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I attended one for the first time in my life – the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham, - in early October this year. I was struck firstly by the sheer scale of the event: both the Conservative and Labour Conferences typically have 12,000 delegates. On television, we tend just to see the main ‘platform’ events but there were 400 – 500 ‘fringe’ events on an amazing range of subjects. Also, you also couldn’t help but smile at the energetic, noisy and vaguely musical protestors on the streets outside.
I spoke, along with a Government minister, at one event that dealt with the important topic of decarbonising transport. Then, I attended another ten or so events covering net zero, energy, innovation and similar topics of interest. I could also have listened to people speak passionately about prison reform, drugs, mental health and Brexit, to name but a few. Surprisingly, there was very little sign of raw politics which seems to take place largely on television and in the newspapers.
But what struck me most strongly was a appreciation of the wider human, social and political ecosystem within which engineering exists. In our profession, we speak a lot about ‘systems engineering’, to make sure that we’re considering the bigger picture. For instance, we know that electric vehicles only make sense if they are supplied with electricity from carbon-free sources and if there is an extensive re-charging infrastructure. This is all rather obvious.
Ultimately though, it’s only part of the story. Any engineering-based activity or project, especially the more strategic, needs wide political support in the form of public perception, press views, and lobby group opinion as well as support, in the case of energy consumption for example in the form of changed individual behaviour. Very often, these factors are ambiguous and contradictory with no ideal solution, the opposite of the in-built engineering mindset.
This suggests to me that we engineers need to widen our horizons a bit and appreciate that there isn’t always one right answer. Perhaps major engineering teams should always include those with humanities backgrounds. Maybe engineering education should be broader and should specialise at a later stage. And, even more radically, perhaps more engineers should put themselves forwards, become active in politics and start expressing opinions more assertively. After all, we’re always complaining about the dearth of engineers in the UK parliament.
Our approach is one of rigour which in turn leads to dependability and certainty, often in difficult circumstances. For example, we take flying for granted despite the fact that travelling at 500mph at 37,000ft in air that’s at -56C and too thin to breathe is fundamentally a rather unsafe activity – all as a result of thorough engineering.
Perhaps this mindset is one that could be a useful addition to the political mix especially at a time when our most fundamental societal challenge - climate change - is so dependent on engineering.