University ob Maribor, Faculty of mechanical engineering

The stage of development in which the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Maribor finds itself at present, as well as the quality level of its scientific and professional performance, call for evaluation and certification on the basis of inter-university comparison. Only through this procedure the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering can confirm and prove its international position among institutions of higher education. To reach this goal, the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Maribor will undergo the external CRE quality evaluation process as well as the ISO 9001 and the EN 45000 certification procedure respectively. The objective pursued will be to subdue the optimal organisation function to the functioning of priority scientific and professional disciplines and tasks. In this way we wish to increase the motivation of our academic and non-academic staff, as well as that of our students, to promote the development of science, profession and education. The adjustment of R&D activities to the scientific disciplines the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering with respect to its programs, staff, equipment, premises and references is the long-term goal to be achieved through the development of powerful research groups, carriers of the Faculty’s institutes. This represents the basis for a substantial increase of the scope of basic research within Slovenian and foreign projects. The Faculty must use its influence to make the university and the state change the existing faculty evaluation and promotion regulations within the university staffing policy, particularly in the domain of engineering and technology. A system solution based on the change of the Higher Education Act will be urgent. Connections with the industry and economy will be the next task regarding the direction of future orientation. These connections will be programmed so as to motivate under-graduate and graduate students for engineering and technology courses, and most of all, for work in the industry and economy. The profile of graduates must be adjusted to the needs of the worldwide development of engineering and technology. The Faculty must gain its autonomy in the placement and allocation of the faculty staff who carry out the R&D and teaching activities. The present stage of development calls for essential changes in the contents of the natural sciences lectured and for an upgrading of the basic and practice-oriented professional disciplines. Our students must be allowed greater individuality and flexibility in the choice of subjects that will form their basic professional profile and qualification for R&D activities and other important tasks. The contents and the implementation of our education process must become much more student-oriented, and the teachers’ work with students distinctively more creative and innovative. The Faculty must create an external scientific/technological institution for the transfer of applied knowledge to practice, which will serve as a link between the Faculty and the industry. On the basis of the experience gained through the education of generations of engineers, the Faculty must have the possibility to control the developments in the education of potential engineers in all types of schools with engineering-oriented programs (secondary schools, high schools, junior colleges and institutions of higher education). The Faculty strongly supports the tendency to rationalise the Slovenian professional educational system in order to assure the best possible use of the available engineering-oriented human resources. A simpler and a more rational educational structure of the existing professional and university (under-graduate and graduate) studies must be formed. The Faculty must see to an equal development of all professional and scientific disciplines of mechanical, textile and industrial engineering, on the under-graduate and graduate level of professional and university higher education programs of study. In addition, new interdiscip...