ERA Foundation launches website to link up engineering initiatives

The ERA Foundation has launched a new website to provide an ‘unbiased’ map of engineering resources for potential engineers as well as their teachers and parents.

The website www.engineeringinsite.com is seeking to help influence more young people to take up careers in engineering and has been created to address issues highlighted in the foundation’s report Changing Perceptions: Opening People’s Eyes to Engineering, published in April 2014.

The report found that the engineering profession was failing to grab the attention of young people, parents and teachers, partly due to poor communication and fragmented past initiatives by organisations in the sector.

The report said that while the UK was currently producing 51,000 engineers per year, the profession and industry required around 87,000 engineers to meet projected demand.

According to the report: “This 36,000 shortfall is the most pressing challenge facing the industry. It stands to have significant economic repercussions, damage international perceptions of the UK profession, and inhibit the innovation and progress that characterises our domestic engineering.”

The report recommended that the foundation should develop a website that was easy to use and that would signpost users to current initiatives that helped to educate teachers and parents about engineering careers and inspired more young people to choose engineering as a profession. 

The Institution is one of a number of organisations that has been working with the foundation to populate the website with links to engineering resources and initiatives - such as the Bloodhound SSC project and Formula Student.

Visit www.engineeringinsite.com to find out more.

Visit the ERA Foundation website to read its report Changing Perceptions: Opening People’s Eyes to Engineering.