Inclusive engineering outcomes

As the UK Academy provides progressive leadership in engineering, we prioritise equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) – it’s a core theme in our five-year strategy and a key pillar of all our strategic goals. Why is it so central? 

A diverse engineering community, fit for the future

We know that our engineering workforce is not sufficiently diverse and, critically, therefore, is not in the best position to solve the problems of the day and serve all of society. The engineering profession cannot afford to limit talent through exclusion. Those who embed EDI will strengthen their capability and success. Those who don’t will fall behind on quality, compliance, and competitiveness.

Creating our inclusive engineering toolkit

One of our goals as an Academy is to cultivate a more diverse engineering community, fit for the future. And we must also support the profession with practices to ensure greater equity and inclusion in engineering solutions, products and design

To achieve this, through the Academy’s Diversity Impact Programme (supported by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology), we are working with the Engineering Professors Council to create an inclusive engineering toolkit.

The toolkit will focus on inclusive engineering outcomes, helping educators guide future engineers to design solutions, products, and systems that are accessible, ethical and free from bias.

A Call for Contributions to the toolkit is open now. We are looking for promising practices, ideas and resources that will help make the toolkit an unmissable reference point for engineering educators. This will support a future where engineers are trained to develop more innovative, effective, inclusive, and safe solutions that meet diverse needs.  

But for those who are not yet convinced, let us elaborate on the challenge at hand.

Assistive and accessible technologies

At the level of individual users of engineering solutions, a range of benefits and disbenefits can be seen depending on a person’s diverse characteristics. Consider, for example, web accessibility, as well as assistive technologies and equipment for disabled people (such as innovative wheelchair design). There’s an increasing imperative to address AI bias – an amplified and intensified version of its real-world manifestations – and racial bias in facial recognition technologies. If we are to work towards equity in health outcomes, technologies such as pulse oximeters must read correctly for all skin tones.

To improve the inclusivity of our engineering solutions, we must not only build a more diverse engineering workforce but also include diverse audiences in user research. Without this, we may miss the unintended consequences of our innovations.

Reviewing inclusive engineering outcomes

At the macro level, there’s the issue of whether waste products from engineering end up on the shores of poorer nations, or how factory emissions or discharges are concentrated in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. We need to be concerned with how engineering products and by-products are distributed in line with pre-existing patterns of global and local inequality; who gains, and who loses.

Where does the Academy start with such a wicked problem? We reviewed how inclusive engineering outcomes are understood and interpreted by engineers, with the ERSRC. Building on the TERC (Tomorrow’s Engineering Research Challenges) recommendations, we are exploring how our organisations can promote inclusive design and crystallise its meaning and its implications for engineers. At our EDI Conference on 10 March, with its theme of Engineering for Communities, we focused on inclusive engineering outcomes, bringing together a range of expertise in the room to develop the conversation around this critical subject.