The idea of training engineers in innovation seems obvious, just like training doctors in medicine or teachers in the art of teaching. Indeed, the word “engineer” is forged from the idea of novelty for producing something that does not exist in its natural state and that the human spirit invents thanks to its creative intelligence (ingenium). The engineer is the person who designs, and sometimes produces, innovative artifacts. This is what our engineers make today, whether it is an actual product, machines or abstract systems, models, tools, or even organizational methods, methods, processes, standards or representative forms of uses. The word innovation, as understood within our society, very nicely expresses this idea of producing something new and thus effectively articulates the core of the job of an engineer.

However, the link between engineering and innovation is no longer straightforward, as illustrated by the multiple injunctions addressed to schools to better train engineers in innovation, as well as the work undertaken by the same institutions to develop educational tools dedicated to this objective. There is therefore a gap between the new skills expected of the engineers in terms of innovation and the knowledge and know-how transmitted by the schools to their graduates, which up to now have allowed them to meet society’s expectations. The question is where does this gap come from?

First, the new willingness to train engineers in innovation can appear to be a consequence of the recent evolution of the profession, under the effects of the digital revolution and economic globalization. The period of the Taylorization of industrial activities and the rapid progress of technology have led, over the course of the 20th Century, to a standardization of tasks and to a specialization of the engineers in their areas of expertise. Today, since many of the technical engineering tasks (calculating, modeling, drawing, fabricating prototypes, testing, etc.) are largely automated, and since market logic leads to a focus on the needs of the client while integrating external constraints (social, legal, environmental, etc.), the work of engineers is considerably open and diversified. Engineers are thus expected to have the capacity to react rapidly to the needs of the market by proposing new artifacts (concrete or abstract), which are most often linked to new living and working conditions generated by these same technical advances, renamed with the more prestigious and modernist word “technology”.

Second and more profoundly, the new injunction to innovation, in recent decades, seems to relegate to obscurity the traditional purposes of the figure of the engineer – linked since its appearance during the European Renaissance to the idea of progress (see Chapter 1) – which inspired the first training institutions. Progress, a word that symptomatically has fallen into disuse, covers purposes embracing society as a whole with respect to the liberation of the natural constraints weighing down on human life and the objective to create a better society on the foundations of reason. Compared to the idea of progress, the idea of innovation shortens both time and space, and tends to limit the activity of engineers to the immediate production of goods or services proposed on a given market, whether it be consumer goods, engineering services or even research products. It is no longer enough for young graduates to contribute via their work in a company, to strive to achieve better living conditions or technical advantages for communities, nations or humanity. They must also know how to transform technical advances into socioeconomic devices to introduce profitable technological products to the market via the creation of companies or new activities within diverse structures. This evolution deeply modifies the expectations that weigh on training systems and that are ever more restrained in their ability to adapt to these new conditions. The same market logic and injunction to innovation also applies to the higher education system.

What exactly is covered by the idea of innovation? It refers to an intellectual policy, a social position, a type of activity or a result of that activity; it resonates like a slogan and sometimes an exhortation, transporting ideological principles or different scientific paradigms; this notion is eminently polysemous. Just like a social and economic injunction, it has a positive connotation: in the common sense, innovation is always a good thing, which allows us to create employment, relaunch industry, meet new social needs, flourish, emancipate humanity, etc. Despite the astonishing semantic dispersion of the notion, it is this value that is highlighted by politicians, large institutions, speeches given by economic and social actors (including those of higher education and research), when they relay the injunction to innovation. How does this injunction resonate in the training systems for the engineers, who because of their job are on the first line to respond?

In order to provide an answer to this question, the research project Innov’Ing 2020. Les ingénieurs et l’innovationmétiers, nouvelles formations was undertaken and financed by the Agence nationale de la recherche (National Research Agency, ANR in French), a French public agency. Its objective was to study the contemporary changes in engineering training with regard to new expectations concerning innovation via an international consortium assembling researchers from different countries in Europe (France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary) and countries referred to as emerging (Algeria, Morocco, Vietnam, Mongolia). Surveys were conducted in 2015 and 2016 on the training systems in the different countries, on the expectations expressed by the companies and on the pedagogical practices dedicated to innovation within the engineering training establishments (schools or universities). The current work assembles the contributions from researchers who have taken part in the surveys or in the final conference for the project and presents the results of this research, put into perspective and elaborated via theoretical reflections on engineering education. It aims to link the description of societal expectations and educational systems to concrete pedagogical solutions implemented, or made possible, within universities or engineering schools. The three-part organization is a product of this progression from the conceptions of innovation and the needs expressed, to the relations between the new skills, which are expected and the training systems, and the concrete pedagogical practices to respond them, either undertaken or projected.

The purpose of this work is not to offer a monolithic definition of innovation and an optimal pedagogical method to respond to it. It outlines the diversity of conceptions of innovation that are today in competition in the relationship between the technical and social dimensions of the engineering and training activities. The different chapters detail varied approaches, linked partly to the academic disciplines to which the authors belong (sociology, education sciences, management sciences, engineering sciences). Innovation is viewed turn by turn as a state of mind, a collection of processes, the results of a design activity and a purpose for action. Between the chapters some divergences appear in intellectual attitudes, for example taking the injunction to innovation for granted and looking for the means to prepare the students or deconstructing the injunction to understand what this idea conceals. There are also differences for the methods and the theoretical fields, between, for example, a management approach focusing on the conditions of entrepreneurship and a sociological approach focusing on the current innovation and social outcomes.

However, according to the results of the research carried out in the project, the different chapters converge to propose a rather broad conception of innovation, which translates into training objectives centered around decompartmentalization and the so-called complex approach, breaking with the disciplinary separation and the Cartesian approach to problem solving (i.e. breaking down a difficult question into many simple questions, solvable separately).

Indeed, the same intention runs through the different contributions to the work, which is refined toward innovation training that is inclusive or holistic, bringing together the technical, economic, social, environmental, ethical and legal dimensions of the problems. Some of the authors, teacher–researchers in human and social sciences within engineering schools, focus more specifically on showing the particular place that their disciplines must or can take, when linked with the technical disciplines, in the training of the engineers for innovation.

Chapter 1 reviews the transition from the idea of progress to that of innovation and considers its expression in the training of engineers. It allows us, thanks to historical and sociological analysis, to consider the question of innovation according to the situation and context, thus offering a conceptual framework for creating training practices.

Chapter 2 offers an original approach to thinking about the training of engineers in innovation around the perception of the event. This approach makes it possible to differently understand the need of mobilizing the idea of innovation to characterize the activities of the engineers, as well as the training requirements.

Chapter 3 offers an overview of innovation design from the viewpoint of economic activities and the company creation. It characterizes the expectations expressed by the corporate world for institutions that train engineers, thus presenting a framework in which to consider the pedagogical objectives.

Chapter 4 describes from a practical point of view the skills that the companies expect from engineers in terms of innovation. It presents, within a Hungarian context, an analysis of the forms of innovation that can be observed in the local companies and aligns them with the skills expected of graduate engineers.

Based on research concerning the relationship between innovation design and the educational practices in French schools, Chapter 5 highlights the contrasting approaches to innovator training. It connects the innovative practices to the construction of socioprofessionals identities characteristic of different types of innovators.

Chapter 6 presents a study conducted by the Agence française d’accréditation (French Accreditation Agency), Commission des titres d’ingénieur (Commission for Engineering Titles), on the theme of innovation and entrepreneurship. It outlines the innovation design defended by the CTI, before analyzing the way in which schools have assimilated the theme and applied the agencies’ recommendations.

By questioning the relationship between the skills acquired in school and the skills acquired in the workplace in Hungary, Chapter 7 not only addresses the question of innovation, but also allows us to contextualize the question of innovation training in the relationship between training and expectations of the corporate world with regard to engineering.

Chapter 8 provides a practical example of innovation training within a German university. It puts forward, through investigations and an analysis of what currently exists, the way students can acquire the skills needed for innovation via dedicated devices.

Chapter 9 presents a device developed at a British university to train engineers in innovation. Based on a survey undertaken with the students, the training objectives given by the institution are confronted with the representations developed by the students.

Chapter 10 presents the results of a survey on innovation training methods in the French Engineering schools. It shows the complementarity of the different approaches observed between training on the development of technical applications and training on the analysis of societal needs.

Chapter 11 presents a policy of research action dedicated to innovation training within an engineering school in France. Based on two existing devices and using a skills matrix, it provides a framework for designing devices for innovation according to a holistic approach to problems.

The conclusion of this book is provided by André Grelon (EHESS). It allows us to put into perspective the question of innovation at the core of the training of engineers, with regard to the history and the potential developments to come.

Introduction written by Denis LEMAÎTRE.