A global view of graduate process control education

This paper reviews the status of graduate level process control education and surveys graduate process control offerings for more than 50 chemical engineering and control engineering departments throughout the world. There apparently has been no such survey conducted in over 10 years. Courses are categorized by their content and focus (selected topics versus integrated subject), use of case studies and projects, and the presence of a laboratory component. Observations on how graduate education varies around the world are made, and the influence of interdisciplinary control engineering degree programs is discussed. New possibilities for content delivery via distance education are described, and the feasibility of web-based shared curriculum content (a virtual textbook) is explored. Finally we present the industrial view of desirable attributes for Ph.D. graduates in the systems area.