PLACIS: Systems engineering through a project-based learning approach general framework, debates and achievements through an overview and a concrete example

PLACIS (Collaborative Platform for Systems Engineering) is a project funded by the French National Agency for Research under the “Investments for the future” program. PLACIS started in September 2012 and is run by Institut Polytechnique Grand Paris (IPGP, gathering ISMEP - Supméca, ENSEA and EISTI). In the framework of both a rapid change in engineering education and a need of young engineers able to think “systems”, PLACIS aims to promote active learning and teaching through industrial, international and at-a-distance collaborative projects, carried out by engineer students. The main general objectives of PLACIS are to develop or create the involvement of teachers and students into new teaching practice, but also to answer the needs of the industry. We train students not only to become classic engineers, but also to be able to understand multidisciplinary and industrial issues, to work in teams with people from different cultures, all these points giving them the ability to move easily in today's and tomorrow's industrial world and to think “systems”, to really understand a context and be able to propose adapted answers that are more than the old “think global, act local”. In order to illustrate concretely what is PLACIS, we can easily rely on the example of an industrial project started at the beginning of PLACIS in September 2012 and which is still in progress between Istituto Motori - CNR (IM-CNR), Università di Napoli Federico II (UNINA) and Institut Polytechnique Grand Paris (IPGP).