Equipping Future Engineers with Competences to respond to the SDGs: Insights and Implications for Engineering Education

The importance of developing undergraduate students’ appreciation and understanding of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is recognised in many UK and Irish universities via inter alia, their internal quality assurance processes and their links with the professional bodies and learned societies which accredit their courses. Few disciplines are as well-placed and relevant in the solution of complex global problems as epitomised in the 17 SDGs, the so-called ‘wicked’ problems, as engineering.
Work has been carried out in identifying the skills that engineers of the future will need if they are to contribute solutions as fully as is required. However there remains a knowledge gap in how best these skills can be translated to competences; and indeed which competences are prioritised among employers. The undergraduate engineering curriculum is already packed with traditional engineering subjects such as maths, science, engineering analysis, and so on. Therefore, the challenge for engineering educators is how the already-packed curricula can be revised or re-engineered so that the engineering graduates of the future will be equipped with the relevant knowledge and practical know-how to contribute positively and sustainably in industry.
This paper describes the results of a professional skills survey, developed using previous European-level research, and administered among employers, academics and students on the island of Ireland. The broader context is somewhat unique: two jurisdictions (one British, one Irish) on a shared island. Analysis highlights interesting similarities and differences in perspectives among survey respondents and helps elucidate the teaching priorities of the wider engineering education community.