Professionalizing Mission Engineering in Australia: UNSW Canberra's Innovative Micro‐Credential Model

ABSTRACT Mission engineering (ME) emerges as a crucial framework, integrating cutting‐edge technologies and fostering collaborative partnerships across government, industry, and academia. The interdisciplinary nature of ME ensures its versatility and applicability across a wide range of sectors, making it a crucial framework for Australia's strategic development. Despite its significance, the professionalization of ME within Australia remains overlooked. This paper underscores the imperative role of ME in fortifying Australia's defence capabilities and its broad applicability to diverse industrial sectors. UNSW Canberra pioneered a three‐tier micro‐credential model in collaboration with experts from defence, various domains, and international partners to nurture ME skills, ensuring alignment with real‐world challenges. The design and implementation of the pilot course and associated research were conducted in four major steps: pre‐design steps, curriculum development, pilot course execution, and surveys with critical appraisal, where various stakeholders were engaged in each step to ensure the course's applicability, validity, and overall quality. The pilot course surveys revealed a need to restructure the course content to include less systems engineering knowledge and revisit the case studies to connect practical insights with theoretical concepts better. These findings were instrumental in refining the curriculum to meet the needs of diverse learners and the industry better. Additionally, based on the current ME competencies, a professional profile for ME practitioners has been developed, further enhancing the relevance and impact of the program. This work significantly advances educational methodology in ME by presenting an innovative pedagogical framework and validating its effectiveness through an empirical pilot study.