Engineering: the degree will now qualify graduates for professional practice and grant access to the professional register

The degree in engineering will become a qualifying degree. In other words, it will include an assessment that will replace the state examination and, in effect, will, on its own, be sufficient to practise the profession. The process leading to the approval of regulations designed to introduce this change is nearing completion: the matter was discussed during the 70th National Congress of engineers, currently taking place in Trieste.

The technical working group at the Ministry of Universities and Research, set up in connection with the implementation of Law 163/2021, will conclude its work in October; this will be followed by a Presidential Decree and a ministerial decree, after which the process can begin. The forthcoming reorganisation, however, has already been largely finalised. “We are working to ensure we can get started as early as the next academic year,” says Carmela Pierri, head of Office III within the Ministry’s Directorate-General for Postgraduate Studies.

The degree programme will include a practical and assessed work placement culminating in an examination on professional and regulatory matters: this stage will, in effect, replace the state examination. There will be twenty-one master’s degree programmes designed to lead to professional qualification: these include civil engineering, safety engineering, environmental and land-use engineering, aerospace engineering, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, naval engineering, automation engineering, computer engineering, telecommunications engineering, biomedical engineering and management engineering.

At the same time, a reorganisation of the Engineers’ Register will begin, bringing it into line with the new degree system. Section B, dedicated to junior engineers, will gradually be phased out. Furthermore, the register will expand from the current three sectors to five, accessible only to holders of a master’s degree, with a reorganisation designed to ensure greater consistency. The sectors will be: civil and environmental engineering, industrial engineering, information engineering, biomedical and clinical engineering, and management engineering.

This will, however, be without prejudice to rights already established: the state examination will remain in place for holders of a master’s degree or a degree under the old system who obtained their qualification prior to the entry into force of the qualifying master’s degree. Provision will also be made for pathways enabling those registered in Section A of the professional register to gain access to sectors other than their own.