CDIO

The CDIO Initiative (CDIO is a trademarked initialism for Conceive — Design — Implement — Operate) is an innovative educational framework for producing the next generation of engineers. The framework provides students with an education stressing engineering fundamentals set in the context of Conceiving — Designing — Implementing — Operating real-world systems and products. Throughout the world, CDIO Initiative collaborators have adopted CDIO as the framework of their curricular planning and outcome-based assessment.

Concept

The CDIO concept was originally conceived at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the late 1990s. In 2000, MIT in collaboration with three Swedish universities - Chalmers University of Technology, Linköping University and the Royal Institute of Technology — formally founded the CDIO Initiative. It became an international collaboration, with universities around the world adopting the same framework.

CDIO collaborators recognize that an engineering education is acquired over a long period and in a variety of institutions, and that educators in all parts of this spectrum can learn from practice elsewhere. The CDIO network therefore welcomes members in a diverse range of institutions ranging from research-led internationally acclaimed universities to local colleges dedicated to providing students with their initial grounding in engineering.