The focus of this project is on the development of the curriculum of Textile Engineering and Textile Technology studies at bachelor level for Universities in Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia. All 3 partner countries have very developed textile industry and high dependency on it as far as critical indicators (employment, GDP, exports etc.) are concerned. The new and updated curriculums will focus on textile engineering, especially on smart and technical textiles. Technical and smart textiles are a fast growing area of textiles. They combine new material with innovative applications. Unlike conventional textiles, their applications are very diverse. They include agrotech, buildtech, clothtech, geotech, indutech, meditech, mobiltech, packtech, protech etc. Owing to wide range of applications, the technical and smart textile products development needs knowledge from different fields. This project will support modernization and internationalization of Asian HEIs and will result in sharing of good practices with partners and upgrade competences of textile engineering graduates, which will enable the development of new products.
The general objective of the project is to support the modernization and internationalization of HEIs in Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan. “SMARTEX” aims at introducing new and updated courses in textile engineering bachelor degree studies offered by Asian Universities, in order to bring national education systems up the EU standards level and enhance competitiveness of graduates in the labor market.
Although the textile sector in Asian countries is expanded and the countries involved in this project are considered as some of the largest manufacturing countries of textiles in the world, they all focus on manufacturing conventional textiles. Since times are changing and technology advances by the day, Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan have identified the need to change their focus on manufacturing smart and technical textiles. Hence, staff in Asian HEIs needs to modernize their knowledge and be trained in the advances and new trends of technical engineering. In order to be able to sustain the introduction of new more value adding production lines in industries of their home country, as well as to become more competitive in the global labor market themselves, they need to be introduced to new curricula that will enhance their competences and educate them in the field of smart and technical textiles manufacturing. If they want to be competitive in the future, they need to shift their focus on the production, including production lines of smart and technical textiles, which are considered the future of the textile sector.
Project Τitle: “Smart textiles – Modernization of curriculum of Textile Engineering and Textile Technology in Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan (SMARTEX)”
Project Duration: 15/1/2020 – 14/1/2023
Project Framework & Funding: KA2 – Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices – Capacity Building in the field of Higher Education ( Call for Proposals 2018 – EAC/A05/2017)
Funding: 127.180,00 €
Principal Investigator (UNIWA): Dr Georgios Priniotakis, Email: gprin@uniwa.gr, Tel: +30-2105381335
Consortium – Partners:
- University of West Attica, Greece, Department of Industrial and Product Design Engineering, Laboratory of Design and Development of Innovative Knitted Textiles and Garments –DIKNIGA) (Coordinator)
- Ghent University, Belgium
- Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya Spain
- IDEC S.A.(Συμβουλευτική Επιχειρήσεων), Ελλάδα
- MARA University of Technology, Malaysia
- UTHM- Tun Hussein Onn University of Malaysia, Malaysia
- Politeknik STTT Bandung, Indonesia
- Faculty of Visual Art and Design, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia
- Bahauddin Zakariya University College of Textile Engineering, Pakistan
- NED University of Engineering and Technology, Pakistan
