Susan Gourvenec Chairs Panel Discussion on Inclusive Engineering Outcomes at RAEng 2024 Research Forum
Professor Susan Gourvenec FREng, Chaired a panel discussion exploring “Inclusive Engineering Outcomes” at this year’s RAEng Research Forum hosted at Prince Philip House.
Last year EPSRC published a report Tomorrow’s Engineering Research Challenges, which highlighted that one of the most pressing actions for the wider engineering community is “the promotion of inclusive engineering outcomes for all with more diverse input”.
The importance of diversity and inclusion across the engineering sector, and indeed across our society, is becoming more widely recognised, with increasing awareness of the need and benefit of increasing diversity of the workforce, and the inclusiveness of our organisations. Less considered is the inclusiveness of what we produce as engineers, i.e. inclusive engineering outcomes – the discipline of ensuring that engineering products and services are accessible and inclusive of all users, and are as free as possible from discrimination and bias. In short, our engineering solutions need to be appropriate, ethical, accessible, sustainable, responsible, and work to ensure that nobody is left behind.
While inclusive inputs and methods are important aspects of achieving Inclusive Engineering Outcomes, there is increasing awareness that other variables are important.
Examples of where engineering outcomes are uninclusive are widespread – some well-known ones include crash test dummies and voice or facial recognition systems that do not protect equally, and indeed discriminate; urban design leading to inequalities in health, education and opportunities that disproportionately negatively affect low-income households; that 90% of the world’s ships, which carry nearly all global trade, thus impacting every aspect of our daily lives, end their life being dismantled on beaches in South Asia with improper dismantling practices causing harm to workers, communities and the environment, far from where the benefit of the engineering was experienced; or at a similarly global level, engineering that provides or consumes fossil fuels at scale, lead to climate change impacts for populations who may be far removed from the beneficiaries of the engineered products and services.
Susan was joined on the panel by 4 Academy Awardees, who operate across a range of disciplines and sectors. Dr Ilan Adler, past RAEng Enterprise Fellowship holder & founder of EcoNomad Solutions that delivers small scale technology for sustainable resource management and agricultural waste reduction; and Assoc Professor in Environmental Engineering Design at UCL. Professor Priti Parikh, current RAEng Research Chair, partnering with BBOXX, investigating smart solar solutions for resource challenged communities; and Professor of Infrastructure Engineering and International Development and Director of The Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction at UCL. Dr Amit Pujari, past RAEng Fellowship holder and current RAEng Industrial Fellow (2023) looking into "User-led design of neurotechnologies for sensorimotor improvements in stroke survivors"; and Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at University of Hertfordshire. Professor Mehrnoosh Sadrzadeh, RAEng Research Chair, partnering with Cambridge Quantum and the BBC, exploring "Engineered Mathematics for Typed Text Structures "; Professor of Computer Science, also based at UCL.
Susan and the panel explored other examples of inclusive and uninclusive engineering across the broad range of sectors in which each operate, and began to unpick the principles and practices that can lead to inclusive engineering outcomes – and equally importantly those that lead solutions away from being inclusive.
The event marked the launch of the Academy’s Inclusive Engineering Outcomes pilot project. The Academy have appointed Scientia Scripta to undertake a six-month pilot project to engage with the engineering community to explore how Inclusive Engineering Outcomes are being practiced, find a set of case studies from which to draw out key principles that deliver inclusive – or non-inclusive outcomes. If you would like to get involved in the inclusive engineering outcomes initiative, sign up to the project community to join the mailing list and learn about the workshops and other opportunities to contribute.
