WIP: Understanding and Addressing Barriers to Industry Engagement in Undergraduate Engineering Programs
This work-in-progress research-to-practice paper presents an early-stage study aimed at advancing meaningful industry engagement in undergraduate engineering education. While such collaborations offer clear benefits for student motivation, skill development, and career readiness, their adoption remains limited. To explore current practices and barriers, we conducted a national workshop with over 60 faculty and staff from diverse institutions across the US at an engineering education conference. Participants identified common challenges-such as time constraints, resource limitations, and institutional misalignment-as well as strategies like pilot programs, faculty incentives, and dedicated liaisons. Findings inform ongoing efforts to implement and scale sustainable, high-impact academic-industry partnerships.
