Engineering Professors’ Council Annual Congress 2019

 
The Engineering Professors' Council Annual Congress 2019 took place from 13th May to 15th May at UCL Engineering Education. This year's congress theme was Engineering Change: surviving and shaping the policy landscape.

Following a fascinating walking tour (where it turned out Bloomsbury’s engineering credentials are quite extensive) Congress 2019 was officially opened by EPC President, Professor Sarah Spurgeon.

She reflected that, “as a community, we’ve developed a roadmap to ensure engineering in future is more attractive, more inclusive and produces engineers that are fit to exploit future challenges and opportunities”.

The keynotes from Baroness Brown of Cambridge and David Sweeney launched a dichotomy of challenge and opportunity in the context of engineering change and Prof Spurgeon’s opening call to “use Congress to understand and to reach out to shape our wider society and economy” held through the conference.

We were alarmed and entertained in equal measure with a secret insight into security threats in engineering before sharing panel insights into accreditation, apprenticeships and the policy market-place.

The outstanding Senate House Congress Dinner was preceded by an inspiring public lecture from Lord Willetts which put us all in frame of mind for the pending Augar review, and was closed by the very funny Steve Cross, Comedian, Troublemaker & Nerd Celebrity.

A whistle-stop tour through the means we hold to influence policy; AI disruption in the engineering sector; and new model approaches leading change in engineering education led the proceedings to a close, courtesy of Prof Colin Turner, EPC’s incoming President.

Please see the detailed schedule for this event, below

Monday 13th May

Tuesday 14th May

Wednesday 15th May

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Chris Atkin was awarded a PhD in transonic aerodynamics from the University of Cambridge in 1991 and then joined British Aerospace Commercial Aircraft Ltd at Hatfield, relocating to Woodford a year later before joining the Defence Research Agency at Farnborough in 1994. He was promoted to Principal Scientific Officer in 1997 and, following the formation of QinetiQ plc, became a QinetiQ Fellow in 2003, eventually being appointed Technical Manager for Aerodynamics and Aeromechanical Systems. In 2008 Chris took up the chair in Aeronautical Engineering at City University and, over the next five years, served first as department head and then interim Head of School. Chris’s research interests include aircraft fuel efficiency, and he has a number of active projects in both the experimental and theoretical domains, with support from UK industry, the Aerospace Technology Institute, the UK Research Councils and the European Union. Chris has recently returned to academic leadership, taking on the role of Head of Engineering at City. Chris was Present of the Royal Aeronautical Society from 2016-2017 and is presently chairman of the UK’s Engineering Council.

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Peter is the Vice-Chancellor and President of The University of Westminster, a university that combines both metropolitan and cosmopolitan dimensions, and which is closely involved in business, professional and academic life within London, as well as overseas. He works closely with the University Executive Board to ensure they are providing a first-class education for their students, and that they continue to build strong relationships with industry through enterprise and research, making a difference to many professions in the UK and globally.

Previously, Peter was Chief Executive Officer at BRE Group, where he positioned the company as an international leader in building research, including forging a number of high profile research and teaching partnerships with global universities, and ensuring that the organisation operates on a sustainable business model independent of government funding. Peter has long been passionate about higher education and during his career he has forged many partnerships between BRE Group and a number of universities across the world, developing important research programmes, and online delivery of education and training. He has also worked across many government departments as a non-executive and expert on a wide range of briefs, including chairing four independent reviews for the Government, on Forests and Woodlands, Public Sector Food Procurement, Property Flood Resilience, and Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies. He was appointed as a NonExecutive Director of UK Government in 2015 assigned to the Department of Food, Environment and Rural Affairs, and to the Talent Advisory Group which looks at development, recruitment and retention of Civil Servants across England.

Between 2006 and 2012, Peter was part-time seconded into the Olympic Delivery Authority where he co-created and delivered the Sustainability Strategy and lead on the procurement of construction products. He is a former National Cycling Champion and coach, and wrote for sports magazines on cycling and triathlon. Peter is currently Deputy President of the Institution of Engineering and Technology and a member of the Board of UK Active.

Dr Lisa Brodie (Ph.D., University of Bath) is the Head of Department Engineering Design and Mathematics at the University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol. Lisa’s first degree is in Manufacturing Systems Engineering, she also holds an MBA from Cardiff Business School and is a Chartered Engineer with over fifteen years’ experience in industry, working in a variety of industrial sectors and roles, including five years as a Senior Consultant in the Aerospace sector. Her primary research interests lie in the area of technological innovation. Lisa sits on the board of Aerospace Bristol and the Engineering Professors’ Council where she has the opportunity to shape the future of engineering education.

Baroness Brown of Cambridge DBE FREng FRS Julia King is an engineer, with a career spanning senior roles in industry and academia, including Vice Chancellor of Aston University from 2006 to 2016. Her current interests include climate change and the low carbon economy. She serves as: Vice Chair of the Committee on Climate Change and Chair of the Adaptation Committee; Chair of the Carbon Trust; non-executive director of the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult; Council member of Innovate UK. She led the King Review for the Treasury on decarbonising transport (2008), and is Sector Champion for the Offshore Wind Sector Deal as part of the Government’s Industrial Strategy. She is passionate about education and engineering. She was a member of the Browne Review on university funding and Lord Stern’s review of the Research Excellence Framework. She chairs STEM Learning Ltd., providing science teacher CPD; and the Henry Royce Institute for Advanced Materials. She is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society, and was awarded DBE for services to higher education and technology. Baroness Brown sits as a Crossbench Peer, and is a member of the House of Lords European Union Select Committee.

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Professor Gill Cooke joined the University of Warwick as Head of Teaching in 2016. Prior to this, Professor Cooke was Associate Dean for Quality and Accreditation in the Faculty of Engineering and Computing at Coventry University, where she joined as a Lecturer in 1997 before progressing to Principal Lecturer and Associate Head of Department. Prior to her academic career, Gill worked in industry quality management roles. Gill also boasts a secondment to Discipline Lead in Engineering and Materials at the Higher Education Academy, where she contributed to sector projects including working on the QAA Engineering Subject Benchmark Statements.

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Dr Neil Cooke is a Senior Lecturer and Deputy Director of the Teaching and Learning Research Centre in the School of Engineering at the University of Birmingham. He a member of the board of directors for the European Engineering Education Society, SEFI. His research interests are in Engineering Education, artificial intelligence, machine learning and signal and speech processing methods.

To date, he has 28 peer-reviewed publications. Recent past projects include developing technologies to enhance engineers’ programming skills, laboratory curriculum development, the EU project SPEEDD concerning making forecasting decisions in real time based on large amounts of Big Data, and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) sponsored Human Factors Integration Defence Technology Centre (HFDTC) programme where he developed virtual reality training systems for the Royal Navy. He has designed and delivered 100+ credits of different innovative teaching materials in engineering at all levels, his most recent work leading large industrial multidisciplinary engineering projects for upwards of 400 students. Before working in academia, he has experience as a practising software and network engineer in the telecommunications industry based in the UK and Germany.

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Steve Cross is a comedian and the founder of Science Showoff and Bright Club. He's travelled all over the UK training engineers to perform stand-up comedy, and returned with a brain full of hilarious stories, odd observations and weird findings. Steve used to be Head of Public Engagement at UCL, where he talked lots of engineers into trying things just outside their comfort zone, and at the Annual Congress Dinner he'll be trying to talk you into trying something new too.

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Helen leads the research and innovation policy team at the Royal Academy of Engineering. The team’s activities over the last twelve months have included work on the development of the KEF, REF 2021 and immigration.

In October 2018, in response to the government’s target to invest 2.4% of GDP in R&D by 2017, Helen oversaw the publication of Increasing R&D investment: business perspectives. This is a series of explainers setting out the findings from interviews with chief technology officers, chief engineers and, in some cases, chief executives responsible for business decisions about R&D at engineering companies across a range of sectors, sizes and locations, to find out which aspects of the current UK environment encourage or discourage further R&D and innovation.

In 2015 she was part of the small secretariat for the Dowling Review of Business-University Research Collaborations. In 2014 Helen undertook a secondment at the government’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Georgina is Chair of the Recruitment and Admissions Committee of the Engineering Professors’ Council. Georgina is the Greater Manchester Area Chair and Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, a member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, a member of the Institute of Physics, a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Georgina was a founder member and is a current governor of the Crewe Engineering and Design University Technical College and an academic at the Open University.

Georgina has previously held the post of Head of School at Manchester Metropolitan University, Site Engineer and Power Specialist for the Square Kilometre Array Program Development Office (SPDO) and the SKA Support Engineer at the new Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Organisation. Georgina held the roles of PrepSKA UK Project Manager (October 2009 to December 2010) and SKADS System Design and Team Leader (October 2006 to September 2009) responsible for the production of the UK SKA demonstrator, 2-PAD (2 Polarisations All Digital) at Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire.

She is a Chartered Mechanical Engineer with an Engineering Doctorate, a Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration. Georgina has worked in a number of academic-industrial collaboration projects. Her successes to date include the development of a combined particulate and NOx reduction technology for treatment of diesel exhaust gases and the redesign of the crank axle for fatigue prevention on the working replica of Robert Stephenson’s ‘Planet’ locomotive at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester

Dr Graham Herries is Director of Digital Technologies in the Engineering Excellence Group at Laing O'Rourke. This role provides the executive leadership for the ongoing strategic digital transformation of Laing O’Rourke. He leads innovation through adoption of cross sector technologies to both manufacturing and construction site operations. Graham is a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the IET and APMP qualified. Graham is co-chair of the Education and Skills Panel at The Institution of Engineering and Technology, where he supports the education and skills agenda to address matters of policy and public concern from the perspective of the IET.

Nick Hillman has been the Director of HEPI since 2014. He worked for the Rt Hon David Willetts MP (now Lord Willetts), the Minister for Universities and Science, from 2007 until the end of 2013, as Chief of Staff and then Special Adviser in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Previously, he was a History teacher and worked at the Association of British Insurers. At the 2010 general election, he was the runner-up in Cambridge. He has written for a range of think tanks and journals. His recent writings include articles on the Coalition’s higher education reforms for the Oxford Review of Education (2016), on access to schools and selective universities for Higher Education Review (2014) and on the fifty-year history of student loans for Contemporary British History (2013). He also wrote the authoritative account of being a special adviser for the Institute of Government (2014). His recent research for HEPI includes papers on the Universities Superannuation Scheme, student funding in Wales and differential tuition fees.

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Professor Elanor Huntington is the first female Dean of Engineering and Computer Science at the Australian National University. She is committed to raising the profile of Science and Technology in the community and is on a mission to encourage young women to get involved in STEM related fields. Professor Huntington was previously the Head of School for the School of Engineering and Information Technology at UNSW Canberra. Additionally, she has served as Chief Investigator on several Australian Research Council projects, Program Manager for the ARC Centre for Excellence in Quantum Computational Communication Technologies and is an Honorary Fellow for The Institution of Engineers Australia. Professor Huntington has a long history of council and board contributions including previous service on the ACT Accreditation and Registration Council as well as currently serving on the Board of Significant Capital Ventures. Professor Huntington holds a PhD (2000) in experimental quantum optics from the ANU. Her current research includes the control of quantum systems, with a particular interest in the interface between theory and applications.

Matthew Ingleby is Lecturer in Victorian Literature and MA Victorian Literature Pathway Convenor at QMUL. Previously, he taught at UCL for six years, where he completed his doctorate, which contributed to the Leverhulme-funded ‘Bloomsbury Project’. His doctoral work explored the role of fiction in the social production of that particular metropolitan locality between the 1820s and early twentieth century. Before this, he was an undergraduate and Master’s student at Magdalen College, Oxford. His research attends to both ends of the long nineteenth century and largely addresses the politics of the cultural representation of urban and coastal space

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Anne-Marie Jolly is Doctor Engineer in Automation and Process Control and full professor (now Emeritus) in UniversitĂ© d’OrlĂ©ans. She made and manages researches in data fusion for many purposes: biomedical information, teleoperation, autonomous vehicles, smart buildings, using soft computing and artificial intelligence techniques. She has previously been Dean of studies in UniversitĂ© Lille 1, Vice Dean of ENSAIT (Roubaix) and Dean of Polytech OrlĂ©ans until 2012. Then she became an academic member of CTI (Commission des Titres d’IngĂ©nieur) of which she was vice president from 2014 to 2018. She is now Presidential Advisor of CTI. She manages the process of Audit after managing Quality Insurance processes. She is in charge of the Working Group Quality Assurance and Accreditation in SEFI and she is a member of Label Committee of ENAEE (allowing the delivery of Eur-Ace label by agencies). She is expert in European Commission (Erasmus Mundus Master’s Degrees), AAQ (Switzerland) and AEQES (Belgium). She devotes a lot of time encouraging girls to engineering both at regional level (North of France then RĂ©gion Centre) and at national level.

Iain Mansfield is a former senior civil servant. He was the principal official at the Department for Education responsible for the design of the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework (TEF) and also worked extensively on a range of other topics in higher education, including the Higher Education and Research Act (2017), quality assurance and student choice. He was part of the team that carried out the 2013 Triennial Review of the Research Councils and, in an early career role, served as Private Secretary to the Director General for Science and Innovation. Since August 2018, he has been a Governor at Bath Spa University and recently stood as a borough council candidate for the Conservative party. He has also worked in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Department for International Development and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, where he held a variety of roles in international trade, competition and consumer policy, including serving for over two years as Director of UK Trade & Investment, Manila. In 2014 he was the winner of the Institute for Economic Affairs’ £100,000 ‘Brexit’ prize, awarded for the best policy blueprint for the UK should it leave the EU and is a regular contributor to Conservative Home, the Higher Education Policy Institute and Wonkhe. He is the author of the fantasy novel Imperial Visions and quiz book The Twelve Quizzes of Christmas.

Professor Carsten Maple has an international research reputation having published over 250 peer reviewed papers. His research has attracted millions of pounds in funding and has been widely reported through the media. He is the Principal Investigator (PI) at the EPSRC/GCHQ Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research, the local PI on the UK Research Hub for Cyber Security of the Internet of Things, PETRAS (where he is the lead for Transport and Mobility), and FAIRSPACE, the UK Research Hub for Future AI and Robotics in Space. He is the Warwick lead for cyber security on a number of projects in Connected and Autonomous vehicles including UKCITE, CARMA, INTACT, CAPRI, Autoplex and AutoTrust. He is a fellow of the Alan Turing Institute and Immediate Past Chair of the Council of Professors and Heads of Computing in the UK.

Professor Masterton is Deacon of The Incorporation of Hammermen of Glasgow and Professor of Future Infrastructure at the University of Edinburgh. The Incorporation of Hammermen of Glasgow originally comprised craftsmen associated with metalworking – traditionally “men who wielded the hammer”, namely blacksmiths, goldsmiths, lorimers, cutlers, armourers, sword-makers, clockmakers, locksmiths, pewterers, tinsmiths etc. The Incorporation of Hammermen’s crest is a hammer surmounted by a crown, and its motto “By Hammer in Hand, All Arts do Stand”. Today, these “men of the Hammer” embrace every aspect of modern engineering in all its disciplines and, as a consequence of admission of sons of members, many other trades and professions are represented. At the University of Edinburgh, Professor Masterton oversees the Centre for Future Infrastructure which draws upon worldleading expertise in fire safety and structural engineering, granular materials, railway engineering, non-destructive testing and large-scale data acquisition and analysis. Professor Masterton was previously Vice-President of Jacobs Engineering. He is a past president of the Institution of Civil Engineers, past president of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland, former chairman of the Construction Industry Council, former Vice Chairman of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, and founder and current Chairman of the Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame. Professor Masterton was the UK Government's project representative on the £15bn Crossrail development in London – Europe’s largest construction project to date. Recently, he was appointed a member of the Independent Assurance Panel for the HS2 high-speed rail link. Professor Masterton brings more than 35 years of industry experience and leadership of major infrastructure design, construction and commissioning to his new post.

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Tom is the Senior Researcher on the EduSkills team at Policy Connect. He leads on research inquiries for the Higher Education Commission and supports the research and policy impact of the Skills Commission and All-Party Parliamentary Group for Skills and Employment. Tom has previously worked with an NGO in Lebanon, managing research inquiries and policy development on educational provision for Syrian refugees and has also worked as a secondary school teacher in the North-West of England. He holds a Master’s in International Education Policy from Harvard University, a PGCE from the University of Chester and a BA (Hons) in English Language and Literature from King’s College London.

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As Wonkhe’s editor, Debbie has oversight of Wonkhe’s daily insight, debate and analysis of higher education policy. Debbie has previously worked in policy and communications roles at Universities UK, the University of Bedfordshire, and the National Union of Students. She holds a DPhil in English literature from the University of Oxford and a Master’s in research in higher education policy, evaluation and enhancement from Lancaster University. Debbie is interested in bringing to light new and less-represented perspectives to inform policy and practice in higher education.

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Professor Mitchell is Vice-Dean, Education in the Faculty of Engineering Sciences at UCL, having previously been a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer within the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering. He has been director of the IGDP Communications for Industry programme and from 2010-2012 was the Postgraduate Tutor (Taught) for the department. From 2012 to 2016 he was seconded to the faculty office to be director of the Integrated Engineering Programme. John has a strong interest in improving Engineering Education with a particular focus on introducing Student-Centred techniques. He has been involved in a project to implement Problem based and Scenario Based learning and received a Provost's Teaching Award in 2010.

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As well as his role with the EPC, Johnny Rich is well known across the higher education sector as a commentator on policy issues, as the Chief Executive of Push, a student advice and outreach organisation Push, as a consultant working in education and careers, and as an author. Before joining the EPC, Johnny has already worked on many issues of concern to our members. Over the past 25 years, he led Push’s research – such as on drop-out rates and student debt – which has had direct impacts on policy. Johnny’s thought leadership, such as his papers for a graduate levy and a national access fund (2018) and on employability (2015) for the Higher Education Policy Institute, have been influential throughout the sector. Policy issues are also a significant part of his consultancy work, along with communications. His clients have included the European Commission, HEFCE, U-Multirank, as well as many universities, recruiters and charities. He’s a regular speaker at conferences, awards and in schools. He holds a Master’s degree in Creative Writing from the University of Anglia and his novel A Human Script was published in 2013.

Anna Scaife is Professor of Radio Astronomy at the University of Manchester, where she is head of the Jodrell Bank Interferometry Centre of Excellence and academic Co-Director of Policy@Manchester. She also holds the 2017 Blaauw Chair at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Her research uses radio astronomy to investigate the origin and evolution of large-scale cosmic magnetic fields, and she leads a number of projects in technical radio astronomy development and scientific computing as part of the Square Kilometre Array project. In 2019, Anna received the Jackson-Gwilt Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, awarded for advances in astronomical instrumentation and techniques. Anna runs two training programmes that provide bursaries for students from Southern Africa and Latin America to pursue graduate degrees in the UK focusing on big data and data intensive science. In 2014, Anna was honoured by the World Economic Forum as one of thirty scientists under the age of 40 selected for their contributions to advancing the frontiers of science, engineering or technology in areas of high societal impact.

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Professor Sarah Spurgeon OBE FREng is Professor of Control Engineering and Head of Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at UCL, President of the Engineering Professors’ Council and immediate Past President of the Institute of Measurement and Control in the UK. Her research interests are in the area of systems modelling and analysis, robust control and estimation in which areas she has published over 270 refereed research papers. She was awarded the Honeywell International Medal for ‘distinguished contribution as a control and measurement technologist to developing the theory of control’ in 2010 and an IEEE Millenium Medal in 2000. She is currently a member of the Council of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) and a member of the General Assembly of the European Control Association. Within the UK, she is a board member of EngineeringUK and is a Non-executive Member of the Dstl board. In this later role she is Chair of the Dstl External Review College. She has been appointed as a sub-panel member for UOA 12 Engineering for REF 2021, in which capacity she serves as an Interdisciplinary Adviser.

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With over 10 years of experience, Dr Heiko Struebing is an expert in modelling, simulation and optimisation. He leads projects to implement AI solutions within PwC and externally with clients in several industry sectors. Prior to joining PwC, Heiko worked in the Upstream Oil & Gas, FMCG and Oil Trading industries, building models to support strategic decision making. He completed his PhD in methodology development and optimisation at the Centre for Process Systems Engineering, Imperial College London, after completing his MSc and Bachelors in Chemical Engineering. Heiko has a passion for integrating applications of mathematical optimisation, methodology development and machine learning to help solve society’s problems.

As chair of the EPC Degree Apprenticeship Working Group, Mike led a range of stakeholders in producing Experience enhanced: improving engineering degree apprenticeships – the well-received policy paper highlighting over 50 recommendations for the Government, for employers and for other organisations. He is also Chair-Elect of the EPC Engineering Education & Employability Skills Committee. His most recent role was as Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean of the Faculty of Science, Engineering and Computing at Kingston University – a key aspect of which focussed on producing practically skilled employment ready graduates. Prior to this, he was Head of the School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science at the University of Manchester – leading it into the top 25 chemical engineering departments globally and into the top three in REF 2014.

After studying Statistics at the University of Aberdeen, David worked at two BBSRC research institutes, as a consultant statistician. David was a Director at Royal Holloway, University of London, before moving into university leadership as VicePrincipal in 2004. He joined HEFCE in 2008 as Director and led the development and implementation of the first Research Excellence Framework. He was responsible for research policy and funding, knowledge exchange and university/business relations. In May 2017 he was appointed the first Executive Chair of Research England which is one of the nine research councils that forms UK Research and Innovation. Research England is biggest research funder in the UK with responsibility for university block-grant funding for research and knowledge exchange. David was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Aberdeen in 2012, was Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Newcastle, NSW in 2015 and is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society.

Bob has been the Technical Manager for the Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology during its creation and launch in September 2017. This role involves shaping the course with subject matter experts from Dyson and Lecturers from WMG as well as designing the workplace experience that reinforces the learning. The Dyson Institute is now in the process of applying for new degree awarding powers with the aim of teaching its own cohorts from September 2020. Before helping to create the Dyson Institute, Bob spent 15 years working in industry applying his engineering knowledge in the design and development of new products and technologies

Katy Turff is Head of Professional Standards at the Engineering Council. As the regulatory body for the UK engineering profession, the Engineering Council holds the registers of Engineering Technicians, Information and Communications Technology Technicians, Incorporated Engineers and Chartered Engineers. The Engineering Council works with employers, educators and professional engineering institutions to set and maintain the competence standards for registration of engineering professionals in the UK. As Head of Professional Standards, Katy leads the Engineering Council’s strategic and core business activities relating to standards setting for professional registration and accreditation of education and professional development programmes. She also has strategic oversight of international activities supporting the mobility of professional engineers and technicians. She represents the Engineering Council in the International Engineering Alliance, where she holds the position of Deputy Chair of the International Engineering Technologists Agreement.

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Professor Colin Turner is the incoming President of the EPC and Professor of Engineering Education in the School of Engineering at Ulster University and served as Head of the School of Engineering from 2010 to 2018. He obtained his degree in Pure and Applied Mathematics and his PhD in Mathematics from Queen’s University Belfast in 1993 and 1997. He then joined Ulster University as a lecturer in Mathematics, Computing and Statistics and undertaking Cardio Vascular research with the Royal Victoria Hospital and NIBEC (Nanotechnology and Integrated Bioengineering Centre). Colin’s teaching interests are Engineering Mathematics, Reliability theory and Software development for Engineers – and also in reforming curricula to improve retention, while building student led initiatives to transform student learning. He has experience in designing and building enterprise software solutions for learning support with national impact, especially in the area of employability. Professor Turner is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (FIET), a Fellow of the Institution of Mathematics and its Applications (FIMA), a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (PFHEA) and has served as a board member for the EPC since April 2013. He is a member of the advisory group of Learned Societies and Professional Bodies for the All-Party Group for Science and Technology at the Northern Ireland Assembly and an Executive Committee member and Trustee for ASET, the UK body for placement professionals.

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Franziska von Blumenthal is Policy & Research Manager at the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board (ECITB). The ECITB provides training opportunities and grants for training to new entrants and experienced people across a wide range of disciplines. Franziska has a background in non-profits supporting education and opportunities for young people. Before ECITB, she has worked at Children Change Columbia and the Cambridge Education Group. She holds Master’s degrees from UCL Institute of Education and King’s College London.

The Rt Hon. Lord Willetts FRS is the Executive Chair of the Resolution Foundation. He served as the Member of Parliament for Havant (1992-2015), as Minister for Universities and Science (2010-2014) and previously worked at HM Treasury and the No. 10 Policy Unit. Lord Willetts is a visiting Professor at King’s College London, a Board member of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), a Board member of Surrey Satellites and of the Biotech Growth Trust. He is the Chair of the Sanger Institute and the Chair of Foundation for Science and Technology. He is an Honorary Fellow of Nuffield College, an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society and the Chancellor of the University of Leicester. Lord Willetts has written widely on economic and social policy. His book The Pinch about fairness between the generations was published in 2010. His latest book A University Education is published by Oxford University Press.

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Christopher Wooster’s interest in chemical engineering started when he was able to visit Murco oil refinery in 2010. Since then he has completed a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering at UCL, being the first year to be taken through the new IEP. He thoroughly enjoyed his time at UCL and was given the skills to enable him to start his career. He is currently working for Projective Ltd, a small engineering consultancy based in Fleet. Since starting, he has been involved in several projects across many industries including pharmaceutical, process, food and fine chemicals. His responsibilities have so far included technical design support, site surveying and support, GAP analysis and strategy for chiller processes, commissioning support and project management training.
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