Educating Engineers for the 21st Century: The Industry View
Educating Engineers for the 21st Century: The Industry View
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教育 21 世纪的工程师：行业视角
DOI：
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发表时间：
2006
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
D. Birchall
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
N. Spinks;N. Silburn;D. Birchall
执行摘要 本报告介绍了亨利管理学院代表皇家工程院开展的一项研究结果，该研究旨在根据工程行业当前和未来的需求调查英国本科工程教育要求。该研究结合了对行业从业者的深入访谈、近期毕业生的焦点小组以及对行业内企业的大规模调查。新招聘的工程毕业生被用于广泛的工作岗位。虽然研究和开发、设计和生产/制造是研究样本中最普遍的活动，但工程毕业生在整个产品生命周期和整个价值链中随处可见。因此，许多研究生工程师可能会发现自己的角色不一定涉及专业工程实践。为了填补这些角色，工程公司在两大领域寻找技能和特质。第一个是工程师独有的一组定义技能，涵盖技术技能领域。其中包括建立在坚实的数学基础上的对其学科内工程基础知识的扎实了解。该领域其他备受追捧的属性是创造力和创新以及将理论应用于实践的能力。第二组技能包括社交和人际交往技能以及使工程师能够在商业工作环境中工作的属性。这些包括沟通技能、团队合作技能和商业技能，对于入门级毕业生来说，这主要意味着意识到工程决策的商业影响。工程公司使用多种方法来吸引和培养他们所需的工程毕业生人才。尽管广告是最广泛使用的方法，但许多公司与大学密切合作来寻找合适的候选人。工作实习在招聘过程中也发挥着重要作用，在大学期间获得相关工作经验的候选人比没有此类经验的候选人更具吸引力。在工作后的技能发展方面，虽然近三分之一的公司没有制定正式的计划，但 70% 的公司确实提供某种类型的正式毕业生发展计划。总体而言，受访公司表示，他们对从英国大学招聘具有适当技能的工程毕业生的能力既不满意也不不满意。然而，有一些证据表明，技能短缺（缺乏适当合格的毕业生可供招聘）和技能差距（……
Executive Summary This report presents the results of a study undertaken by Henley Management College on behalf of the Royal Academy of Engineering to investigate UK undergraduate engineering education requirements in terms of the current and future needs of the engineering industry. The research was based on a combination of in-depth interviews with industry practitioners, focus groups with recent graduates, and a large-scale survey of firms within the industry. Newly-recruited engineering graduates are used in a wide range of job roles. Whilst research and development, design and production/manufacturing are the most prevalent activities within the sample studied, engineering graduates are to be found across the product lifecycle and throughout the value chain. As a result, many graduate engineers are likely to find themselves in roles which do not necessarily involve hands-on specialist engineering. To fill these roles engineering firms look for skills and attributes in two broad areas. The first is a set of defining skills that are unique to the engineer and which encompass the domain of technical skills. These include a sound knowledge of the engineering fundamentals within their discipline, built on a solid base of mathematics. Other highly sought-after attributes in this domain are creativity and innovation plus the ability to apply theory in practice. The second skill set includes the social and interpersonal skills and attributes that enable the engineer to operate in a commercial working environment. These include communication skills, team-working skills, and business skills, which for entry-level graduates primarily mean awareness of the commercial implications of engineering decisions. Engineering firms use a wide range of methods to attract and develop the engineering graduate talent they need. Although advertising is the most widely used approach, many companies work closely with universities to identify suitable candidates Work placements also play an important role in the recruitment process and candidates who have gained relevant work experience while at university are more attractive than candidates without such experience. In terms of skills development once in work, whilst nearly one-third of companies have no formal scheme in place, 70% of firms do offer some type of formal graduate development programme. Overall, respondent firms report that they are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with their ability to recruit appropriately skilled engineering graduates from UK universities. There is some evidence, however, both of skill shortages (where there is a lack of appropriately qualified graduates available to be recruited) and skill gaps (where …