Engineering must be about people Wednesday, 03 February 2016

Outgoing Australian Engineer of the Year 2015 Dr Robert Care AO says engineering must return to its raison d’etre – to act as a bridge that enables scientific discoveries to benefit humanity and society.

In an opinion piece for the Canberra Times, Dr Care lamented the fact that engineering in Australia had lost a generation of opportunity, citing a loss in interest in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects for children in the 1980s.

Today, engineers make up just nine percent of the workforce. Women make up two percent of that number. Had the nation nurtured more engineers, Dr Care wrote, Australia could have been at the forefront of many new innovations and transformative technology breakthroughs that today are credited to inventors, technology giants and startups in the USA and Europe.

While acknowledging the importance of promoting STEM subjects in school, Dr Care called for a paradigm shift in attitudes to engineering, so that “those yet to choose their vocation” can be nurtured and motivated to “create the future, solve challenges, and shape a better world”.

Dr Care says there is a need to return to the fundamentals of engineering, citing the etymology of the word “engineer”, which is derived from Latin words ingeniare (to devise) and ingenium (cleverness).

“Engineers devise clever ways for scientific discoveries to benefit humans,” Dr Care wrote.

“Yet somehow engineering has lost that connection to society and humanity. It has become about ‘things’ and not about ‘making things happen’ to benefit people.”

By returning engineering to focus on people, Dr Care said, the discipline will once again be part of the social sciences, and take its rightful place alongside politics, finance, and law, rather than simply providing solutions, construction and science.

According to Dr Care, great engineers of the past, like George Stephenson and Laurence Hartnett understood the importance of participating in the political and financial systems, because from their perspective, engineer was about benefiting people. Engineered outcomes were not just solutions or objects, but ideas – be it a car for Australians by Australians, or a theatre which is also a symbol of tenacity, beauty and brilliance.

Today, the absence of engineering from the political conversation, Dr Care said, breaks the link between what science can do, and its implications for humanity. Technology and Science are major topics of discussion in today’s Government, but Engineering is needed to make the connection to yield real outcomes and benefits for the people, in order to solve the challenges of poverty, unequal wealth distribution, resources scarcity and security, climate change, urbanisation and ageing populations.

Dr Care says engineers have a role to play in determining which scientific discoveries and technological advancements can benefit humanity and must be pursued, to distinguish between having the ability to do something, and whether doing so would benefit the people.

A new era of engineering and designing with a social purpose, Dr Care proposes, will make the world “safer, healthier, and more resilient within financial and ecological constraints.”

This new focus on benefitting humanity will then engender status and respect for the profession, attracting the next generation of engineers.