Enhancing the innovation capabilities of engineering students

University education should provide to young engineers not only technical knowledge about specific topics but, above all, the capability to manage, with a multidisciplinary perspective, any kind of product development task to overcome psychological barriers and to develop innovative solutions with a systematic approach. In this paper the authors, after discussing the main limits of traditional education, detail the approach followed at the University of Bergamo and Firenze for technical creativity enhancement. The Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) has been integrated with other methodologies for problem analysis, idea generation and solutions evaluation. Students have been introduced to this comprehensive design toolkit and involved in case studies provided by SMEs and big companies. Limits and opportunities of the education approach are presented, with further suggestions for future improvements.