Inclusivity Symposium 2018

Inclusive Engineering Education: Exploring what it means and how you can do it

Addressing diversity and inclusion within an engineering degree can at times seem irrelevant or futile. Join the UCL Centre for Engineering Education with Katalytik and the Royal Academy of Engineering to explore what inclusion means in the engineering education context. This free, two day symposium will provide a rich discussion with peers and experts on leadership, course and assessment design and team working.

The catalyst for this conference is a report, to be launched on 9th July, that lays out a framework for strategic changes and adjustments across four pillars of engineering education for Deans, Heads of Departments and course leaders, reviewers and accreditors. It builds on the work from The Academy on cultures in engineering.

The report extends the conversations between engineers from industry and higher education that started at the first international Symposium on Inclusive Engineering Education at UCL in 2016. These conversations have continued to explore, adapt and evolve course management, design, and content with the aim of creating engineers with a global and innovative mindset driven by people centred thinking.

The first day of this two day event will focus on the report, practice and the recommendations to address gaps in knowledge. The second day will provide a forum for conversations around inclusion across the four pillars. The aim is to build a community of practice to create and share good practice.

Please note that the event will be held at different venues on each day:

9th July – Royal Academy of Engineering, and

10th July 2018 – Faculty of Engineering Sciences, UCL

Download the report (pdf)

The symposium offers a platform for an open and frank discussion about how engineering faculties are setting themselves up to create graduates that appreciate and value that they will not only be working alongside diverse professionals but that they will be designing products and services across humanity.

Monday 9th July – Royal Academy of Engineering

10:30 – Registration and coffee

11:00 – Welcome – Dr Rhys Morgan, Royal Academy of Engineering

11:05 – Welcome – Dr Hayaatun Sillem, Royal Academy of Engineering

11:15 – Keynote with Q&A

12:30 – Lunch

13:45 – The four pillar framework for inclusive engineering education: Emanuela Tilley, UCL; Prof. Elena Rodriguez-Falcon, NMITE; Oliver Buhlinger, ONI

13:10 – Practical examples of inclusive engineering courses

15:30 – Breakout groups

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17:00 – Welcome – Report Launch – Prof. John Mitchell, UCL

17:05 – Keynote – Chi Onwurah, MP

17:20 – The four pillars and action required

17.40 – Creating shift – building a community of practice

18:00 – Forum breakout groups – what does inclusive engineering look like?

18:20 – Taking the report forward: what can we do, what should we do?

18.30 – Drinks reception

Tuesday 10th July – UCL

The focus is on sharing knowledge and practice from engineering disciplines around the four pillars. Facilitators will draw good practice together and extend thinking to collect case studies to share and Pillar 1 and 2 will run in parallel in the first session and Pillar 3 and 4 in the second session.

09:30 – Registration and coffee

09:30 – Welcome – Prof. John Mitchell, UCL

09:35 – Review of the framework and outputs from the breakout sessions from Day 1 – Dr. Jan Peters, Katalytik

09:50 – Panelists will consider the challenges and changes that can affect people being their best.

Panelists: Dr. Anne Nortcliffe, Canterbury Christ Church University; Sarah Wilson Medhurst, University of Northampton.

Parallel sessions will each include 2 – 3 short presentations on practical examples of inclusion in engineering. A world café format will be based around pillar based questions to collect what is being done and to share ideas of other things that could be done. Participants will select 3 actions to take away to implement.

11:30 – Breakout session 1 (Pillars 1 and 2)

13:00 – Lunch

13:45 – Breakout session 2 (Pillars 3 and 4)

15:00 – A plenary session will draw together illustrations of good practice and commitments for change – Chair: Dr. Jan Peters

15:35 – Close: Prof. John Mitchell and Dr. Jan Peters

The organising committee invites short talks to share knowledge and outcomes of pilots and embedded programmes, and stimulate thinking with the aim of raising standards across courses using the framework of:

Changing the culture of where we teach
Addressing curriculum content so that we are teaching in an inclusive and relevant way
Innovations in where and how we teach that makes engineering accessible
Opportunities for professional or employability skills to be practiced
Three illustrations are sought for each pillar of the framework. Presentations will be used to kick start the break out discussions across the report recommendations and the four pillars and may take place on the first or second day.

Identify whether your talk is relevant to:

Culture and leadership (including departmental culture, staff training and review processes
Content and what is being taught and how it addresses inclusion and or diversity
Delivery – methods of how teaching and learning are delivered and assessed
Practice and professionalism – how students gain professional skills and positive experiences to build their career confidence

Please send a paragraph of around 200 words, the name of the speaker and links to any background material to centreforengedu@ucl.ac.uk by Friday, 8th June.

Professor Elena Rodriguez-Falcon

Provost and Chief Academic Officer, New Model in Technology and Engineering (NMiTE)

Chi Onwurah

Member of Parliament for Newcastle upon Tyne Central