An impressive group gathered at Shell UK’s London headquarters this morning (3rd November, 2014) to launch Tomorrow’s Engineers week 2014.

Erik Bonino, Chairman of Shell UK (pictured) and Vince Cable the Business Secretary spoke passionately about the need to feed the pipeline of engineers to ensure we have sufficient to meet industry’s needs.

They endorsed warmly the Review of Engineering Skills led by Professor John Perkins, Chief Scientific Advisor to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (also pictured), who also attended to launch his “One Year On” report which has brought together an array of partners – professional engineering institutions, universities, schools, FE colleges and businesses – to address the need at every level from schools to postgraduate specialist skills.

The Engineering Professors’ Council leads the work, on behalf of Education for Engineering, on postgraduate specialist skills.

Please click here for more information regarding the Perkins Review Progress Report.

SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS AND CONFERENCE FEES

This Eighth MEE Conference will provide a full interactive one-day format covering current topics and initiatives of broad interest to the mathematical education of engineers and an (optional) informal Conference Dinner in the evening to enhance networking opportunities. This conference aims to reflect the progress and experiences of initiatives within the teaching of mathematics to engineers in recent years, to debate areas of known concern and to learn together from current best practice. The programme will include contributed papers, workshops and plenary discussions with distinguished invited speakers to highlight two areas:

i) Significant changes in pre-University mathematics. Major changes in A and AS level mathematics and new post-16 qualifications are due to take place from 2016.

Charlie Stripp, Director, National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics & Chief Executive of the charity Mathematics in Education and Industry (MEI).

ii) Significant changes in the education of graduate engineers.  Engineering education has undergone a fundamental change of emphasis away from individual analysis towards team working and a systems approach promoting more active learning.  The implications for the teaching (and learning) of mathematics will be discussed.

Peter Goodhew (Emeritus Professor of Engineering, University of Liverpool and Visiting Professor in Engineering Education, University of Derby).

The organisers invite contributed papers, posters or workshop sessions (submission deadline of an Abstract is extended to 24th November 2014)

Contributed papers (20 minutes presentation plus 5 minutes discussion), posters or workshop sessions (50 minute interactive session) should be notified through submission of an Abstract (200-400 words) emailed to conferences@ima.org.uk with the label MEE included in the header.

The proceedings of this conference will be published by the IMA; papers should be of maximum length 5-6 pages and submitted by 31 January 2016 for refereeing. It is expected at least one author will present at the Conference. Selected and possibly extended papers will be considered for the IMA Journal – Teaching Mathematics and its Applications.

Conference Fees: IMA members £70; Non-members £90; IMA Member Students £40; Non-IMA Students £50. Registration will open shortly via the conference webpage (below).

Local Organising Committee: Stephen Hibberd (Nottingham University), Duncan Lawson (Newman University), Carol Robinson (Loughborough University).

Further details are available on the Conference website:
http://www.ima.org.uk/conferences/conferences_calendar/8th_ima_conference_on_mathematical_education_of_engineers.html

For further information or to register your interest, please contact Lizzi Lake, Conference Officer, Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, Catherine Richards House, 16 Nelson Street, Southend-on-Sea, Essex SS1 1EF, e-mail: conferences@ima.org.uk, tel: +44 (0) 1702 354020.

Call for participation

The University of Wolverhampton is pleased to be the coordinator of a British Council sponsored workshop, under the Newton-Al-Farabi Partnership Programme, to be held in Almaty-Kazakhstan between the 26 and 30 January 2015. The purpose of the workshop is to bring early researchers in the UK and Kazakhstan together in order to establish long-lasting research collaboration between the two countries.

It is intended to have 17 early researchers from the UK and a similar number from Kazakhstan. Early researchers are researchers with up to 10 years of post-doctoral research experience or equivalent.

The title of the workshop is Utilisation and treatment of wastes arising from mining activities, oils and other Industries: a) Mining solid wastes; b) Mining waste water; c) Oil and Gas industry waste; d) Coal power station wastes; e)  Cement manufacture waste and e) Food waste.

More information and contact details can be found by downloading the Open Call Advert.

Relevant expenses (e.g. travel and accommodation) will be met by the British Council (Newton-Al-Farabi Partnership) grant.

For more information on this Women in STEM conference for female engineering students, please download the flyer.

This is a series of exciting and unusual workshops to build on an engineer’s public engagement skills. The goal is to provide delegates with a platform to question and discuss the wider social, ethical and aesthetic implications of their work.
Join us to explore the obstacles and opportunities as in-vitro meat moves from the R&D lab to the dinner plate. How will interactions between logistics, engineering and society shape the public acceptability of cultured meat?


Royal Academy of Engineering Ingenious Award scheme and are free to attend, and there is one near you!

17th October (Birmingham)
24th October (Newcastle)
29th October (UCL)
30th October (Bath)

Please complete the registration form and return it to A.Phillips@bath.ac.uk before 7th October.

The AAU Committee Meeting and AGM will be held at the Association of Aerospace Universities (AAU) HQ at the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) at Cranfield on Friday 24 Oct before the Student Conference begins at 12:30pm.

http://www.ati.org.uk/



Agenda



Please let Ann and Simon know if you will be attending:
Ann.Dysiewicz@ati.org.uk
simon.prince@ati.org.uk

Timed to follow the publication of the ‘one year on’ report of the Perkins’ Review of Engineering Skills, expected in late 2014, delegates at this conference will assess progress made by the sector to close the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) skills gap by encouraging more young people to study these subjects and take up careers in related industries. The conference also coincides with the Government’s Your Life campaign, announced by the Chancellor in May 2014.
For more details, please follow the link Addressing the STEM skills gap – progression to university, employer engagement and postgraduate training

The 2014 Vitae Researcher Development International Conference is being held on the 9-10 September in Manchester, UK
The conference will address the strategic and practical implications of the following themes:

For further information and to book your place please go to:
https://www.vitae.ac.uk/events/vitae-researcher-development-international-conference-2014
Please feel free to forward this information to any colleagues or networks who will be interested in the conference.
Please don’t hesitate to get in touch (events@vitae.ac.uk or phone 01223 448527) if you have any queries about the conference.

The Student Conference & the John Barnes Trophy Competition will be held at the Association of Aerospace Universities (AAU) HQ at the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) at Cranfield after the AAU Committee Meeting and AGM on Friday 24 Oct.

http://www.ati.org.uk/

Agenda

Entries to the Conference are still encouraged. These may be at final year BEng/BSc, MEng (whether penultimate or final year) or taught MSc level.

The winner will receive a certificate and a prize of £500. The two runners up will each receive a prize of £300.
On the day, each presenter will be given 25 minutes, including questions, to present their project. A Panel, drawn from AAU members, will then award the certificate and prizes to the winning student and runners up.

Please send nominations (and student contact details if they are happy to provide them) to Dr Andrew Lewis (a.lewis@herts.ac.uk)  by Friday 3rd October.

As in the last two years, the AAU will be running the John Barnes Conference for students who have just completed an Individual Project on their degree; however, this year we are pleased to be holding it at the UK Aerodynamics Centre, Cranfield on Friday 24th October 2014.

We will continue with the very successful format whereby entrants have the opportunity to present at a full day’s conference. The winner will receive a certificate and a prize of £500. The two runners up will each receive a prize of £300. Over and above this, it will be an excellent experience to include on their CVs for all students involved as it provides an ideal opportunity to present their achievements to a technically broad audience drawn from a number of Universities and the aerospace sector more generally. It is this that provides the challenge of presenting work in a specialist area to non-specialists – a very important skill to develop.

The process for entry will be as follows:

Step 1: The AAU representative at each member institution, together with colleagues, will select up to two individual student projects. These may be at final year BEng/BSc, MEng (whether penultimate or final year) or taught MSc level.

Step 2: The representative will submit a one page abstract, together with a copy of the project report (in electronic form if possible) to myself at my e-mail address below.

Step 3: If the number of entries is large, a Panel made up of AAU representatives will be convened to shortlist from these submissions. All AAU members will be receive an invitation to join this panel.

Step 4: The authors will be invited to present at the conference where each presenter will be given 25 minutes, including questions, to present their project. The Panel will then award the certificates and prizes to the winning student and runners up.

The deadline for receipt of entries is Wednesday 9th July. If shortlisting is required, a Panel will then be convened and the outcome will be made known on Friday 25th July.

Let us know what you think of our website