Mentor Graphics Corporation recently announced it has joined the Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering Education (PACE) program and the General Motors and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) sponsored EcoCAR 3 program. The move is part of Mentor Automotive‘s ongoing effort to accelerate productivity of automotive engineering R&D efforts, from OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers to many of the world’s leading automotive engineering universities.

Under the auspices of Mentor’s Higher Education Program, Mentor Automotive is providing tens of millions of dollars’ worth of software, support and training to universities and student teams in both the PACE and EcoCAR 3 programs. This enables students to be proficient in today’s skills and methodologies before graduation and be ready to contribute to leading automotive companies immediately.