Engineering, Social Justice, and Sustainable Community Development

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This Science & Society conference grant seeks to extend the discussion of engineering ethics into new areas of social justice and sustainable community development. Engineering addresses problems and opportunities of great importance to the world's poor and underserved populations and nations, and many individual engineers as well as engineering groups are responsive to humanitarian crises and problems of social and environmental justice. This conference will highlight and examine engineering activities and educational programs that are responding to these needs, and the ethical issues that these endeavors encompass. It will build bridges between engineering, ethics, and humanitarian action, social justice and sustainable community development, to enhance research, practice and education in engineering and engineering ethics. It will promote attention to ethical issues and leadership in the engineering professions, and enhance understanding among other professions and the public about engineering in these contexts. The PI, in her position as head of the center for engineering ethics at the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), has convened an inter-disciplinary group of advisors for the conference. The advisory group will help to develop the evaluation plans and assess conference results. The Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE) has agreed to co-sponsor the event and will help to publicize it and suggest speakers and attendees. This is a new level of collaboration between these organizations. About 100 participants, of whom two-thirds will be engineers, will attend the day and a half meeting, scheduled in early October 2008, at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC, or at a similar venue selected for its proximity to key national and international organizations. Speakers and participants will be diverse, including US and foreign citizens, representatives of groups underrepresented in science and engineering, leaders in private and public sector organizations, and persons in early as well as senior career stages. The NAE will disseminate conference information and results broadly to interested academic, professional and public audiences in many fields and from diverse populations. The numerous electronic publicity and dissemination channels in the Academies will be utilized, as well as several journals and the National Academies Press. Other dissemination channels will include sessions at the meetings of relevant professional societies, including the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, and articles for their journals, and special sections or issues in refereed journals. Outreach and dissemination in organizations that reach underrepresented groups and engineering faculty and science teachers at the secondary school level will be given special emphasis, and the NAE will maintain an electronic portal for workshop publicity, documents, and discussion throughout the planning, meeting, and follow-up phases of the project.