VOICES NIGEL GILBERT
People cannot tell a technician from a graduate professional. And people often don’t understand that the engineering profession has a new shape. It involves clean, intellectually demanding work, often leading to significant benefits for society. The public image of a mechanical engineer might not suggest an interesting, well-paid job, but in fact it is. Gilbert is especially keen on the emphasis which the Year’s planning puts on activities for young people. The father of small children, he is impressed with some of the ways they can now find out about technology, for example via the BBC’s CBeebies network. But he sees scope for television
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and engineers in the UK suffer from a lack of respect
to be an even more positive influence. “TV crime series once caused a huge increase in university applications for forensic psychology courses,” he points out. “Something similar needs to be done for engineering.” In his experience, engineering students tend to be people who made things as children, and who may have been keen on Lego and Meccano. It is too rare, he thinks, for older children to get the idea that engineering might be a fascinating career. He is clear too that efforts to bring young people
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into engineering need a stronger focus on women. Right now, the profession has far too few. Through the Global Challenges Research Fund, which
24 SOCIETY NOW AUTUMN 2018
Professor Gilbert is clear that efforts to bring young people into engineering need a stronger focus on women.
Gilbert feels that engineering
supports research into key development issues, Gilbert is involved in work on the social effect of dams in developing nations. He is alarmed at “just how male” the meetings he attends usually are. There is also competition for talent, especially at the university entrance stage, between engineering and science subjects. While they both call for similar educational competence, science can seem more exciting, touching on everything from black holes to dinosaurs. But Gilbert thinks that engineering can more than match science for excitement. “The engineering students here at Surrey build and race sports cars and get involved in spaceflight projects,” he points out. The problem of attracting young people into engineering may, of course, become more central after Brexit, if the UK is forced to develop its own talent instead of importing it. Gilbert agrees that internationally-mobile professionals may find Britain a less attractive venue in future years. He is keen for the UK to remain within an open market for talent, pointing out that like other UK universities, Surrey educates a good number of Chinese engineers. “Open borders are a positive thing, but whether they will remain a reality is a big if.” n
i
The Centre for the Evaluation of Complexity Across the Nexus (CECAN) is a £3-million research centre hosted by the University of Surrey working on transforming the practice of policy evaluation in Nexus areas, to make it fit for a complex world.
Email
n.gilbert@
surrey.ac.uk Web
www.cecan.ac.uk
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