An educational model has been designed and implemented at the School of Chemical Engineering (ETSEQ) at Tarragona, Spain, to enable ChE students to acquire and integrate technical and scientific knowledge through the simultaneous and gradual development of competencies encompassing social and management skills. This model is based on the large-scale deployment of a project-based cooperative learning approach throughout the ChE curriculum. This extensive deployment can only be effective if it is supported by experts in change management and the systematic development of student teams that, in turn, requires that individual students develop key social and management skills.

An educational module has been developed and implemented at the ETSEQ (University Rovira i Virgili, Spain) to facilitate the transition of first-year ChE students into a comprehensive project-based learning environment. All first-year students participate in the first-year integrated design project with fourth-year ChE students acting as project managers for first-year project teams. The eighthour module is taught during the first two weeks of the first term and is structured to take into account the factors needed for students to understand and commit themselves to change. The first-year students' evaluation shows that the module helps them: (1) to identify what they need to accomplish to gain future employment as chemical engineers; (2) to understand what an integrated design project consists of and what the benefits of teamwork are, and (3) to realise that the integrated project and the related teamwork are great opportunities to acquire competencies that are essential in today's workplace.

The expertise in team development and change management methodologies, gained from nearly a decade of implementation work, has complemented the practice of the ETSEQ with experiential learning methodologies. A set of external training interventions has been designed to support the development of competencies by students. In the new educational system student teams grow from leader-directed teams in the first semester of the first academic year to self-directed or empowered teams in the fifth year of the curriculum. In this empowerment journey, fourth-year students play a key role as they act as facilitative leaders of first-year and second-year project teams, adjusting their facilitative leadership role according to the team development stage. The core of the competency-based educational model is client orientation. The need to satisfy clients and to adapt to their changing needs triggers the development of competencies related to the transformation of the individual students (versatility, entrepreneurship and innovation, systemic thinking, etc.), of the organization (facilitative leadership, teamwork and cooperation), and of the institution (organizational development and performance, and organizational leadership). Preliminary results show that student attendance has increased, that drop out has decreased, that more professors act as facilitators in the classroom, and that active-oriented and student-centered educational methodologies are increasingly applied.