The Digital Technical Standards Toolkit launched at a free, one-hour webinar on Thursday 26th March 2026, with a panel of experts explaining what it is and what’s in it. You can watch the launch webinar below.
Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.
Supporting UK engineering educators to embedDigital Technical Standards into curriculum design. A collaboration between the Engineering Professors’ Council (EPC) and the University of Lancashire. Funded by the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT).
WHY: The case for digital technical standards in education
Introduction
Digital Technical Standards (DTS) are foundational to the UK’s digital infrastructure, innovation ecosystem, and global competitiveness. They underpin the technologies and systems that define modern engineering practice from telecommunications and cybersecurity to the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence. Yet engagement with DTS development remains limited among engineering students and early-career professionals.
The Digital Technical Standards Toolkit has been developed to address this gap. It is a comprehensive, academically aligned resource designed to support engineering and computing educators across UK higher education in embedding DTS into curriculum design and delivery.
The Toolkit is a collaboration between the Engineering Professors’ Council (EPC) and the University of Lancashire funded by the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT). It builds on the success of the EPC’s growing series of widely used toolkits :including those covering ethics, sustainability, complex systems, and inclusive employability :which have collectively received over 100,000 visits in the past three years.
“The Digital Technical Standards Toolkit represents a timely and necessary intervention for UK engineering education. As digital technical standards become increasingly embedded within accredited programme requirements, there is a clear and urgent need to equip academics with curated, accessible resources that support confident and consistent delivery. This project is not about creating content in isolation it is about harnessing the collective expertise of a broad community, drawing together what already exists, and making it genuinely usable for educators within the pressures of a modern engineering curriculum.”– Professor Georgina Harris, Dean of Engineering and Computing, University of Lancashire; Chair, DTS Toolkit Project
“Digital technical standards are not simply technical documents; they are the foundations upon which our digital infrastructure, our industries, and ultimately our societies are built. For young engineers to be truly prepared for professional practice, they must understand not only that standards exist, but how the global standardisation ecosystem functions, why standards are needed, and how they themselves can contribute to shaping them. The DTS Toolkit has the opportunity to provide that foundational understanding by mapping the landscape from ETSI and IEEE to IETF, W3C, and ITU and by framing content around enduring principles rather than the specifics of any single standard.” – Dr. Hermann Brand, Standards Expert, IEEE; Co-Chair DTS Toolkit Project
Purpose
The DTS Toolkit will enhance understanding and engagement with digital technical standards, which underpin the UK’s digital infrastructure, engineering practice, and international competitiveness. Specifically, the Toolkit aims to:
Consolidate existing high-quality resources from international Standards Development Organisations (SDOs) and signpost relevant external materials in a single, accessible location.
Develop new UK-context content where gaps exist, including bridging articles, curriculum mapping guides, and career pathway resources.
Support educators in embedding DTS concepts, SDO structures, and standards-related career pathways within engineering and computing curricula.
Align with AHEP (Accreditation of Higher Education Programmes) requirements and the Engineering Council’s UK-SPEC competence framework.
Demystify DTS development and highlight its relevance to engineering careers, motivating students and early-career professionals to engage with standards work.
WHAT: Toolkit content and scope
What the Toolkit contains
The Toolkit brings together resources from eight International Standards Development Organisations (ISDOs) in one accessible location, providing educators with the materials they need to teach DTS effectively.
Types of resources
The Toolkit includes a range of resource types, designed for use across different teaching contexts including lectures, seminars, problem-based learning, and online delivery:
Knowledge articles: explaining key DTS concepts, SDO structures, and the role of standards in engineering practice.
Guidance articles: providing pedagogical support for educators embedding DTS into their teaching, including curriculum mapping and assessment design.
Teaching resources: ready-to-use classroom materials such as case studies, activities, and project ideas.
UK industry case studies: demonstrating real-world applications of digital technical standards in UK engineering contexts.
Signposted external resources: curated links to high-quality existing materials from SDOs, professional bodies, and academic literature.
HOW: Development, governance and getting involved
Project leadership
The project is co-chaired by:
Professor Georgina Harris: Dean of the School of Engineering & Computing at the University of Lancashire and President of the Engineering Professors’ Council. Professor Harris oversees content development, academic integration, and stakeholder engagement.
Dr. Hermann Brand (IEEE): specialist in international standards, serving as resource advisor and co-chair of the Expert Working Group.
The project is managed by Dhanushka Hewaralalage at the University of Lancashire, with strategic oversight from Johnny Rich, Chief Executive of the EPC.
The Expert Working Group
The development of the Toolkit is guided by an Expert Working Group comprising representatives from academia, industry, professional bodies, and Standards Development Organisations. The Working Group has been convened to:
Identify and review existing resources relevant to DTS education.
Highlight gaps where new, targeted content is required.
Commission and review original content for inclusion in the Toolkit.
Ensure alignment with UK accreditation frameworks and professional registration requirements.
Working Group members and contributing experts include representatives from organisations such as the Engineering Council, British Standards Institution (BSI), Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), Royal Academy of Engineering, DSIT, and UK universities.
Background and context
This initiative builds on the meeting on Technical Standards convened on 11 September 2025 by the Engineering Council. Following that meeting, DSIT funded the creation of this Toolkit to support engineering academics in better understanding digital technical standards and embedding them in their teaching.
The project follows the successful model established by the EPC’s toolkit series, which provides free-to-use resources in areas where engineering educators need particular support to stay current and aligned with academic, professional, and accreditation requirements. Existing EPC toolkits cover topics including engineering ethics, sustainability, complex systems, enterprise collaboration, and inclusive employability.
How to get involved
The Toolkit is a community-owned project, and contributions from academics, industry professionals, and standards experts are welcomed. There are several ways to get involved:
Share existing materials that you use or that your organisation would like to contribute.
Signpost external resources relevant to DTS education.
Suggest content to fill identified gaps.
Produce short, targeted guidance content where required.
Authorise use of your institution’s resources for inclusion in the Toolkit.
All contributors and participating experts will be acknowledged publicly on a dedicated DTS Toolkit page on the EPC website.
Get in touch
To register your involvement or interest, contact:
Dhanushka Hewaralalage
Project Manager, Digital Technical Standards Toolkit
Email: dsahewaralalage1@lancashire.ac.uk
Hosting and sustainability
The Toolkit is hosted on the EPC website, which is widely used by engineering academics across the UK. It is be freely accessible to all users without the need for membership or subscription.
The Toolkit will remain on the EPC website for a minimum of three years, with the intention that it will be maintained indefinitely. Users will be invited to submit new content for inclusion, which will be reviewed by volunteers from the Expert Working Group, ensuring the Toolkit remains current and relevant.
A launch webinar and marketing campaign will promote the Toolkit to all EPC members: approximately 9,000 academics from over 90 engineering departments throughout the UK.
Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.
We’re looking for expert working group members and suggestions of resources we can incorporate into our new Digital Technical Standards Toolkit, which will launch in March 2026.
Following the meeting on Technical Standards convened on September 11th 2025 by the Engineering Council, DSIT is funding the creation of a new Digital Technical Standards (DTS) Toolkit to support Engineering academics to better understand this area and embed it in their teaching. We are pleased to invite you to participate in the next stage of developing this toolkit as we would greatly value your expertise and suggested content.
The project is a collaboration between the Engineering Professors’ Council (EPC) and the University of Lancashire and is being led by Professor Georgina Harris (University of Lancashire / EPC President) and Dr. Hermann Brand (IEEE) who will co‑chair the Expert Working Group.
Project Purpose
The DTS Toolkit will be a comprehensive, academically aligned toolkit to support engineering and computing educators in embedding Digital Technical Standards into curriculum design and delivery. It will enhance understanding and engagement with DTS, which underpin the UK’s digital infrastructure, engineering practice and international competitiveness.
The toolkit will consolidate existing high‑quality resources, signpost relevant external materials, and develop new UK‑context content where required.
It will support educators in embedding DTS concepts, Standards Development Organisation (SDO) structures such as ETSI, 3GPP, IETF, W3C, ITU‑R, ITU‑T, IEEE, and ISO/IEC and standards‑related career pathways within engineering and computing curricula.
Given the tight delivery timeframe, with a firm completion deadline of March 2026, we need to identify existing content and organise relevant resources.
How you can contribute
We are looking for people who can provide the following:
Sharing of current materials you know or your organisation like to share
Signposting of external resources
Suggestions for filling content gaps
To produce short, targeted guidance content where required
To have an idea about the output, you can see the EPC’s Complex Systems Toolkit which gives an indication of the sort of resource we hope to create. All contributors and participating experts will be acknowledged publicly on a dedicated DTS toolkit page (similar to this).
24th November 2025 – New Toolkit content is published, comprising brand new Knowledge resources, Guidance resources, Teaching resources, and a resource library.
March 2025 – Sub-groups of the Working Group are confirmed, to work on Curriculum Pedagogy Content, Technical and Simulation Content, Review and Curation, and Launch and Outreach.
February 2025 – The first official meeting of the Working Group leadership team takes place.
December 2024 – Membership of the Complex Systems Toolkit Working Group is confirmed. The Working Group comprises subject experts from academia and industry who will manage the development of the toolkit.
You can now view the recording of the official launch webinar for the EPC’s new Complex Systems Toolkit, supported by Quanser. The webinar was live on Tuesday 9th December 2025, 3pm-4.30pm GMT.
To enable closed captions on Vimeo, click the CC button in the video player.
Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.
The EPC’s Complex Systems Toolkit, supported by Quanser, is an open-access online resource to help engineering educators build complex systems concepts directly into their teaching and prepare future engineers for tomorrow’s challenges.
We would like to ensure that all universities with Engineering departments are aware of the toolkit and able to make use of it. To this end, we’ve produced a pack of resources that can be distributed to relevant departments and staff members such as Engineering department heads, staff and administrators, as well as Vice-Chancellors, Deans, and anyone else who may find our resource useful in teaching or curriculum development.
We would be very grateful if you could share these resources, and encourage you to explore and use them in your teaching.
Our pack of resources to help you present and promote the Complex Systems Toolkit contains the following files, and can be downloaded individually below, or as a pack from here.
If you have any questions or comments about this resource, please contact Wendy Attwell.
Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.
Media release
Release date: 1st December 2025
New toolkit helps tomorrow’s engineers understand complex systems
A new, free resource, launched today by the Engineering Professors’ Council, will provide an open-access online toolkit to help engineering educators build complex systems concepts directly into their teaching and prepare future engineers for tomorrow’s challenges.
The Complex Systems Toolkit, created by the Engineering Professors’ Council (EPC) in partnership with Quanser, helps engineers to learn to tackle an increasing range of factors that interact in unpredictable ways. This fills a critical gap in traditional engineering education, where students tended to learn subjects in controlled and isolated conditions.
The new toolkit gives educators a set of resources to teach students to understand and design systems that are not only technically sound, but also resilient, trustworthy, and ethically robust. This involves learning to analyse, model and navigate complexity, to collaborate across disciplines, and to manage complex technical and sociotechnical systems.
It is not just students who benefit. Learning how to integrate complex systems in engineering also supports educators in their own professional development, since many may themselves never have been taught the necessary knowledge, skills, and mindsets that they are now expected to teach.
The Complex Systems Toolkit solves these challenges with a suite of guidance articles, teaching materials and case studies helping to build essential competencies for future engineers, in order to ensure a safer and more equitable world.
Integrating complex systems into engineering teaching aligns with professional standards and accreditation requirements, and also complements institutional goals around interdisciplinarity, sustainability and EDI, allowing the UK to position itself as a leader in engineering education that enables people and the planet to thrive.
The development of the Toolkit was guided by a Working Group comprised of experts from academia, industry and professional bodies. They have worked to produce a toolkit, rooted in educational best practice, that is aligned with the UK Engineering Council’s Accreditation of Higher Education Programmes (AHEP) criteria (the conditions for courses to receive professional accreditation) as well as addressing competencies outlined by the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE).
The Toolkit features advice to educators who want to teach complex systems but are not sure where to begin, as well as ready-to-use classroom resources including case studies and activities that highlight current and emerging real-world issues and can be used and adapted by anyone.
Dr. Nikita Hari, Head of the Teaching and Research Design Support Group at the Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, and Working Group Co-Chair comments: “Engineering graduates of today are expected to design climate-resilient cities, ethically deploy AI, and weave circular-economy thinking into supply chains – and all this lives squarely in the messy realm of complex systems. Yet most engineering curricula still treat complexity as an afterthought or a niche elective. This is often misunderstood, misrepresented, or purely ignored, relegating complexity to a footnote.
“The Engineering Professors’ Council’s Complex Systems Toolkit is our academic response, aiming to bridge this gap: a freely accessible, peer-reviewed, resource hub where academics can find, curate and share ready-to-teach resources, assessment blueprints and real-world case studies mapped to AHEP learning outcomes.”
Paul Gilbert, CEO of Quanser, adds: “At Quanser, our mission has always been to help educators bring authentic, system-level engineering experiences to their students. Partnering with the EPC on the Complex Systems Toolkit is a unique opportunity to extend that mission in a way that truly scales. This Toolkit brings academic insight and practical, real-world systems thinking together in a way that empowers educators everywhere. I’m proud of what we’ve created together, and even more excited for how it will help shape the next generation of engineers to thrive in a world defined by complexity.”
Quanser is a world leader in the design and development of cutting-edge solutions that form an interdisciplinary ecosystem for engineering education and research.
Please get in touch for further information, or enquiries about interviews, features or workshops.
The EPC’s Complex Systems Toolkit is now live, providing accessible, practical resources for embedding complex systems concepts into engineering education. The Complex Systems Toolkit is supported by Quanser.
Dive into the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of complex systems with our knowledge and guidance articles, and discover our ready-to-use teaching resources, including case studies and other classroom activities. Come along to our official launch webinar on 9th December for a live demo, and to hear directly from the creators and partners who helped shape the Toolkit. Register here. If you can’t join us for the live webinar, register anyway and we’ll send you a link to the recording as soon as it’s available.
Why do we need a Complex Systems Toolkit?
Today’s engineering challenges involve an increasing range of technical and non-technical factors that interact in non-linear and unpredictable ways. This requires developing graduates who can collaborate across disciplines and navigate complexity, and manage complex systems, not just solve technical problems in isolation.
The Complex Systems Toolkit addresses critical gaps in engineering education by equipping students with the skills to design systems that are not only technically sound but also resilient, trustworthy, and ethically robust. These are essential competencies for future engineers.
Integrating complex systems into engineering teaching aligns with professional standards and accreditation requirements, and also complements institutional goals around interdisciplinarity, sustainability, and EDI.
Engineering educators themselves need to continually learn and adapt their teaching in response to innovations in technology and educational practice, but they often need resources and support to guide them in doing so. The Toolkit provides an opportunity for extending the skills and practices of engineering educators.
What does the Toolkit provide?
The Toolkit provides guidance on how systems thinking is critical in an interconnected world.
The Toolkit provides accessible, practical resources for embedding complex systems into engineering education. Bridging technical excellence and real-world contexts, it prepares students for the multidisciplinary challenges they’ll face in industry.
The Complex Systems Toolkit contains resources that clarify essential terminology, outline key competencies, scaffold learning outcomes, and outline effective teaching strategies and activities that are ready for instant use in the classroom.
How was the Toolkit developed?
Developed through global collaboration from an interdisciplinary team, the Complex Systems Toolkit reflects expertise across academia and industry and is shaped to evolve through community input and feedback.
Engineering educators will find the toolkit accessible and easy to use regardless of their level of experience teaching complex systems concepts.
Contents
The toolkit currently includes the following, but it is a growing resource and we will be adding further content soon.
Knowledge resources: Content that users can access to improve their knowledge or find more information. These resources are intended to provide theoretical and practical background on complex systems concepts and tools such as modelling or decision-making approaches. While guidance articles focus on “how”, knowledge articles focus on “what”.
Guidance resources:Content that users can access to learn how to do something. These resources are intended to provide practical advice on subjects such as how to explain complex systems to students, or how to assess for skills and competencies in complex systems. While knowledge articles focus on “what”, guidance articles focus on “how”.
Teaching resources: Content that users can access to help them know what to integrate and implement. This can include case studies, which provide examples of complex systems which can be directly utilised in teaching with the suggested tools, as well as other classroom activities such as coursework, project briefs, lesson plans, demonstration simulations, or other exercises.
Resource library: Signposting users to additional research and resources that may be useful in their learning and teaching.
Our contributors:Biographies of our Working group members, content contributors, and reviewers. We would like to thank everyone who has contributed to making the Toolkit such a useful and vital resource.
Our supporters:We would like to thank Quanser for supporting the Complex Systems Toolkit since its inception.
Get involved: Are you an expert from academia or industry? Find out how you can get involved with the Complex Systems Toolkit.
Our supporters
These resources have been produced by the Engineering Professors’ Council in partnership with Quanser.
Licensing
To ensure that everyone can use and adapt the toolkit in a way that best fits their teaching or purpose, most of this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Under this licence you are free to share and adapt this material, under terms that you must give appropriate credit and attribution to the original material and indicate if any changes are made.
More to come
We are already working on expanding this Toolkit with further Knowledge, Guidance and Teaching resources. Additionally, we are looking to create ‘enhanced’ versions of each case study, including specific teaching materials such as lesson plans, presentations and worksheets. For more information, please contact Wendy Attwell.
Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.
With over 22,000 views to date (as of September 2025), it’s not surprising that awareness of the Sustainability Toolkit is growing. This has also been boosted by academics and advocates including the Toolkit in their events and talks.
In the last few months, the Sustainability Toolkit has been featured at recent events both home and abroad:
November 2025: Dr. Manoj Ravi (University of Leeds) spoke virtually at a seminar for engineering students at Universidad de Magallanes in Chile, reflecting on the importance of equipping current and future engineers with a holistic skillset needed to tackle issues of sustainable development, and highlighting the Sustainability Toolkit as a valuable resource.
June 2025: The Sustainability Toolkit was promoted at a stand at the EAN Annual Congress and was very popular, with lots of academics talking to Toolkits project manager Dr. Sarah Jayne Hitt about how they can get involved, and lots of Sustainability business cards being handed out!
June 2025: Several Sustainability Toolkits contributors and Steering Group members will be sharing transformational and innovative ideas at the Twelfth International Conference on Engineering Education for Sustainable Development to be held at King’s College London in June 2025. These include papers by Rhythima Shinde (Sustainability Toolkit Content Review Coordinator), Goudarz Poursharif, Emanuela Tilley, and Panos Doss (Sustainability Toolkit Steering Group members), Rehan Shah, Laura Fogg-Rogers, Valentina Rossi, Cindy Anderson, and Manoj Ravi (Sustainability Toolkit contributors), and Diana Martin (Sustainability Toolkit contributor). In addition, Rehan Shah will be presenting a workshop on promoting equity through community-based learning, Dawn Bonfield and Madeline Polmear will be presenting a workshop on game-based learning for sustainability, and Goudarz Poursharif and Panos Doss will be presenting a workshop on embedding multidisciplinary sustainability challenges in curricula. The Sustainability Toolkit will be promoted in workshops conducted by Sarah Hitt and Cindy Anderson that focus on navigating transformational change and co-creating sustainable engineering curricula. Sarah Hitt (Toolkits Project Manager) and Emma Crichton (Ethics Toolkit Steering Group member) will also deliver a keynote address.
22nd April 2025: The EPC’s Sustainability Toolkit was featured in a global virtual event to celebrate Earth Day on Tuesday 22nd April. Hosted by the Sustainability Special Interest Group of the European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI), over 100 people from around the world registered for “Sustainability Engineering Education for One Earth”. Besides the Sustainability Toolkit, the event highlighted the Engineering for One Planet Framework, the Siemens Immersive Design Challenge, and other efforts from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Airbus designed to engage engineering students in sustainability issues.
21st November 2024: Education and Skills for Climate Adaptation in Engineering
Lydia Amarquaye, IMechE’s Education & Skills Policy Lead, has written a hard-hitting blog on the changes needed to ensure engineering supports a more sustainable world. She makes three policy recommendations for government and commends the EPC’s Sustainability Toolkit.
On 13th November 2024, Toolkit Project Manager, Professor Sarah Jayne Hitt, promoted the Toolkit in a webinar that she co-presented for the European Federation of Chemical Engineers on “How to teach sustainability”. This is available to watch on YouTube.
At the SEFI Annual Conference, held at EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland on the 2nd-5th September 2024, Professor and Toolkit project manager Sarah Jayne Hitt co-facilitated a workshop on the Toolkit and other curriculum resources developed by Engineering for One Planet and Engineers Without Borders UK.
At the SEFI Annual Conference, held at EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland on the 2nd-5th September 2024, UCL Lecturer Vivek Ramachandran advocated for using both the Sustainability and Ethics Toolkits in his paper on “Integrating Responsible Innovation into Engineering Education: Insights from Scenario Leads at UCL’s Integrated Engineering Programme.”
Dr Lampros Litos, Sustainability Toolkit Contributor and Lecturer in Sustainability Manufacturing Operations at Cranfield, promoted the Toolkit at the EPSRC Early Career Forum in Manufacturing Research 2024.
At the ICL-IGIP Conference, held at TalTech in Tallinn, Estonia, the 24th-27th September 2024, Prof. Hitt presented a paper co-written with Emma Crichton and Dr Jonathan Truslove of EWB UK on how the Sustainability Toolkit, Systems Change Lab, and Reimagined Degree Map can help foster a culture of changemaking in engineering education.
We want to know about where you’re talking about the Sustainability Toolkit! Have you featured a resource in a conference presentation or meeting? Tell us about how the resources have helped you over the past year – we’d love to feature your story.
We’re looking for expert working group members and suggestions of resources we can incorporate into our new Digital Technical Standards Toolkit, which will launch in March 2026.
