In 2008, the UNESCO chair for PBL and Engineering Education (now established as Aalborg Centre for PBL in Engineering Science and Sustainability under the auspices of UNESCO, hereafter Aalborg UNESCO Centre) organised the first International Research Symposium on PBL (IRSPBL) with aim to create a community of researchers within PBL and engineering education, promoting collaboration between PBL research communities and initiating new research projects. The first IRSPBL was held at Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark.

The IRSPBL is part of Aalborg UNESCO Centre strategy and vision which main goal of facilitating universities, and other higher education institutions, to take an active role in educating engineers and scientists so they can participate and contribute to the development of sustainable solutions to the present and emerging social, economic and environmental challenges.

After 2008, the International Research Symposium on PBL (IRSPBL) has been organised every two years in collaboration with international partners. Internal and international scientific committees support IRSPBL contributing to its research quality and relevance.

The IRSPBL has been one of the meeting places, which gathers researchers, practitioners and industrial partners from all over the world contributing to the PBL landscape. Their contributions cover a number of relevant PBL topics such as assessment, learning outcomes, students’ engagement, management of change, curriculum and course design, PBL models, PBL application, ICT, professional development.

In each IRSPBL edition is published an open access e-book collecting all the contributions, which are peer-reviewed, accepted and presented during the symposium event. They represent the newest results from research on PBL in these different areas and are edited by Aalborg UNESCO Centre, together with international partners hosting and organizing the IRSPBL different editions.

The IRSPBL open access e-books are published under the Guidelines on Open Access to Scientific Publications and Research Data in Horizon 2020 (http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/grants_manual/hi/oa_pilot/h2020-hi-oa-pilot-guide_en.pdf): "Open access to scientific publications refers to free of charge online access for any user." The authors retain the copyright of their work.

Series main editor:
Prof. Anette Kolmos, Director, Aalborg UNESCO Centre for PBL in Engineering Science and Sustainability, Aalborg University, Denmark

Series (co)editors:
Prof. Erik de Graaff (Aalborg University, Denmark), Dr. Aida Guerra (Aalborg University, Denmark), Dr. John Davies (Coventry University, UK), Dr. Khairiyah Mohd-Yusof (UTM, Malaysia), Dr. Din Arsat (UTM, Malaysia), Dr. Mohamad Termizi Bin Borhan (UPSI, Malaysia), Dr. Fatin Aliah Phang (UTM, Malaysia); Dr. Nestor A. Arexolaleiba (Mondragon University, Spain); Fernando José Rodriguez (Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Colombia), Dr. Ismael Peña Reyes (Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Colombia), Prof. WANG Sunyu (ICEE - Tsinghua University, China); Dr. QIAO Weifeng (ICEE - Tsinghua University, China).