This paper presents a novel European Master programme on Software Engineering (SE), being put forward by four leading institutions from Sweden, UK, Netherlands and Italy. The Global SE European Master (GSEEM) programme aims to provide students with an excellence in SE based on sound theoretical foundations and practical experience, as well as to prepare them to participate in global development of complex and large software systems. GSEEM has been designed with two noteworthy aspects: 1) Three specialization profiles in which the consortium excels: Software Architecting, Real-time Embedded Systems Engineering, and Web Systems and Services Engineering. 2) An innovative concept of "shared modules", delivered together by multiple institutions. Four types of shared modules are foreseen: "parallel" twin modules which run remotely between universities, "shifted" modules which teach SE concepts incrementally with shifts in study locations and timeline, "complementary" modules in which complementary SE concepts are taught in parallel through shared projects, and "common" modules which share the presentations and the project. The profiles realize "integrated knowledge" by complementing partial knowledge available at partner institutions.
The paper presents some of the important issues faced during the design of the program and explains how GSEEM achieves the objectives of educating global software engineers. The lessons learned from the GSEEM design are of technical, pedagogical and organizational/administrative nature.