City, University of London joins forces with Engineers Without Borders UK

City, University of London has joined forces with Engineers Without Borders UK.

It represents the first-ever strategic university partnership initiative undertaken by the engineering charity and is aimed at embedding global responsibility into education and student experience. This collaboration will strengthen the national initiative on “Developing Socially Responsible STEM Professionals”, launched by City.

In 2021, Engineers Without Borders UK introduced a new partnership model to increase its impact in responding to the pressing need for new skill sets within the engineering profession.

The Skills for net zero and a green recovery 2021 report by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) shows only 7% of engineering companies in the UK with a sustainability strategy say they have the skills needed to fulfil it. To ready students, it requires a transformation in how to educate future engineering workforces.

Engineers Without Borders UK advocates for the need to embed collaboration, empathy, cross-disciplinarity learning, ethics, systems thinking, inclusive approaches and real-world examples alongside technical education to provide the opportunity for engineers and other STEM professionals to learn how to produce globally responsible solutions.

This three-year partnership sets out to:

– Run project-based Designathons and Design Challenges, both in and out of curriculum for all STEM students (Engineering, Computer Science and Mathematics);

– Co-create real-world educational resources and accelerate training of early-career academics;

– Work with educators to provide a programme of support and facilitate volunteering opportunities for a broad and diverse group of people to shape the education of 3,000 students;

– To strengthen research on socially responsible STEM technologies and solutions;

– Re-establish a University Chapter as a mechanism for student-led activities;

– Share our work, approach, and learnings broadly to influence a wider sector change;

– Gather evidence from our partnership to track the success and failings of approaches that focus on how to take action on the need to develop socially responsible professions.

Dean of City’s School of Mathematics, Computer Science and Engineering, Professor Rajkumar Roy, is pleased with this historic strategic partnership:

“City is delighted to be partnering and making history with Engineers Without Borders UK. This outstanding charity is establishing its first-ever strategic partnership with our university and deepening its five-year relationship with our School. This will further our commitment to educating socially responsible STEM professionals, clearly illustrated through joint innovative engineering design programmes, such as the Engineering for People Design Challenge and our soon to be launched, Efficiency for Access Design Challenge.”

Head of Engineering at Engineers Without Borders UK, Emma Crichton, said:

“We’ve been working in universities since 2004, and it’s fantastic to be able to launch our strategic partnership initiative with City, University of London. This is absolutely the type of collaboration we need to ensure that the workforce of tomorrow is prepared to creatively respond to our future challenges. Over the next three years, we will work together with the School of Engineering, Computer Science and Mathematics to design a broad, cohesive package of work, all aimed to inspire and nurture social responsibility considering the global perspective, and to produce world-class graduates. Through experimenting with various approaches, we hope to demonstrate the sheer power and potential of future STEM professionals to create inclusive solutions that work for us all.”

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