There are today more challenges than ever facing organisations. To tackle these wicked problems which are characterised with high level of complexity, there is also a need for the higher education system to revise its curriculum for engineering education integrating theory, practice and reflexivity.

There has been a debate at universities for many years, about what technical and personal abilities students from universities need – when industry brings up concerns, on a regular basis, about the students’ lack of communication and teamwork skills, as well as their inability to have a broader perspective of subjects that concern their profession, such as social, environmental and economic issues, and how to apply their knowledge in practice.

The purpose of this chapter is to understand how competences for professional practice could be developed at university, when increasing students’ engagement and motivation through applied projects using the pedagogical ideas of design-based learning. © Yufeng Zhang 2024