Incorporating global skills within UK higher education of engineers



issues and sustainable development. The Distinguished
Lecture Series held by The Centre for Sustainable Develop-
ment at Cambridge85 and Engineers without Borders
(EWB-UK) talks86 are two such examples. Student-led
development organisations such as people and planet,
EWB-UK, Architects sans Frontiers, the El-Salvador project
(Imperial) and SAFAD (Cranfield) have a range of roles:
campaigning, talks, training, summer gatherings, research,
overseas and UK volunteering, influencing engineering
education and so forth. These organisations can make a
significant contribution to student learning and promoting
global citizenship, a theme explored at conferences on
“graduates as global citizens”.87 Universities looking to
support global citizenship as a strategy to deliver the global
dimension should explore the experience of other universi-
ties such as UCL’s ‘Global Citizenship’ programme and
Bournemouth University’s Global Perspectives Project, as well
as ‘U8 Global Student Partnership for Development’88 which
promotes international collaboration between student
development groups.

University level strategies

The university workshops stressed the importance of
working at all levels (national, university, departmental and
course levels) to drive change forward. Many examples were
found of individual champions being able to drive forward
change within their own courses from the bottom up even
in the absence of support from senior staff. However, it is
where university leaders (Council, Senate, Pro-Vice chancel-
lors) and Deans and Heads of Department are explicitly and
fully supportive of the global dimension and incorporate this
agenda across their strategic thinking, policies and practice
that the greatest opportunity arises. The model below is
taken from the HEFCE strategic review of sustainable devel-
opment in higher education in England.89 The model is
equally relevant to show the phases of adoption of the
global dimension.

As the HEFCE strategic review of sustainable development in
higher education in England illustrates, curriculum review is
only one area in which sustainable development applies to
universities: other areas include research, marketing, estate
management and procurement. Universities wishing to
embrace the global dimension are advised here to map how
the global dimension and related agendas are currently
addressed across existing strategies, policies and curriculum.
Strategies need to cascade from university wide policies
down to faculty, department and course levels.

A similar process of curriculum mapping is set out by the
Royal Academy of Engineering’s Teaching of Engineering
Ethics Working Group in ‘An engineering ethics curriculum
map’.90 This process needs to be holistic and lead to a long
term implementation plan. It is advised that each depart-

Four phases of sustainable development (SD) adoption:

Phase one

Phase two

Phase three

Phase four

Grass roots enthusiasts

Early adopters

Getting really serious

Full commitment

■ Confined to individual
enthusiasts and small
teams, with a bottom-
up approach

■ Values-driven

■ Activity principally in
teaching and research

■ Often unaware of one
another’s work, and
therefore some
duplication of effort

■ Linksmorelikelywith
other HEIs than inter-
nally

■ Sometimes element of
counter-culture

■ Senior management
involvement (often limited),
sometimes on a partly
opportunistic basis

■ (Enabling) Steering group
set up

■ Largely still (enabled)
bottom-up

■ Statement on sustainable
development (SD) drafted
for HEI’s next strategic plan

■ Formulation of initial policy
and procedure on SD

■ Staff invited to buy SD, not
sold it

■ Settingoffirstand
sometimes quite modest
targets, often for
baselining purposes, and
without clear or compelling
sanctions

■ SD has little organisational
impact and no operational
impact

■ Vice Chancellor (VC) has
overall ‘watching brief’

■ Significantinvolvementof
senior management by
the end of this phase,
resulting in a senior
sponsor with real
ownership

■ VC/governance level active
interest

■ Steering group taking
firmer directive role
(yet still collegial where
possible)

■ Small team of SD change
agents in place, often at
least partly virtual

■ SD playing a significant
role in both teaching and
research across the HEI,
and full SD estates policy
and practice in operation

■ SD beginning to be
joined-up

■ Extensive use of quantified
targets, with an effective
system of sanctions

■ SD becoming embedded
in human resources

■ VC/governance level
ownership

■ Values-driven/woven into
fabric

■ HEI is an SD institution in
the same way that it
might be a research-
intensive or widening
participation HEI

■ SD is therefore captured
in mission and in five-year
strategy, and is
organisationally and
operationally embedded

■ Most activity is
sufficiently ‘on message’
that it is integrated, but
there are some who fall
at least partly outside the
cultural circle

■ Joined-up approach
where the ‘talk’ in
research and teaching is
where possible ‘walked’
in estates practice

■ Virtuous circle of
enhancement

The Global Engineer Page 23



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