The Digital Technical Standards Toolkit will launch at a free, one-hour webinar on Thursday 26th March with a panel of experts to explain what it is and what’s in it.

In a digital world, the role of engineers is about making it all work. That means teaching the next generation of engineers about standards: what they are, their vital importance in maintaining systems, and how to use the right standards.

This is why the Department of Science Industry & Technology teamed up with the EPC to create our latest toolkit to help engineering educators to improve their own understanding and embed Digital Technical Standards into their teaching (as required by AHEP).

At this webinar you will:

This event is for anyone teaching Engineering in Higher Education.

Register here to attend the launch webinar. Can’t make it? Register now and receive the event recording once available.

New ethical guidance from the Engineering Council and Royal Academy of Engineering was published this week.

 

Published by the Engineering Council on 23/02/2026

The Engineering Council and the Royal Academy of Engineering have chosen Chartered Week (23–27 February) to publish an update of their joint Statement on Ethical Principles for the engineering profession, first published over 20 years ago.

Ethical commitments are at the heart of the role of a registered engineer or technician – and everyone who works in engineering. The refreshed Statement reflects the changing technology environment and the new challenges faced by engineering professionals today.

The Statement considers developments in professional practice, in the wider technology environment, and in society’s expectations more broadly. An important new fifth ethical principle has been added, focusing on engineering professionals’ responsibility for the future of technology, society, and the environment – particularly in an era of fast-moving technological change. Rapidly developing technologies such as AI have potentially transformative impacts, and ethical issues arise in their development and adoption. This new principle highlights the duty of engineers and technicians to develop these technologies responsibly, with awareness of the lasting system consequences for humankind, including intergenerational impacts.

The Statement’s five fundamental principles for ethical behaviour and decision-making are designed to apply to all engineering professionals and form the core of the specific codes of conduct set out by the individual professional engineering institutions.

The five ethical principles outlined are:

  1. Honesty and integrity, avoiding knowingly misleading others and taking steps to prevent corrupt practices, including plagiarism, misinformation and false representation.
  2. Responsibility to society, including reporting malpractice and irresponsible or unsafe practice, whether within the workplace or outside.
  3. Accuracy and rigour, actively maintaining and enhancing knowledge, skills and competence and supporting others to do the same.
  4. Leadership and communication, fostering a culture where concerns can be raised without fear of reprisal, and acting on well-founded concerns.
  5. Responsibility for the future of technology, society, and the environment, anticipating wider and emergent consequences, and potential for misuse of technologies, and applying precaution proportionately where potential harms are serious or irreversible.

To mark the updated guidance, a series of blog posts have been commissioned from sector experts to illustrate how the new principles apply in areas of engineering from fire safety to wastewater management, and therefore the role engineering ethics and culture play in critical outcomes such as building safety and protecting public health.

The Engineering Council also produces Guidance on Security, Sustainability, Risk and Whistleblowing. The complete Statement of Ethical Principles and related guidance are available on the Engineering Council Website.

The Academy and the Engineering Council have also launched a new phase of work on engineering ethics to build on the principles, led by a new cross-disciplinary working group chaired by Professor John McDermid OBE FREng, Lloyd’s Register Foundation Chair of Safety at the University of York.

Paul Bailey, CEO of the Engineering Council said: “The Engineering Council is responsible for setting and raising standards of competence and conduct for the engineering profession. This updated Statement of Ethical Principles supports those working in the profession to meet our standards, ensuring that ethical practice keeps pace with technological change. The introduction of a new fifth principle acknowledges this evolution by highlighting technicians and engineers’ responsibility towards the future of technology and the long-term impacts of engineering on society and the environment. As such, the Statement remains an essential source of guidance that helps engineering to be seen and recognised by the public as a trusted and ethical profession.”

Dame Tamara Finkelstein DCB, Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Engineering, said: “The Royal Academy of Engineering is committed to supporting engineering in the service of society and ensuring that technology improves lives. Ethics and a commitment to public benefit must be at the heart of what we do. Growing an engineering community fit for the future means providing engineers with the vision, principles and guidance to bring ethics into the heart of the profession and inspiring a new generation of engineers to work in ways that have meaningful, positive impact and that reinforces the trust society places in us.”

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).

To get involved, please email Dhanushka Hewaralalage at dsahewaralalage1@lancashire.ac.uk.

 

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The latest news and updates on the EPC’s Complex Systems Toolkit.

9th January 2026 – The Complex Systems Toolkit is featured in an article in Building magazine.

9th December 2025 – The Toolkit’s officially launches with an introductory webinar, now available to watch on demand.

24th November 2025 – New Toolkit content is published, comprising brand new Knowledge resources, Guidance resources, Teaching resources, and a resource library.

20th June 2025 – The Working Group co-chairs, Dr. Nikita Hari (University of Oxford) and Peter Martin (Quanser), discuss why they believe the toolkit is a vital resource and why people should get involved.

7th June 2025 – A Call for Contributions is opened for the Complex Systems Toolkit, closing on 30th June.

27th May 2025 – The first Launch & Engagement sub-group meeting takes place.

28th April 2025 – The first Review & Curation sub-group meeting takes place.

17th April 2025 – The first Curriculum & Pedagogy Content sub-group meeting takes place.

15th April 2025 – The first Technical & Simulation Content sub-group meeting takes place.

April 2025 – Sub-group kick-off meetings are confirmed.

24th March 2025 – The second meeting of the Complex Systems Toolkit Working Group takes place.

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.

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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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.

For more about the webinar, including the event programme, speaker bios, and links to resources, go to https://epc.ac.uk/event/complex-systems-toolkit-launch-webinar/

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.  

 

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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.

 

Information on the toolkit (PDF)

 

Sample resources (PDF)

 

Promotional (PDF)

 

Images (JPG/PNG)

 

PowerPoint slides (pptx)

 

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.”

An online launch of the Toolkit will take place on 9th December at a free webinar, during which attendees will be given a tour of its contents. To attend, register at https://epc.ac.uk/event/complex-systems-toolkit-launch-webinar/

The Complex Systems Toolkit is an open access and free to use suite of resources, available at http://epc.ac.uk/complex-systems-toolkit

A full press pack can be downloaded from: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/cyqsu43psebige4s9ym0z/APr2oJC_8A0xGnumvCPkUX0?rlkey=e6zyq6b5ab8v6jh3423l6oj0h&st=div86irp&dl=0

Ends 

 

Notes to editors 

 

Contact 

Contact: Johnny Rich

Email: press@epc.ac.uk

Phone: 0781 111 4292

Website: https://epc.ac.uk/resources/toolkit/complex-systems-toolkit/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/engineering-professors’%E2%80%8B-council

Tags: #ComplexSystems #ComplexSystemsToolkit

 

 

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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:

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

2025

Two weeks ago, we hosted an inspiring webinar to launch our Inclusive Employability Toolkit and DEI Community of Special Interest, bringing together educators, researchers, policy experts, and professionals committed to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in engineering. Here are five highlights:

1. Launch of the EPC’s DEI Community of Special Interest

2. Neurodiversity: All in for Engineering

3. The Inclusive Employability Toolkit

4. Updates from the The Royal Academy of Engineering’s Diversity Impact Programme (DIP)

5. What’s Next for the DEI Community?

What’s your key takeaway from the webinar? Share your thoughts in the comments section below and continue the conversation on our Discussions page.

 

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