The United States National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has identified 14 Grand Challenges for Engineering and called for a new engineering education paradigm – the Grand Challenges Scholars Program (GCSP) – to prepare engineers to address those challenges and help change the world. The GCSP has been implemented at engineering schools around the world, with more schools planning to join this initiative. New York University in Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) has become a member and in Fall 2020, will be an active participant in this global effort on the part of engineering schools and industry to address some of the most crucial issues of our time and to prepare students to find innovative solutions to the challenging problems facing humanity as exemplified by the Grand Challenges.

NYUAD Engineering and GCSP is a Natural Fit

Consonant with the NAE’s Vision for Engineering in the current century, “Continuation of life on the planet, making our world more sustainable, safe, healthy, and joyful”, the GCSP is envisioned as a combined curricular, co-curricular, and extracurricular program with five competencies especially designed to prepare students to address major global challenges facing society in this century. The five competencies are:

1. Research/Creativity: Mentored research or project experience to enhance technical competence
2. Multidisciplinarity: Understanding of the multidisciplinary character of implementable solutions
3. Business/Entrepreneurship: Understanding that viable business models are necessary for successful implementation
4. Global/Multicultural: Understanding that serious consideration of cultural issues is mandatory for all viable solutions
5. Social Consciousness: Motivation to address societal problems, often gained through service learning, because serving people and the planet is the vision served by the Grand Challenge

The mission of the NYUAD Engineering Division is to educate and shape leaders in engineering, technology, and innovation for the modern, technologically advanced, competitive global society. To fulfill this mission, the Engineering Curriculum has incorporated the following highlighted features:

1. Engineering curricular depth built on the foundations of a multidisciplinary liberal arts core; the blurring of boundaries between engineering traditional disciplines, and curricular integration across science and engineering
2. Emphasis of innovation, invention, and entrepreneurship through curricular requirements, as well as available via extra-curricular activities and on-campus programs/resourcesRequired semester-long study away in New York or Shanghai campuses, and up to two January terms abroad
3. Co-curricular “Engineers for Social Impact (EfSI)” activity required for first-year engineering students, and optional follow-on EfSI project opportunities for upperclassmen
4. Summer research opportunities on campus, and resources for summer internships available to all continuing students

The breadth and features of the NYUAD engineering education have significant overlap with, and complement the GCSP in supporting its implementation at NYUAD.

The Engineering Division and its programs at NYUAD, while fully autonomous, work in close collaboration with the NYU Tandon School of Engineering in Brooklyn, New York. NYUAD engineering students typically spend one or two semesters taking courses at Tandon, which supplement and enrich the NYUAD program and expand the field of opportunities and types of experiences available to NYUAD students.

The NYUAD Engineering Division believes that “The challenges of engineering for the 21st century are varied, complex, and cross-disciplinary. Ranging from the nano-scale to mega-projects, they are characterized by sustainability concerns, environmental and energy constraints, global sourcing, and humanitarian goals. In the face of global competition, dwindling natural resources, and the complexity of societal needs, the leaders of technological enterprises will be those who can innovate, are inventive and entrepreneurial, and understand how technology is integrated within society.”

Guided by this vision, the Engineering Division offers academic, co-curricular, and extra-curricular programs that share the same goals and traits of the GCSP.

NYUAD Engineering offers undergraduate degrees in Civil, Computer, Electrical, General and Mechanical Engineering as well as Global PhD Fellowships in Chemical, Civil, Computer, Electrical, and Mechanical Engineering, and Transportation Planning and Engineering. In addition and tying to many of the competencies of the Grand Challenges Scholars Program, the Engineering Division also offer students the opportunity to participate in the Engineers for Social Impact, as recently highlighted by NYU.

About NYUAD

New York University’s agreement with the Emirate of Abu Dhabi to create NYUAD is the outcome of a shared understanding of the essential roles and challenges of higher education in the 21st century: a common belief in the value of a liberal arts education; concurrence on the benefits a research university brings to the society that sustains it; a conviction that interaction with new ideas and people who are different is valuable and necessary; and a commitment to educating students who are true citizens of the world.
NYUAD welcomed its inaugural class in 2010. As the first comprehensive liberal arts and science campus in the Middle East operated abroad by a major American research university, NYUAD has been built on the following principles:

1. NYUAD is a research university with a fully integrated liberal arts and science college, including ABET accredited engineering programs. It draws students from around the world, and prepares them for the challenges and opportunities of our interconnected world.
2. NYUAD equips students for leadership in all arenas of human endeavor. It fosters curiosity, creativity, and critical reflection. At NYUAD, students extend themselves and the frontiers of knowledge.
3. The residential life of students is central to the University’s academic mission. Learning takes place across the campus, not only in classrooms, but also in residential houses, through participation in clubs and sports, during informal campus gatherings, and being engaged with the wider community (including the resident student body from over 80 countries at any given time).
4. NYUAD stimulates advanced research. The NYUAD Research Institute is a major research center. Research is integral to the undergraduate experience at NYUAD, and it also drives the University’s nascent graduate programs on the Abu Dhabi campus.

New York University: a Global Network University

NYU Abu Dhabi, NYU New York, and NYU Shanghai form the backbone of a fully connected global network. As one of the three major hubs in the global network, NYUAD creates a unique capacity for faculty and students to access the assets of the entire university system.

A diverse and vital center of distinctive education and scholarship, actively embedded in NYU’s global network, it aims to be recognized as the model for a new paradigm in higher education: the university as an engine of a more peaceful, cooperative, and productive world. NYUAD as an institution is rooted in Abu Dhabi, a leading global city that is open and dynamic, economically and culturally vibrant, and a magnet for diverse and creative people from across the UAE and around the world.

NYUAD is pioneering a new model of higher education for a global world, dedicated at once to excellence in teaching and research and to advancing cooperation and progress on humanity’s shared challenges. Drawing on the strengths of the NYU global network, it offers an outstanding liberal arts and sciences education to students from the region and around the world, with a distinctive focus on intercultural understanding and leadership. It supports innovative research and graduate education programs that push forward the frontiers of knowledge and respond in powerful and interdisciplinary ways to vital global and local challenges. In addition, NYUAD advances NYU as a model global university for the 21st century.