The EPC Annual Congress 2019, Engineering Change: surviving and shaping the policy landscape, was hosted by UCL Engineering Education. Following a fascinating walking tour (where it turned out Bloomsbury’s engineering credentials are quite extensive) Congress 2019 was officially opened by EPC President, Professor Sarah Spurgeon.
She reflected that, “as a community, we’ve developed a roadmap to ensure engineering in future is more attractive, more inclusive and produces engineers that are fit to exploit future challenges and opportunities”.
The keynotes from Baroness Brown of Cambridge and David Sweeney launched a dichotomy of challenge and opportunity in the context of engineering change and Prof Spurgeon’s opening call to “use Congress to understand and to reach out to shape our wider society and economy” held through the conference.
We were alarmed and entertained in equal measure with a secret insight into security threats in engineering before sharing panel insights into accreditation, apprenticeships and the policy market-place.
The outstanding Senate House Congress Dinner was preceded by an inspiring public lecture from Lord Willetts which put us all in frame of mind for the pending Augar review, and was closed by the very funny Steve Cross, Comedian, Troublemaker & Nerd Celebrity.
A whistle-stop tour through the means we hold to influence policy; AI disruption in the engineering sector; and new model approaches leading change in engineering education led the proceedings to a close, courtesy of Prof Colin Turner, EPC’s incoming President.
The full programme is available to download here.
See also the EPC Congress 2019 Delegate List and speaker Biographies.
Slides and a summary of proceedings will be available to members in due course.
