Aug 24, 2022
Young people deserve a good chance of choosing an engineering career, and this can be made easier with the development of inspiring engineering outreach activities. In this month’s The Engineer column Dr Hilary Leevers, Chief Executive of EngineeringUK, considers how much engineering outreach is needed for this.
“Last month, we ran the first Tomorrow’s Engineers Live conference which saw the engineering community come together to discuss challenges, share insights, and look at the ways we can work more effectively together to ensure engineering outreach has an impact.
“At Tomorrow’s Engineers Live, we shared some data and ideas about the nature and scale of engagement needed by different audiences in order to give every young person a good opportunity to progress into engineering and tech careers.
“Back in 2020, we published an Impact Framework, developed with New Philanthropy Capital and with input from many other individuals and organisations, which attempted to describe the system within which engineering engagement takes place. We use it at EngineeringUK to help us more clearly and consistently articulate the intended impact of our work and evaluate ourselves against these goals. We hope that others find it useful.
“The impact framework identifies key audiences, including: teachers; careers advisors and professionals; organisations and individuals involved in the funding, design or delivery of engineering engagement; parents and carers; and, of course, young people themselves. It also identifies the impact we may wish to have on different audiences – for example, that more teachers help their students to engage with engineering.”
Read the full column on The Engineer website.
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