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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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    Incidentally,  I meant to mention in my earlier reply to Shijo that engineering management is not about budget - its about providing direction, support,  encouraging, developing and maintaining professional standards and,  as he says,  managing complexity.  I would suggest that one definition of complexity in this context is where there isn't one single approach and decision making is required to select the best approach.  It's possibly not the only definition though,  and that returns to the reason why interviewers need to be able to make a judgement. But one thing it isn't is budget,  signing timesheets,  or even allocating tasks,  unless that is coupled with engineering support, guidance and decision making,  not forgetting that you can delegate authority,  but not responsibility.
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    Incidentally,  I meant to mention in my earlier reply to Shijo that engineering management is not about budget - its about providing direction, support,  encouraging, developing and maintaining professional standards and,  as he says,  managing complexity.  I would suggest that one definition of complexity in this context is where there isn't one single approach and decision making is required to select the best approach.  It's possibly not the only definition though,  and that returns to the reason why interviewers need to be able to make a judgement. But one thing it isn't is budget,  signing timesheets,  or even allocating tasks,  unless that is coupled with engineering support, guidance and decision making,  not forgetting that you can delegate authority,  but not responsibility.
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