Development of a “Smart Materials” Master’s Degree Module for Chemical Engineering Students

This paper describes development of an interdisciplinary “Smart Materials” module in English for Master’s students in a Russian chemical engineering university. The module is intended for promoting English proficiency of engineering students and internationalizing education by attracting foreign students within the framework of short-term academic exchange. The research stage of project implementation included comparative analysis of international engineering education in Germany and Russia in a form of survey included 30 faculty members and 100 students. Germany was selected because it offers excellent engineering education in English and is originally non-English speaking. The visits to universities in four different regions of Germany allowed for planning the structure of the module and the content of lectures and practicums. The survey results contributed to the implementation of the second stage of the project that was focused on developing three disciplines for the module: “Introduction to smart Materials”, “Research Methods for Smart Materials” as lecture courses and “Practical Course in Smart Materials” as the laboratory practicum. The module is ready for introduction into the education process of a Russian chemical engineering university starting from the 2019–2020 academic year and is selected as the core for a new Master’s degree program “Molecular Materials Engineering”.