Putting engineering on the world stage

As Jonathan Baillie reports, at a London event held to introduce the name change senior personnel from the newly designated “Engineering Council” also debated some of the tough challenges faced by the engineering sector today, especially in recruiting “new blood”.  

At a press conference held towards the end of last year at London’s Royal College of Physicians in Regent’s Park, engineering sector journalists gathered to hear members of the Engineering Council’s management team and board explain the background to the name change, as well as for an interesting subsequent discussion that saw debated some of the most pressing issues both for the organisation, and for the 36 UK engineering institutions and societies it licences (which include IHEEM) to assess candidates wishing to secure a CEng, IEng, EngTech and ICT Tech designation. Andrew Ramsay, the Engineering Council’s CEO, initiated proceedings by quoting a recent House of Commons Select Committee report, Engineering; turning ideas into reality, which he said aptly summarised the former Engineering Council UK’s main rationale for the name change. Recognising that engineers are “at the forefront in tackling many of the challenges facing the international community”, from addressing the need for clean water to helping combat climate change, the Parliamentary Committee had also, he said, very much acknowledged that UK engineering was “now part of a global economy”. Also reinforcing the need for a name change was recent Engineering Council data that revealed that around 25% of the Council’s 235,000 registrants now work outside the UK, with a further 10-15% being non-UK citizens. Furthermore, individuals holding Engineering Council titles are currently present in 45 counties, including over 10,500 in Hong Kong, “7,000 plus” in Northern America, and a similar number in Australia and New Zealand. The geographical spread made international issues “vitally important” to the Engineering Council, which Andrew Ramsay said “worked to continually increase global recognition” of those who satisfy its standards “The Engineering Council, as we wish from now on to be known, also provides the chair of the International Engineering Alliance, and holds membership of the European Federation of National Engineering Associations’ ((FEANI) governing board,” he explained. “We have also been granted a licence to award EUR-ACE labels to UK-accredited degrees by the European Network for Accreditation of Engineering Education (ENAEE).”

Underlining engineering’s benefits