CDIO International Initiative (Conceive-Design-Implement-Operate) — the basic principle of an innovative educational environment for training a new generation of engineers.

The goal of CDIO: an engineer is a person who can change the world for the better. 

The task of a modern engineering university is to prepare graduates who are able to plan, design, produce and apply complex engineering facilities, processes and systems with benefit in modern conditions of teamwork. 

The development of the CDIO concept began in the late 1990s in the United States, as a response to employers' dissatisfaction with the fact that university engineering education was too far from practice. The CDIO community officially appeared in 2000 thanks to the collaboration of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chalmers University of Technology, Linköping University and the Royal Swedish Institute of Technology.

In accordance with the CDIO concept, educational programs and technologies of their implementation should be aimed at training engineers capable of providing support for complex engineering products, processes and systems in a modern environment throughout the entire life cycle (Conceive – Design – Implement – Operate). They should also be aware of the responsibility for the economic, environmental and technological consequences of their actions.

In fact, the CDIO concept is a comprehensive integrative approach to the organization of the educational process and the formation of an appropriate university environment for the preparation of a new generation of engineering elite.

Currently, CDIO covers more than 140 universities in 30 countries, including the Universities of Leeds and Bristol (UK), the Universities of California and Stanford (USA), the University of Sydney (Australia), many universities in Finland and China.

Members of the largest international CDIO project develop and implement a progressive and modern concept of improving engineering education at the undergraduate level in the participating universities of the project. This is an international project aimed at eliminating contradictions between theory and practice in engineering education. The new approach involves strengthening the practical orientation of training, as well as the introduction of a system of problem-based and project-based learning.

Not a single university of Central Asia and Kazakhstan is represented in the CDIO initiative, D.Serikbayev EKTU became the first university.