Creating a Project track in a 5-year integrated Engineering Curricullum

In 2017, the authors' Department decided to promote a major change in its Electronics and Telecommunications degree. This is a 5-year degree, that corresponds to a 1st and 2nd cycle degrees in the Bologna qualification framework. One of the touchstones in the review process was the introduction of a project-related track across all 5 years of the degree. In this way, students would be permanently exposed to project-based unit courses throughout their degree. We describe the approach followed in this reorganization. The project-based track is progressive and tries to focus on different aspects of what is required for developing a project, from the first year, when students are exposed to two small projects (one per semester) to the fifth year, where the study plan includes the Dissertation, Project or Internship, corresponding to the traditional approach in master's degrees. This course structure has been welcomed by both the students and the companies employing the degree graduates. There is not yet an evidence-based assessment of the full study plan, but some results exist for the individual course units. The informal feedback collected, both from students' representatives and from companies, are of general approval of the changes that have been introduced.