Blog Archives - Engineering Professors Council

The latest news and updates on the development of the Complex Systems Toolkit.

27th February 2025 – The first meeting of the Complex Systems Toolkit Working Group takes place.

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.

November 2024 – The EPC announces that the development of a Complex Systems Toolkit, which will be supported by Quanser, and is aimed at supporting educators in their teaching of the subject. A call is put out for volunteers to be members of the Working Group, content reviewers, content contributors, and toolkit ambassadors.

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We’re pleased to announce that we have just published some much requested new materials focused on helping you to assess ethics learning within the classroom.

Assessing ethics: Guidance & rubric is designed in a way that encourages students to grapple with the numerous tensions involved in ethical decision making, with a focus on assessment of the decision-making process as opposed to the ‘answer’ given, the decision made, or the outcome of the scenario.

Assessing ethics: Case study example: Water wars demonstrates how the questions provided in the rubric can be used to assess the competencies stipulated at each level, with this example focusing on our Water Wars case study.

We would like to thank Dr. Natalie Wint (UCL) and Dr. William Bennett (Swansea University) for the time and effort they have put into creating these resources.

If you would like to submit content to the Engineering Ethics Toolkit, you can do so here.

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We’ll keep you updated on the latest events associated with the Complex Systems Toolkit.

2025

Coming soon
Working Group Meeting – 24th March 2025
Working Group Meeting – 27th February 2025

We are seeking academics and other engineering professionals to review the various case studies, enhancements, guidance articles and other resources that are submitted to us for publication within the Engineering Ethics Toolkit.

What you can expect as an Engineering Ethics Toolkit content reviewer:

That we will treat you as the professional and subject matter expert that you are.
That we will not ask you to review an unreasonable amount of content (our expectation is that this will not exceed two or three pieces of content per year).
That we will be clear about your assignments and deadlines.
That, once you have completed your first review assignment, we will recognise your academic citizenship by adding your bio and photo to our Contributors page.

What we expect from you:

That you will act professionally within this role and bring your expertise to the table when reviewing content.
That you will follow the applicable reviewer guidance document(s).
That you will ask us for support if you feel that the content of the review assignment exceeds your expertise.
That you will abide by any applicable rules, regulations or laws, including those regarding privacy and data protection.
That you will maintain confidentiality about the content of the review assignment until it is published.
That you will work to agreed deadlines once you have accepted a review assignment.

You can read our current Guidance for Reviewers document here.

To become a volunteer reviewer for the Engineering Ethics Toolkit, please complete this application form.

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December 2024

At the 2^nd International Congress on Public Administration in 2024, held at Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul in Campo Grande, Brazil, the 13th-16th November, Dr Manuela Rosa, Professor at University of Algarve and EPC Ethics Ambassador, promoted the Sustainability Toolkit in her presentation “Resilience and Territorial Sustainability”.

November 2024

Ethics Toolkit project manager Dr. Sarah Jayne Hitt promoted the Ethics Toolkit in her keynote speech at INCOSE UK’s ASEC2024 conference, held in Edinburgh, 5 – 6th November 2024.
Ethics Toolkit project manager Dr. Sarah Jayne Hitt chaired a panel on ‘Ethical Practice – What, Why and How?’ at the Hazards Forum in Manchester on 4th November, and promoted the Engineering Ethics Toolkit to audience members from academia and industry.

October 2024

At the 24th International Walk21 Conference on Walking and Liveable Communities, held at ISCTE in Lisbon, Portugal, 14th-18th October, Dr Manuela Rosa, Professor at the University of Algarve, and Ethics Ambassador for the EPC, promoted the Engineering Ethics Toolkit in her presentation “Layouts of pedestrian crossings for inclusive and age friendly society”.

July 2024

As academics know, it’s been “conference season” recently, with the usual rush of meetings and symposia and events that mark the beginning of summer. We’re pleased that the Engineering Ethics Toolkit has been featured at several of these, both home and abroad:

At the SEFI Spring School, held at TU Berlin the 10^th – 12^th April, the SEFI Ethics and Sustainability Special Interest Groups convened to consider “Democracy in Engineering Education”, and the Ethics Toolkit was featured in a workshop on the knowledge, skills, and mindsets of engineering educators.
An interview with Ethics Toolkit project manager Sarah Jayne Hitt was the subject of Episode 22 of the SEFI podcast.
At the EPC Annual Congress, held at Cardiff University the 9^th-11^th June, the Facial Recognition case study was mentioned during conversations about AI Ethics, and the Constructive Alignment tool was showcased as a way to plan for weaving ethics into almost any learning outcome.
At the UK and Ireland Engineering Education Research Network Annual Symposium, held at Ulster University in Belfast the 17^th – 18^th June, the Guidance Articles were presented as a great place to get started in learning more about teaching engineering ethics.
At the American Society of Engineering Education conference, held in Portland, Oregon the 23^rd-27^th June, Sarah Jayne Hitt presented an impact study that she and Sarah Junaid conducted on use of the Ethics Toolkit, featuring both website data analytics as well as information from user interviews.

During 2024 the Ethics Toolkit had over 25,000 views, so we know you’re looking at it, but we also want to know where you’re talking about the Ethics 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.

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With nearly 15,000 views to date (as of January 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:

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 the 2^nd-5^th September, 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.

Also at the SEFI Conference, 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.

At the ICL-IGIP Conference, held at TalTech in Tallinn, Estonia, the 24^th-27^th September, 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.

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We’re excited to share with you that we are starting work on a Complex Systems Toolkit, aimed at supporting educators in their teaching of the subject. Toolkit development will start in early 2025. The Complex Systems Toolkit is supported by Quanser. Read on to learn more and find out how you can get involved.

WHY is the EPC developing a Complex Systems Toolkit?

Complex systems shape our lives and day-to-day realities more than most people realise. At the intersection of computing, robotics, and engineering, ever more technology is dependent on complex systems, from AI to biomedical devices to infrastructure.
Understanding both complexity and systems is critical to today’s engineering graduates, especially as the UK seeks to position itself as a leader in areas like advanced manufacturing and autonomous systems.
Engineers increasingly work in environments where they are required to connect different disciplines, perspectives, and skills, to understand and navigate sociotechnical systems, and to communicate complexity to diverse audiences.
Employers today seek graduates who understand not just interdisciplinary engineering work, can work with teams, and understand complexity from different fields and specialisations, but also who can work with non-engineers on products and projects and translate that complexity effectively.
Systems thinking competency is seen as critical to education for sustainable development, and when integrated holistically, complex systems in engineering teaching can align with national and international initiatives that promote social and environmental responsibility.
Accreditation frameworks increasingly refer to complex problems and systems thinking in outcomes for engineering programmes.
Learning approaches for integrating complex systems knowledge, skills, and mindsets in engineering supports educators in their own professional development, since many may have not learned about this topic that they are now expected to teach.

WHAT is a Complex Systems Toolkit?

The Complex Systems Toolkit will be a suite of teaching resources, which may include a scaffolded framework of learning objectives, lesson plans, guidance, case studies, project ideas, and assessment models. These are intended to help educators integrate complex systems concepts into any engineering module or course.
The Toolkit’s ready-to-use classroom resources will be suitable for those who are new to teaching complex systems, as well as those who are more experienced.
Teaching materials will focus on the development of relevant knowledge, skills, and mindsets around complex systems and contain a variety of suggestions for implementation rooted in educational best practice.
Toolkit resources will help educators to understand, plan for, and implement complex systems learning across engineering curricula and demonstrate alignment with AHEP criteria and / or graduate attributes.
Guidance articles will explain key topics in complex systems education, highlighting existing resources and solutions and promoting engagement with a network of academic and industry experts.

HOW will the Toolkit be developed?

The Toolkit materials will be created and developed by diverse contributors from academia and industry, representing a variety of fields and coming from multiple continents.
The resources will be presented so that they can be used in many different settings such as online and hybrid teaching, lecture sessions, and problem-based learning scenarios.
The Toolkit will be a community-owned project, and anyone can suggest or submit a new resource or get involved.
The Toolkit will be developed by the Engineering Professors’ Council and is supported by Quanser.

WHO is involved in Toolkit development?

The development of the Toolkit will be managed by a Working Group of subject experts from academia and industry, put together by the EPC and Quanser.
To volunteer, please register your interest here: https://epc.ac.uk/resources/toolkit/complex-systems-toolkit/complex-systems-toolkit-get-involved/

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The Engineering Ethics Toolkit is a suite of interactive resources, guidance and teaching materials that enables educators to easily introduce ethics into the education of every engineer.

We’re always pleased to see the #EngineeringEthicsToolkit featured in news articles, blogs, podcasts etc., and we’ll be keeping track of those mentions here.

The Ethics Toolkit goes on tour – November 2024

SEFI (European Society for Engineering Education) Podcast Season 4: Episode #1 European Engineering Educators – 22nd April 2024

Sarah Jayne Hitt talks to Neil Cooke and Natalie Wint about the EPC’s Engineering Ethics Toolkit

E&T (The IET): Sarah Jayne Hitt – 2nd January 2024

Educating the educators – why the UK’s engineering teachers need reskilling too

LinkedIn Pulse: Diana Martin – 2nd January 2024

A look at engineering ethics education and research in 2023

SEFI – September 2023

Ethics workshop

REEN (Research in Engineering Education Network) Blog – 2nd August 2023

Using the Engineering Ethics Toolkit in your teaching

IMECHE (Institution of Mechanical Engineers) – 6th July 2023

Engineering ethics in the spotlight

Seen us in the news? Let us know!

Want to feature us? Get in touch for press kits, interviews etc.

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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.

At the Engineering Professors Council (EPC), we believe that inclusivity should be embedded into the heart of engineering education. One of the key areas where this is essential is supporting individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing. We are proud to be a supporter of the The Engineering Deaf Awareness Project (E-DAP), a pioneering initiative established by Dr. Emma Taylor, focused on making Deaf Awareness a standard practice within engineering, both in academia and industry.

Why This Matters in Engineering Education and Workplace Settings.

A recent study by the University of Manchester and University of Nottingham, published in the International Journal of Audiology revealed that deafness and hearing loss affects 18 million people in the UK—around one-third of adults. Despite its prevalence, many educational institutions and industries, including engineering, face challenges in making environments fully accessible to deaf or hard of hearing individuals. The E-DAP project highlights a crucial issue: without deaf awareness, talented engineering students and professionals face significant barriers that limit their ability to contribute fully in all aspects of their daily personal, academic and professional lives.

Gaining Momentum

The E-DAP has gained significant momentum through increased collaboration and has expanded its reach, engaging a wider audience in conversations about accessibility in engineering. This growth culminated in a recent visit to Google’s Accessibility Discovery Centre (ADC) in London, where next generation Engineering Leaders Scholarship (ELS) awardees from the Royal Academy of Engineering joined forces with a diverse community to explore how technology can drive meaningful change.

Hackathon Innovating for Deaf Awareness at Google’s ADC

At the ADC, the team toured the latest tech and heard a keynote presentation by award-winning EDI lead Maria Grazia Zedda, followed by a hackathon focused on developing new ideas for accessible tech in engineering.

The hackathon hosted by Ellie Hayward (leading in implementing deaf awareness in start-up environments) and judged by Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor Dr. Emma Taylor, brought together the best next generation engineering minds to tackle real-life deaf accessibility challenges.

Working in pairs, they focused on how they could develop technologies to break down barriers and develop integrated technology support for deaf individuals, in both academic and professional environments. The hackathon participants came from diverse engineering disciplines (biomedical, aerospace, software, manufacturing, mechanical, structural and spacecraft) and included;

The team was supported by Stella Fowler and Professor Sarah Hitt of the Engineering Professors Council. Stella is also an Honorary Research Fellow at UCL and Sarah is Professor of Liberal Studies at NMITE, which focuses on a real-world, holistic and contextual approach to engineering.

The team also benefited from valuable advice and sustained support provided by RNID, a Google ADC partner, whose expertise supported the accessibility focus of the hackathon. For further insights on fostering inclusive environments, RNID’s guidelines on accessible meetings are an essential resource.

The hackathon sparked a wide range of innovative ideas, inspired by the ADC visit and Maria’s keynote speech, and these will be further refined in a future hackathon later this year.

Voice isolation technology for hearing aids
Projected real time captioning onto a wearable device
Real-time sign language translation that integrates with existing meeting tools
An AI assistant and digital hub for best use of accessibility settings

Looking Forward

In the coming months, the E-DAP will collaborate on a series of outputs including hackathons, a webinar and the development of a manifesto for change outlining key recommendations for integrating deaf awareness into education and industry. It’s evident that the momentum of the E-DAP will continue to build, with a strong focus on two key areas;

Increased focus on enabling deaf awareness to ensure better engineering life long education delivery for all using current tech: By integrating the latest accessibility technologies, the project aims to create more inclusive learning environments, ensuring those who are deaf or have hearing loss have equal opportunities to participate and thrive in engineering education and industry across all modes of learning, from apprenticeships to workplace based learning.
Developing future concepts and tools through direct, engineering-led design hackathon activities and more: These events and collaborations will empower engineers to innovate and develop cutting-edge solutions, focusing on real-world applications that address accessibility challenges.

A Shared Vision for Change

At the EPC, we recognise inclusivity benefits everyone. By supporting the E-DAP, we aim to create an environment where all can thrive and contribute to the future of engineering. Together, we can ensure that deaf awareness is not just an initiative but a standard practice in our field. We look forward to bringing more updates to the EPC community over the coming months.

Read our Engineering Ethics Toolkit blog Embedding ethics in engineering education through wide use of deaf awareness: a gateway to a more inclusive practice.

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We want to see ethics embedded in all engineering modules and courses, across all higher education institutions. But to see this achieved we need your help. There are many ways that you can promote the teaching of ethics within your institution and department, and we’ve listed just a few here to get you started.

Talk to your colleagues about the Engineering Ethics Toolkit.

Our toolkit resources are designed to help educators embed ethics in their teaching, even if they have no previous experience of teaching ethics. But we need educators to know that these resources exist and how to find them. We’ve provided some key talking points about the Engineering Ethics Toolkit that you can discuss with colleagues over a cup of coffee at lunchtime or some PowerPoint slides for something more formal.

Put up posters in your department.

Download our posters and put them up on staff noticeboards in your department. We have a poster for the Ethics Toolkit, the Ethics Explorer interactive tool, and our Ethics Ambassadors community. Spread the word!

Add a link to your department website’s resources.

The Engineering Ethics Toolkit is open access, and its teaching resources can be adapted to suit individual needs. We’d love for you to add us to your list of go-to resources.

Share our classroom materials and guidance on your social media.

Sharing on social media is a great way to spread the word about our guidance articles, case studies, case enhancements and blogs.

Run a collaborative learning session with a few colleagues on how to use one of our case studies in the classroom.

Often, all it takes is a bit of encouragement to give someone the confidence to start adding ethics to their teaching. We have advice on organising class sessions using our case studies; why not sit down with a couple of colleagues, get to grips with it, and make a plan?

Use our teaching materials in the classroom.

There’s no point just talking about it: at some point you have to do it! We have advice on how to integrate ethics into a module or course, how to organise class sessions using our case studies, how to tackle tough topics, and even how to teach ethics for the first time. We’ve believe we’ve got everything you need to get started, but if you think we’re missing something, let us know.

Run a training session for your department on integrating ethics into a class or curriculum.

Once you’ve got to grips with teaching ethics, you’re perfectly placed to teach your colleagues how to go about it. Tell them about your own experiences, what was easy, what was difficult, and where to find the resources they need!

Give us your feedback about teaching or promoting ethics within your institution.

Whether you feel like a seasoned pro or are still struggling to say ‘deontology debate’, we want to hear your experiences. You can submit a blog to the Toolkit, or complete our feedback form.

Adapt one of our case studies and publish it on your institution website.

Our case studies are published with a CC-BY-SA Creative Commons 4.0 license, meaning that you can (and are encouraged to!) share and adapt them, making them appropriate to your specific context. If you would like to send us a link to any adapted materials that you have published, we’ll add it to our resources.

Give a talk to your institution’s Student Union Engineering Society on Engineering Ethics.

Hopefully all of your institution’s engineering students will come across engineering ethics during their course. But if there are some modules or courses that don’t currently embed ethics, you could reach out to your institution’s SU Engineering Society and offer to give a brief talk with Q&A to discuss issues such as what ethics is, why it’s important in engineering, and how engineers can make ethical decisions. This way you are introducing keen engineers to a vital subject that they might miss out on elsewhere.

Talk to academic leadership about integrating ethics into your institution’s engineering curricula.

Engineering curricula can do more to help students effectively develop ethical awareness, reasoning, or motivation in future engineering professionals. Whilst individual educators can (and do) make a vast difference by embedding ethics across their own engineering modules, a top down approach from the institution making ethics integration mandatory across curricula would mean that all engineering teaching staff would have to embed ethics in their courses and modules. You could make ethical practice a unique selling point of your programme!

Use our open access and free to adapt teaching materials when planning your class, semester or year.

Need some teaching activities on the fly? Check out our case studies and case enhancements for last minute classroom materials that you can use when you haven’t had time to plan in advance! If you’re ready to take a more methodical approach to planning across the year or curriculum, you can start with our Ethics Explorer, read all of our advice and guidance, pick our juiciest case studies, and peruse our personal blogs.

Join Ethics Ambassadors and encourage colleagues to join.

Our community of practice is growing steadily, and we encourage you to join, and join in.

Become a reviewer for new Toolkit content and encourage colleagues to sign up.

We are seeking academics to review the various resources that are submitted to us for publication within the Engineering Ethics Toolkit. Our expectation is that we may ask you to review two or three pieces of content per year. You can apply to be a reviewer here.

Write or co-write a guidance article, case study, or other teaching material for the Toolkit.

We encourage academics to submit advice and guidance, personal blogs, case studies, enhancements and other teaching materials to us for publication in the Engineering Ethics Toolkit. Working with colleagues on this content spreads the word and doubles the expert value. You can find out more about submitting content for the Toolkit here.

Organise or take part in an event.

Ready to talk ethics? Organise an informal lunch or coffee meet up with department colleagues to share experiences and good practice in teaching engineering ethics. Going to a conference? Get ready to talk ethics to anyone who will listen! We’ve got some handy talking points for you to use. Keep an eye out for opportunities to share resources and expertise.

Tell us your ideas for promoting ethics within your institution or workplace. Email w.attwell@epc.ac.uk.

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