ABSTRACT
Human civilisation relies more than ever on teams of inventive people to design, build and maintain the sophisticated environment that surrounds us. The EU provides an exciting challenge to civil engineers. An important step in a career in civil engineering is the achievement of a professional qualification. This is recognised as a benchmark of quality and defines person as a professional capable of practising through out Europe. Geotechnical engineering is an essential element required in the design and construction of buildings, roads and railways, retaining walls, base ments and tunnels, slopes, embankments and cuttings. Today also presents a lot of challenges and oppor tunities for the geo-engineers considering imminent natural hazards and needs of remediation of the sins of the past. Solving geotechnical engineering problems requires significant amounts of knowledge, a multi disciplinary approach and flexibility, in addition to a strong understanding of basic principles and founda tion design. Civil engineers with special competence in geotechnical problems - geotechnical engineers are able to provide integrated and appropriate solutions to meet clients’ needs. Despite of this situation, there are only few special study programs (BSc, MSc, PhD) for professional geotechnical engineers in the civil engi neering higher education area within the EU. Therefore there is still a lack of graduated geotechnical engineers in the EU. At the same time there are disproportions in educational systems and geotechnical engineering curriculas across Europe.
