AiME Archives - Page 2 of 4 - Engineering Professors Council

The 2014 PHEE Conference, in conjunction with PHOMME (Professors and Heads of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering) was held at the IMechE, Birdcage Walk, London on 8th January, 2014. The presentations may be downloaded via the links below.

Theme: Engineering Challenges and Opportunities

Programme

Session 1 Industrial Challenges and Opportunities
Keynote Address: Developments and Challenges in the Microelectronics Systems Industry (a personal view) – Warren East , Dyson Board Member, Ex CEO ARM Holdings
A view from the Thales Group – Alvin Wilby, Vice President, Strategy and Technical, Thales UK
Maintaining Engineering Leadership in a growing Company – Nick Cooper, The Spencer Group

Academic Partnerships – Ian Stoneham, IET
Session 2 Skills and Training – Challenges and Opportunities
Training of Engineers – Nick Winser, Executive Director U.K., National Grid
A report on the shortage of engineers – Colin Brown, Director of Engineering IMechE
Graduates and SMEs – Sarah Sillars, CEO of SEMTA

Session 3 Research and Innovation: Challenges and Opportunities
Industry Funded Research – Jim McDonald, Vice Chancellor , Strathclyde University
Horizon 2020 Update – Christina Miller, U.K. Research Office
Findings from the Foresight Future of Manufacturing Project – Paul McCaffrey, Government Office for Science

Thanks to the very many of you who took time out to respond to the question posed to us by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) through our colleagues at EngineeringUK. To recap…

EngineeringUK through its annual report EngineeringUK 2103: The State of Engineering, identified that in order to meet the future UK demand for engineers with Level 4+ skills, the UK needs to roughly double its output of students with Level 4+ qualifications via universities and colleges of further education. A clear question arising is: if the number of students applying for engineering at university did double, would universities actually have the capacity to recruit them? And if not, how long would it take for departments to build the capacity to be able to accommodate a doubling of numbers? This of course, is a very complex question, but our members rose to the challenge and a summary of the results has been jointly published in this summary report from the Engineering Professors’ Council and EngineeringUK. It will be used to inform conversations with BIS and as part of the Tomorrow’s Engineers programme.