Hungary was the host country of the 7th WFEO World Congress on Engineering Education held between the 4- 8 March, 2006.

Hungary, as a new member of the European Union is in a strong economic development, which is partly due to the high-level engineering education in our country.

The World Congress was hosted by the Hungarian Academy of Engineering, the Federation of Technical and Scientific Societies and the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. One of the main tasks of the World Congress was to discuss issues of role and perspectives of the engineering mobility in our globalized world.

The main tracks of the World Congress were:

• Accreditation of engineering qualifications l Establishing substantial equivalence 
• Regional agreements
• Registration and Licensing
• Case studies from industry on mobility issues
• Curriculum to promote the mobility of engineering students 
• Special issues of engineering education.

The Opening Plenary Session was held in the Upper House of the Hungarian Parliament, where among others Mr. László Mandur Vice President of the Parliament –, Mr. Kamel Ayadi, President of WFEO, Mr. Bálint Magyar, Minister of Education, Mr. Kálmán Kovács, Minister of Informatics and Communications, Mr. Gábor Náray-Szabó, Vice-President of MTESZ, and Mr. Károly Molnár, Rector of BME greeted the 280 participants, who arrived from 41 countries. The presentations, the proceeding as well as some selected photos are available at http://congress.mti.bme.hu/ 

As a conclusion of the World Congress the following declaration was accepted by the participants: 

The participants of the 7th WFEO World Congress on Engineering Education in the main topics of “Mobility of Engineers” held in Budapest between the 4-7 march 2006 declared, that the Engineering Community has an essential role in promoting central issues of engineering education like quality of education, equivalence, curriculum (including interdisciplinary system-based subjects as well) and innovation. 

It is essential, that engineering education of our new century – based on up-to-date research activities – must reflect issues like effects of globalization, importance of sustainability, the protection of natural and built environment, methods for poverty reduction, capacity building and must deal with initiatives in technological development and through these actions must contribute to the conditions of social welfare of humankind. Engineering education must prepare the future generation of engineers providing them with knowledge needed for the future world with knowledge, responsibility and competencies. These values are essential in order to help the mobility of engineers world-wide.

The participants agreed, that the engineering profession itself must represent a bridge between science and technology, and engineering education must reflect the interaction of engineers in industry and academia. The Life-Long Learning for engineers should contain disciplines, which represent this bridge-role and help to take into account the global interests and help to safeguard the national interests and values as well as professional ethics.