Boosting European education on structural glass

Abstract

Although structural glass applications in building practice and research have known significant growth over the last two decades, European engineering and architectural Structural Glass educational programs have not been developed at the same pace. Consequently, major joint educational efforts are done recently on a European scale by COST. COST stands for Cooperation in Science and Technology, a EU bottom-up funding program to increase research networking in specific domains by means of COST Actions. Besides a strong focus on joint interdisciplinary research, an important objective of COST Action TU 0905 "Structural Glass - Novel design methods and next generation products" is to strengthen current and future generations of European glass designers by developing a structural glass education pack for university curricula across Europe. This paper reports on a practical implementation of the newly developed Education Pack during the first COST international Training School on Structural Glass, held in Ghent in 2012.