The institution of civil engineers' vice president of engineering, policy and innovation, Barry Clarke, describes the knowledge themes the institution has developed for 2010, why they are needed and how they were developed.
Civil engineers design, build and maintain a sustainable built environment that inspires people in their life and work – society needs civil engineers. The fact that communities have become accustomed to and now expect the built environment to function perfectly is a testament to the quality and relevance of civil-engineering works.
That is all about to change, however. Much of the infrastructure is reaching the end of its life, the natural environment is changing, the political and public agendas are undergoing rapid changes with the advent of online communities and greater distribution of knowledge, and consumption of primary resources is in decline.
It is difficult to anticipate the future, but civil engineers are now planning, designing and building structures that could last into the next millennium. Therefore the profession needs to consider how best to create a framework that ensures the environment it designs and constructs meets society's needs.
Promoting best practice
Members of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) have an international reputation for their work. ICE supports that through its learned-society, membership and regional activities. It helps its members through sharing best practice, debating technical issues, producing guidelines, accrediting educational programmes and setting the standards for a professional engineer.
Increasingly, ICE is engaged in public debate in order to help inform political decisions. Therefore it is important that the institution not only engages in a reactive manner with public bodies and the government but takes a proactive role in setting the agenda. This then helps inform members and gives guidance as to what is needed to promulgate best practice.
ICE has created a new structure for its learned-society activities in the last few years to help it take a more proactive role.1 It allows the institution to draw upon the expertise of its members and the expertise of others in developing policy, events and best practice, and promoting research and capacity building. This creates a dynamic structure that allows ICE to respond to and help give direction to deal with the challenges society faces.
Strategic challenges
At a strategic level, the challenges society faces have been identified as: impact of climate change; food, energy and water supply; transport; poverty alleviation; security; education; dealing with disasters; and wealth creation. Civil engineering is key to addressing all of these challenges.
For example, the UK house of Commons select committee for construction matters clearly stated in 2008 that the construction industry underpins the economy. Civil engineers are in the vanguard when natural disasters occur so that transport links and food, energy and water supplies can be established; civil engineers will be adapting the infrastructure to cope with the effects of climate change; and civil engineers will be engaged in the transformation of the infrastructure to ensure energy and food security.
The breadth of civil engineering and the magnitude of the challenges the profession faces means we have to have a structured way to identify the knowledge we need as civil engineers to deal with these global challenges. Hence the learned society now comprises panels of experts who identify the knowledge needed across the broad range of disciplines of civil engineering.
Identifying knowledge themes
ICE's experts are brought together twice a year to debate the issues and identify the knowledge themes to be addressed. This helps formulate ideas, especially in building capacity and producing innovative solutions.
In the first year of operation of the new learned society, a generic approach was taken based on the themes of skills and capacity, codes, regulations and guidelines, and benefits to society. The themes covered all aspects of ICE's activities.
There is now more focus following the experts' forum in November 2008. They have identified the need to develop a range of activities covering the following themes
resilient infrastructure
education of civil engineers
carbon economy and technology.
The challenge now is to develop examples of best practice and identify research and capacity needs for 2010.
Reference
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT, Andy Gooding, TEL +44 20 7665 2075, EMAIL andrew.gooding@ice.org.uk
