Biomedical Engineering Education Moving Towards European Harmonization:
Initiatives and Experiences

Special Session
EMBEC'02, Vienna, December 6, 2002

Prof. Joachim Nagel organised a Special Session on BME education in the framework of the 1st European MBES Forum "Role of MBES in Europe". In addition, a Special Session on BME Education was organised by Prof. Dick van Slaaf. A regular session on Education in MBE in the scope of EMBEC was held on the next day. From all the presentations, it is obvious that the approach to BME education is very different and that there is a strong need for harmonization.

The White Book on Biomedical Engineering Education and Accreditation (soon to be published) will show the whole diversity of the higher education area in BME in Europe. Prof. Joe Barbanel introduced in his survey at the beginning of the session. The speakers at the ses-sion; G. Tilg (Austria) M. Bracalle (Italy) J. van der Sloten (Belgium) D. Popovic (Yugoslavia) E. Gomez (Spain) R. Magjarevic (Croatia) K, Meigas (Estonia) R. Cuipa (Romania) and J. Barbanel (UK) presented the state-of-the-art BME education in their countries, the prob-lems of reforming the existing educational system and their achievements in starting new BME curricula. In his concluding remarks, Prof. Nagel spoke on the challenges and opportunities that result from the diversity of BME education, and on the future activities of the Working Group for Education and Accreditation that he is chairing.

Due to increasing interest in the subject of BME education in the community, we have de-cided to invite short discussion papers on BME education for the next issues of the News.