Bill Glew, Programme Director MSc Professional Engineering aston.ac.uk

1. Developing global university partnerships for work based learning professional engineering programmes Bill Glew, Programme DirectorMSc Professional Engineering www.aston.ac.uk

2. Aston University • Based in Birmingham, England’s 2nd largest city • A reputation for teaching excellence, employer engagement and graduate employability. • Small (< 10,000 students) but ambitious.

3. 2000 to 2010 – A period of change • Changing HE environment in UK • Expansion • Changing graduate employment market • Changing role of UK in global economy • Requires a balancing act of: • Quality • Content • Quantity • Cost

4. Employer Engagement • Mass participation in higher education is unsustainable unless higher education can create wealth to support the costs of mass participation. • Wealth is generated by employment systems, and so higher education should focus on employment skills.

5. 2011 / 2012 • League tables have changed the context. • Universities now need to provide a “student centred” experience. • The introduction of significantly higher fees in 2012 will reinforce this. • Major ongoing investment in facilities. • Expansion at top end and bottom end of range and a squeeze in the middle. • Universities are not yet businesses – but they are becoming a lot more like them than they were.

6. School of Engineering Strategy • Expansion through collaboration and partnerships • Develop a range of new types of courses using more teaching and learning methods appropriate to 21st century • Main themes: • Full time programmes using CDIO • Part time programmes using work based learning

7. UK Engineering Professional Structure • 36 Professional Engineering Institutions • Overseen by the Engineering Council who hold the a register of Professional Engineers • Based on a set of national competence standards (output based)

8. Levels of Professional Status % varies from company to company CEng IEng EngTech

9. MSc Professional Engineering • A raised academic standard for Chartered Engineer status to Masters level or equivalent • Declining number of students enrolling on engineering courses and fewer universities teaching engineering • Introduction of student fees • Resulting in a steady decline in the number of engineers applying for registration as Chartered Engineer • In the context of an advanced technology economy aspiring to maintain its engineering reputation action urgently needed to reverse this trend

10. Programme Aims • Create world class professional engineers who: • Have high levels of technical expertise • Are leaders with vision • Have creativity and can innovate • Can analyse difficult problems and deliver solutions • Are able to manage continuous organisational improvement

11. Engineering Council Website

12. Key Features • Each participant has their own unique programme • It is about learning not teaching • Learning takes place in the workplace • It combines academic learning and engineering competence development in a single programme. • It’s about thinking and doing at the same time; combining theory with practice; = “professional”. • Requires creative and reflective thinking.

13. Theory with Practice to inform Practice Theory Theoretical Conceptualisation Application Theory Using Model Building Practice Benchmarking

14. Theory with Practice to inform Practice Theory Theoretical Conceptualisation Application Theory Professional Using Model Building Practice Benchmarking

15. Levels of Reflection Critical Reflection Reflective Dialogue Descriptive Reflection Descriptive Writing Chartered Engineer and M level Mentoring dialogue Most student enter at this level

16. Critical Reflection • Multi-perspective, probably involving moral and ethical consideration. • Challenging of assumptions and “taken-for-granteds”. • Systematic reframing of complex problems. • Tacit to explicit knowledge generation. • Thinking about thinking; learning about learning.

18. Student(Participant) Workplace Mentor Academic Supervisor Programme Administrator Professional Supervisor “Student” Support Structure

19. Recruitment Numbers

20. The Global Need for Engineers • The world needs millions of young, creative and dynamic professional engineers to overcome the challenges of the 21st century. • They will not come from the normal existing system of higher education. • They will not come from the old western developed economies of the 20th century. • There is an obligation on the existing engineering higher education community of practice to find new ways to develop these engineers from across the whole world.

21. The Challenges Calculus Thermodynamics Circuits Statics Fluid mechanics Materials Chemistry Physics Biology Hunger Poverty War Natural disasters Environment Climate Change ?

22. A New Global Perspective

23. Our 2020 Vision • A group of like-minded world class universities collaborating together to provide global organisations with professional development programmes for global engineers. • Working together to built common approaches to the technical challenges of the 21st century. • Challenging the normal academic hierarchy as represented by existing global league tables.

24. South East Asia Cluster