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My friend, being a lawyer, understood the registering professional engineers element easily enough; but then he asked “but what do you do as a charity?”. This is such a simple question, but one that I think we have collectively struggled to define well enough over the years, and this has been an important part of what the Institution’s strategy committee has been exploring since its inception back in February 2021.
The committee was set up following the Institution’s 2019 governance review which highlighted that having a clear strategy is core to any organisation’s success. The Institution must be able to develop its strategy and articulate it to all members, staff and external stakeholders if it is to stay effective in a world that is seeing the pace of change accelerate.
Since taking over as chair of the committee in May 2021 it has been an honour to work in close partnership with such an amazing team of trustees, members and staff to establish both a strategy development process and the strategic content. We have collected and analysed information from a wide range of sources to understand factors that will influence our future and formulated this into a high-level strategy that was presented to the trustee board and council last autumn.
Since then, we have set up working groups to develop the more detailed and prioritised strategic objectives, to feed into future business plans, enabling us all to work together to achieve common goals.
Our mission is “Improving the world through engineering” and our vision is “To be a world-leading, global and inclusive engineering membership organisation”. We aim to achieve our vision by focusing on two strategic goals:
Developing, representing and supporting all engineers and technicians to be their best for a more inclusive and sustainable world;
Maximising the impact of our members to promote engineering, inform opinion and stimulate innovation for the benefit of society.
These goals are underpinned by our four values – integrity, impact, innovation and inclusion.
But what does this mean in practice? We aspire to be the global engineering standard for accreditation and qualifications, building a thriving international community of engineers and technicians, engaging through events, and deliver more relevant, personalised digital services to all members. We will do this by building an inclusive network of partnerships to promote engineering as a career, shape the public and engineering debate on our policy priority areas: climate change and sustainability, future transport, infectious disease control, and education and skills.
Why do we seek to do this? As a charity, our aim is to support engineers and technicians who can contribute to solving the huge global challenges we face. Our members have contributed to some of the most outstanding developments in mechanical engineering. Our aim is to ensure this continues.
For more information, look on the About section of our website or email us at strategy@imeche.org.
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Content published by Professional Engineering does not necessarily represent the views of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.