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How does IET define Innovation to meet CEng Standards

Shijo Joseph Vadakkekunnel
I am hoping that the senior PRAs can guide me to better understand the definiton of Innovation and what is expected to meet CEng Standards. My personal interpretation is that Innovation is any new product, new process or new idea.


As a person working as a Construction Manager building critical infrastructure projects, i dont make complex calculations or use complex softwares for analysis apart from using Planning tools like MS Project or Primavera . Hence it is important for me to understand what constitutes Innovation to meet the CEng standard. I have plenty of examples to demonstrate innovation but for this particular instance I am using an example where I developed a planning tool (Excel sheet) where it estimates the optimal utilisation of construction resources by extrapolating data from the characteristics that i analysed in the project life cycle and evaluated each projects. I am not giving full detail here for confidetiality. This innovation could be seen in the eyes of a Rocket Scientist as trivial since it does not do complex calculations or no patents involved. However, in the eyes of my business or working in my sector could be seen as Innovation as this is a new product which improves efficiency in working.


By textbook defintion of the UKSPEC A2 competency, they have made it ambigous by choosing very few scenarios and saying "could include an ability " rather than "should include an ability " leaving it to the reviewer for subjective interpretation.

Engage in the creative and innovative development of engineering technology and continuous improvement systems.


This could include an ability to: 

' Assess market needs and contribute to marketing strategies

' Identify constraints and exploit opportunities for the development and transfer of technology within own chosen field

' Promote new applications when appropriate

' Secure the necessary intellectual property (IP) rights

' Develop and evaluate continuous improvement systems.


I spoken to PRA on this and receieved his response that contradicted the PRI conclusion. Since i have already been told by IET Professional Registration Team that the PRA is only to advice and their advice does not mean this can be accepted by the review committee, I believe that this is the right forum to raise the query as it makes clearer for everyone similar to my position where the definition is vague.
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    Simon,  well yes,  kind of.......

    But saying "wrote best practice" is a litke exaggerated.  Innovation could just as well be taking best practice (potentially written by others) and applying it in an alternative application,  scenario or industry. 

    You'd need to show that it had been fully thought through (by you!) to check that it's an appropriate transfer of best practice,  is done for a reason (to produce a measurable benefit), that all aspects of how it's transferred,  how feasible,  effective,  safe and all the other things we,  as engineers assure, it is in the new application,  applying adjustments if necessary,  and evaluated throughout its introduction and at completion to confirm the desired benefit has been achieved and engineering assurance achieved. 

    It wouldn't be sufficient to just copy and paste. 

    That's not necessarily exhaustive,  but it's one example of innovation that I, at least,  would accept. 

    Of course,  it could be argued that,  by doing so,  you have now defined/ written best practice for the new application, but it's important not to block out potential candidates by leaving then thinking the bar is higher than it really is, and I feel using the phrase "wrote best practice" threatens to do that
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    Simon,  well yes,  kind of.......

    But saying "wrote best practice" is a litke exaggerated.  Innovation could just as well be taking best practice (potentially written by others) and applying it in an alternative application,  scenario or industry. 

    You'd need to show that it had been fully thought through (by you!) to check that it's an appropriate transfer of best practice,  is done for a reason (to produce a measurable benefit), that all aspects of how it's transferred,  how feasible,  effective,  safe and all the other things we,  as engineers assure, it is in the new application,  applying adjustments if necessary,  and evaluated throughout its introduction and at completion to confirm the desired benefit has been achieved and engineering assurance achieved. 

    It wouldn't be sufficient to just copy and paste. 

    That's not necessarily exhaustive,  but it's one example of innovation that I, at least,  would accept. 

    Of course,  it could be argued that,  by doing so,  you have now defined/ written best practice for the new application, but it's important not to block out potential candidates by leaving then thinking the bar is higher than it really is, and I feel using the phrase "wrote best practice" threatens to do that
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