The EPC responds to a variety of consultations from Government, the funding councils and other stakeholders, representing the views and interests of all the membership.
The EPC will follow one of four pathways to prepare its consultation response:
- Full consultation
- Representative consultation
- Executive consultation
- No collective response
The EPC Executive will decide which pathway to use depending on the timing and scope of the consultation. You can read EPC Protocol for Consultations here.
Where possible, the EPC seeks to offer a single, authoritative, HE engineering voice in our responses to consultations. Sometimes, it is even more effective to collaborate with other education sectors in the engineering space. To this end, we sometimes work with Engineering for Education, an engineering education and skills policy body, to produce collaborative responses.
Open Consultations
Improving Higher Technical Education: Department for Education
The Department for Education has opened a consultation on improving the quality of classroom-based higher technical education and are collecting views on a new system to make it clearer which higher technical qualifications provide the skills employers want; work to recognise and develop high-quality provision of higher technical education; and to make higher technical education a more positive and popular choice by raising awareness and understanding of it among potential students and employers.
The EPC will be responding to the consultation, both in collaboration with E4E and individually as an Executive response. The consultation closes on 29th September 2019. For more information or to share you views, please contact the EPC Executive.
Engineering Council Standards Review
The Engineering Council will be holding a consultation event on engineering learning outcomes for engineering academics on Friday 8 November at Middlesex University (Hendon) from 11am to 3pm to discuss learning outcomes for the next versions of the Accreditation of Higher Education Programmes (AHEP) and the Approval and Accreditation of Qualifications and Apprenticeships Handbook (AAQAH; which includes degree / graduate apprenticeships). Professor Sean Wellington (IET and Chair of the AHEP Working Group) will be Chairing the event, supported by the AAQAH Working Group Chair Alastair Taylor and Deputy Chair Malcolm Booth.
This event follows on from the most recent round of consultation that took place over the summer and is an opportunity to comment on the changes that have been made to the learning outcomes based on the feedback received. If you are an engineering academic and would like to attend, please email accreditation@engc.org.uk as soon as possible to let the Engineering Council know of your interest and we will then send out further information to interested parties. The Engineering Council asks that you also pass information about this event onto relevant contacts and ask that they also email our Accreditation inbox to register their interest.
Further information is available here.
Engineering UK consultation on the Code of Practice for Outreach in Engineering
Share your views on a new draft Code of Practice, which is being co-created by the engineering-inspiration community to increase the impact of programmes dedicated to inspiring the next generation of engineers.
The increase the UK needs in the diversity and number of people going into engineering is too big a challenge for any one organisation to solve alone, so we need to work effectively together to deliver impact.
As a legacy project of the Year of Engineering, and a key recommendation in the Perkins Review the Code of Practice has been co-created by more than 40 organisations and is shaped around four priority areas to promote collaboration in our sector.
Engineering UK want to hear your thoughts and ideas about the current draft. If your university funds, designs, delivers or supports activities that aim to inspire young people into engineering, please have your say. The deadline for responses is 5pm on Sunday, 13th October 2019.
Immigration White Paper
The EPC’s campaign in response to the Immigration White Paper is ongoing. EPC’s concerns now focus on the £30k salary threshold and the deposit. We welcome the September 2019 announcement that work visas for foreign graduates be extended to two years. The EPC has campaigned for this for a long time in various ways. If you think we should be raising further points, please contact us.
Submitted Consultations
| Date | Consultation | Response | Outcomes | |
| August 2019 | Engineering Council Standards Review |  |
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| May 2019 | Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy Future frameworks for international collaboration on research and innovation: call for evidence | |
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| April 2019 | OFSTED consultation on the education inspection framework 2019 | |
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| March 2019 | UKRI consultation on the Knowledge Exchange Framework | |
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| March 2019 | Independent review of TEF: call for views | |
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| February 2019 | UKSCQA degree classification consultation | |
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| January 2019 | APPG on Diversity and Inclusion in STEM | |
Successful influence on APPG lines of inquiry for 2019. | |
| October 2018 | REF 2021 | |
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| July 2018 | Home Affairs Committee Post-Brexit migration policy inquiry | |
Ordered to be published on 10 July 2018. Available here. | |
| June 2018 | Engineering Council Review of UKSPEC | |
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| May 2018 | Women into Engineering | |
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| May 2018 | The Department for Education consultation on the subject-level Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework (TEF) | |
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| May 2018 | The Department of Education call for evidence to support a Review of Post-18 Education and Funding | |
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| Feb 2018 | Department for Education consultation on Accelerated degrees: widening student choice in higher education | |
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| Jan 2018 | HEFCE Knowledge Exchange Framework Metrics Technical Advisory Group – initial call for evidence on KEF metrics | |
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| Jan 2018 | Migration Advisory Committee Science budget and Industrial Strategy inquiry call for evidence on International students: economic and social impacts | |
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| Dec 2017 | Securing student success: risk-based regulation for teaching excellence, social mobility and informed choice in higher education | |
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| Oct 2017 | Education Select Committee, Value for Money in HE | |
The House of Commons Education Committee released the written evidence it has received for its inquiry into the value for money of universities, including the EPC’s submission. | |
| Apr 2017 | BEIS, Building our Industrial Strategy Green Paper | |
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| Apr 2017 | HESA, NewDLHE: The future of graduate outcomes data | |
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| Mar 2017 | HEFCE – Consultation on the second Research Excellence Framework | |
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| Nov 2016 | Education Committee – The impact of exiting the European Union on higher education inquiry | |
EPC President, Professor Stephanie Haywood, gave evidence to the House of Commons Education Committee on the 11th of January 2017
The EPC received a number of mentions in the final report of the Committee. |
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| Sep 2016 | Business, Innovation and Skills Committee (BIS) – Inquiry on industrial strategy | |
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| Aug 2016 | House of Commons Science and Technology Committee – Leaving the EU: Further call for evidence | |
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| Jul 2016 | Department for Business, Innovation and Skills – Accelerated courses and switching university or degree | |
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| Jul 2016 | Department for Business, Innovation and Skills – Teaching Excellence Framework. Technical consultation for year 2 | |
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| Mar 2016 | Department for Business, Innovation and Skills – Review of the Research Excellence Framework | |
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| Mar 2016 | OfQual AS and A Level Electronics consultation on Conditions and Guidance | |
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| Jan 2016 | Department for Business, Innovation and Skills – Higher education: teaching excellence, social mobility and student choice | |
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| Jan 2016 | OfQual AS and A Level Mathematics and Further Mathematics consultation on Conditions and Guidance | |
Archived
Read the EPC’s submissions to other recent consultations.
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