Gibburt

Education, from primary up to post-university, is an often discussed topic among the contributors to this blog. Unfortunately so far none of us felt sufficiently informed about it to offer a written contribution on this website. So I am very proud to be able to present a guest article from professional educator Steve Price. Steve Price is the executive director of the European Institute for Industrial Leadership (EIIL), an institute located in Brussels that specializes in the continued professional development of engineers, scientists and technical professionals.
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‘The Projected Shortage of Engineers in Europe and its Impact on European Competitiveness’
by Steve Price

This week the EIIL presented its view on the projected shortage of engineers in Europe. Its recommendations were based upon their recent survey carried out among manufacturing and technology-based companies throughout Europe.
The survey was not a rigorous academic research exercise but was meant to analyze and suggest improvements to an under-performing process: that of developing and delivering a supply of trained and motivated engineers to a career in industry.

Over 90% of the respondents of the survey either ‘agreed’, or ‘strongly agreed’, that they ‘were aware of a decline in entrants to degree courses for technical subjects such as engineering, mathematics and sciences’, and believed that ‘this would exacerbate the current shortage of European engineers and technical professionals’ which they in turn ‘considered to be a major threat to future European competitiveness in global markets’. Slightly more than half of the respondents (51%) answered that ‘the primary responsibility for addressing this problem should rest with industry itself’.

Despite these strong views amongst respondents (that industry should take a lead role in resolving the shortage of engineers) it was a concern to many respondents that the response of their own organization had been inadequate. A large minority did not believe that their company ‘had taken pro-active steps to secure the supply of its future technology leaders’. Most frequent amongst the reasons offered for this was that the company focus was on short-term cost reduction. Another frequent response, particularly amongst those in the ICT sector, was that the company had simply chosen to re-locate technical departments to countries outside Europe where technical graduates were more plentiful. It was also noted that short term solutions, such as engaging overseas engineers to fill vacancies, had a further impact in that the roles they filled had formerly been the development roles through which future leaders would have passed. The temporary-hire, overseas engineer was unlikely to remain to provide the future technical leadership of the company.

The next section of the survey asked respondents to look at the ‘supply chain’ for engineers: beginning at school, progressing through university and into the early and later stages of an engineer’s career in industry. Asking respondents to consider this ‘supply chain’ (or pipeline) in the way they would a process flow within their industry, the survey sought to solicit opinions as to where the process was failing (or the pipeline leaking) and what should be done to correct this.

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Next week we will publish the second part of the article dealing with the particular causes for pipeline ‘leaks’ and what can be done about them.

Filed under: Science by Robert Nijssen | Social tagging: education > European Institute for Industrial Leadership > Guest article