Abstract
This paper is finalized to draw a framework for the design of courses linked to th continuous engineering education concept. Looking at this purpose it is to point out that it has to consider three main topics: engineering content and prospects, life-long education notion and network mechanisms. Indeed, projects on continuous engineering education can be such to overlap such subjects. As broad view – and on the base of a network whose clusters are composed by engineering skilled people (mainly graduates but undergraduates can be considered too), by the businesses whose needs satisfaction the continuous engineering education is firstly finalized and by the universities or, in general, by teaching and research institutions able to highlight incoming innovation and the related new skills needs - the mentioned framework works as organization tool for the network itself. Furthermore, the whole can obviously act as an audit system useful both for improvement and mainly for the design of further education programs, hence as a system able to match the characterization linked to the “continuous” sense itself and, once more, to assure consistency among subsequent education projects. As well as such consistency, particularly significant is the involvement of businesses professionals. Indeed their role can be such to properly mix formal learning method with not-formal and informal ones. By the way, besides courses content such role would be useful to improve the “company absorptiveness” and the social relationships too. The paper has been worked out by researchers of University Cattaneo-LIUC, that is a private university located in Northern Italy and whose character is to be strongly tied to its territory. At the current stage of the framework implementation, it is to say that the investigation will have to be specialized for sector, dimension and mainly about the “background” of the companies themselves, issue that - looking at the local industrial context that it is characterized by a high industrialization degree and at the same time by a high number of SME - could be particularly impacting.