Addressing the challenges of teamwork and teamwork assessment in multidisciplinary education

Since the Department of Petroleum Engineering at Heriot-Watt University started its integrated programme at master's level in the broad area of reservoir description and simulation, 95 students have attended the MSc in reservoir evaluation and management and we hope to have our 100th graduate in September 2003. The experience has taught us a lot about cross-disciplinary training and the assessment of that training. The course was constructed to address a perceived niche in the market of courses on the understanding that: • Industry wanted people with a broad multidisciplinary training and formal training at master's level in geoscience and engineering • Industry professionals would seek to upgrade their skills in this area • A leading research institute in reservoir description and simulation (5* RAE 1996 and 2001) needed to be a mechanism for transferring things discovered back into the industry • Industry would eventually adopt the concept of a reservoir; geoengineer as a natural evolution from reservoir geologist, reservoir geophysicist, petrophysicist or reservoir engineer The breadth of applications and the employment of our graduates over the years (Fig. 1) suggests that there is indeed a market for this sort of education.