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Nearly ninety years have passed since the beginning of modern higher education in Iran. During this period, engineering education in the country, along with a large quantitative expansion, has gone through many ups and downs. Improving engineering education depends on identifying its challenges and providing solutions to overcome them. And this is possible only with organized research. One of the envisaged measures in this field is to create a center for communication between the activities carried out in the engineering education of the country and the educational centers of other countries and international organizations. In this connection, following the approval of the United Nations Scientific, Educational and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the UNESCO Chair on Engineering Education was established at the University of Tehran. The UNESCO chair, as a think tank, has put research and futures studies in various fields of engineering education, at the top of its goals. In this paper, while introducing the objectives and scope of activities of the UNESCO Chair on Engineering Education, the achievements of a decade of its activities have been reviewed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, technology development is not only a straight forward approach to create wealth, but is a means for superiority of countries in military, industry and economy. In this paper, as a part of a project entitled: Future studies of mechanical engineering, the status of technology development in engineering field, and specifically in mechanical engineering, has been investigated in Iran and compared with some other countries. The aim of this study is to provide a realistic picture of technology development in Iran including its strengths and weaknesses. In data collection for technology development in engineering field, the specific statistics related to mechanical engineering has also been noticed. Some major indices to assess the status of technology development in a country include the number of granted patents, the expenditure on research and development, and the number of researchers (scientists and engineers). Although the number of registered patents is not necessarily enough for a country to be considered as a technology developer, but the lack of enough patents in a country is definitely a sign of poor condition in technology. A brief look at the statistics shows that the global share of Iran in patent registration is very low. In this paper, challenges related to technology development in Iran has been analyzed and the its strengths and weaknesses have been mentioned. This paper has merely shown the current status of Iran and has compared it with other countries. The roadmap of future and suggestions for current challenges will be provided in later researches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The globalization of economy, incredible advances in technology and social sciences, and the international move toward outcome-oriented evaluation of education programs greatly necessitate changes in the traditional model of engineering education. Key elements for effective execution of changes in engineering education are faculty members and educational staff and authorities. From a survey on Iran's engineering education staff, it was found that regardless of their location of employment (whether universities or industry), these groups came from a diverse academic background, which is often irrelevant to the concept of education. Their priority seems to be acquiring specialized professional trainings. A similar requirement in other countries has led to the establishment of higher education programs in engineering education. The goal of these programs, which are usually conducted in engineering faculties, is to train those who can be in charge of arrangement, coordination, guidance, execution, evaluation, and documentation of education. Furthermore it is aimed to enable the trainees to enhance the quality of education presentation in educational institutions, as well as the industry. The graduates of this program will also be able to propose mechanisms to overcome the country's engineering education challenges and promote its quality through systematic research. In this paper, the work on feasibility, design and legislation of the "Master's Program in Engineering Education" is explained. The first master's degree program in engineering education began in October 2019 at the Faculty of Engineering, University of Tehran. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]