressed only implicitly or fragmented across curricula. Stakeholder validation confirmed the relevance and potential applicability of the CEDE framework, while also identifying improvement areas, including stronger practice-oriented activities, enhanced assessment strategies incorporating peer evaluation and reflective approaches, reinforcement of competences, and flexible pathways for curricular integration. These findings informed the final refinement of the framework and its associated learning resources.

The study contributes theoretically and practically to engineering education by proposing and empirically validating the CEDE framework, a transnational creativity-oriented model for the systematic integration of creativity, design thinking, digital thinking, and soft skills into engineering curricula. The results demonstrate the value of Design-Based Research for developing educational innovations that are evidence-informed and stakeholder-validated, offering a transferable framework for fostering creativity and transversal competences in diverse higher education contexts.