How to develop research skills among undergraduate engineering students to tackle current ongoing topics? A Smart-Grid case study

The Smart-Grid approach, as a paramount worldwide issue, is a paradigm shift from the traditional way energy is produced, distributed, and used. It implies a complex multidisciplinary panorama which includes ongoing subjects for which traditional electrical and computer engineers are not entirely ready. As the implementation of Smart-Grid is imminent, high-skilled professionals are needed to absorb the research, labor, business, logistics, and innovation issues of today and tomorrow. This leads to a transformation of the education role for undergraduate programs which is now, accordingly, urged to build up students’ research skills. In this paper, a case study is presented to introduce and asses a new teaching/evaluation methodology intended to build critical thinking, objectivity, and ingenuity among mechanical–electrical undergraduate students during a one-semester course on Smart-Grid. The results show that the proposed technique may improve the aforementioned research skills within the group of students. Overall, the proposed methodology can be used as a protocol to guide new research cases and to frame similar educational proposals.