TY - GEN N2 - Reported shortages within the engineering workforce have resulted in significant efforts to promote engineering facilitating education pathways across Europe, particularly to those underrepresented within the sector. Such work has become significant in recent decades because of global demographic changes which are likely to have increasing impact upon higher education (HE) systems. Given contextual differences between countries, understanding opportunities and barriers to recruitment of students requires a comparative approach which considers differences in education systems and admissions processes. At this initial pilot phase of this exploratory study, we have focused on understanding national education systems and admissions practices in three European countries, namely Belgium (Flanders), Czechia, and the UK. The analysis of the data provided is guided by research questions focused on 1.) the main education paths into an engineering career and any remedial routes, 2.) the qualifications and prerequisites required to study engineering within HE, and 3.) details of any exposure students have to engineering, both within and outside the curriculum, prior to university. Findings from this work in progress study will be used to inform design of large-scale research project to identify practices across SEFI. Y1 - 2024/// PB - European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI) A1 - Wint, Natalie A1 - Craps, Sofie A1 - Deprez, Hanne A1 - Mottl, Patrik ID - discovery10199232 N1 - This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions. EP - 10 [AAM] AV - public UR - https://sefi2024.eu/ SP - 1 TI - Exploring the Role of National Education System on Pathways into Engineering: A Comparative Study (Research) KW - Attractiveness KW - recruitment KW - admission systems KW - educational pathways ER -