These are hard days for companies: they have to survive in a market that has been hit
by a financial crisis. Many countries in Europe have severe problems trying to
overcome this financial crisis. The main remedy applied by governments is to cut
back on expenditure, but on the other hand it is said that it is important for a country,
and especially for companies, to invest in innovation. These innovations should lead
to innovative products that will lead to profitability turnovers for these companies
and, as a consequence, improve the economic conditions in a country. Universities
provide students with engineering competences, like develop innovation, with which
they can show a higher degree of ability to answer complex questions such as how to
become players in the market again. Teaching students to become more innovative
engineers, Fontys University of Applied Sciences, Department of Engineering, has
designed a curriculum in which students are educated in the competence innovation.
An important element in the process of teaching innovation to students is the approach
of inquiring into possibilities of patents. In the second semester of the first year,
students can decide to join an innovative project called: ‘The invention project’. The
basis of this project is that students are given the opportunity to create their own
invention and with their previously acquired knowledge and skills they design,
calculate, prototype and present their invention. In a research project, the experiences
of students in this Invention Project have been analysed. The goal of this study was to
understand what the success factors are for such a project. The basis of this inquiry is
a questionnaire to identify the opinions of students. The research was carried out in
the spring semester of 2012. In total 31 students were involved in this research. The
results show that there was a high degree of student satisfaction about the Invention
Project focused on innovation development. Success factors for this project in the first
year of the curriculum were seen: 1 to work on own inventions, 2 development of
student’s perception of the total product creation process and 3 to make students see
the relevance of contacts with real professionals from industry and from the patent
office in their own project. Improvements can be made by: 1 helping students more
during the creativity stage in the project and 2 to coach them more on the aspect of
engineering a successful invention of which they can be proud. This Invention project
is a interesting with which collaborations with other universities can be set up.