Challenges for Academics Applying for CEng

Here's my personal thoughts on these points:

Tariq Hussain said:

Demonstrating industry-relevant engineering practice while primarily working in teaching and research

Interesting one, if they cannot demonstrate this, and they are researching / lecturing in engineering, isn't that saying something interesting? If the answer is that they had gained that  experience in a pre-academic role, then that's fine - this competence does not have to have been gained in the current role. (It does need to have been maintained, but that should be straightforward.) But if they can't show industry relevant engineering practice at all then surely that suggests that CEng is not an appropriate registration anyway - as that is the point of CEng? 

Tariq Hussain said:

Evidencing competencies related to responsibility, leadership, and decision-making in real-world engineering contexts

I've recently been PRA'ing a recent ex-academic who has moved to industry in a software engineering role - most of their evidence of these competencies came from their academic career rather than their present role! If an academic is at the point in their career where CEng is the appropriate level then they will probably be taking at least some responsibility for the content of course modules, probably research funding applications, frequently student welfare or similar roles - there's more in that than many industry engineers have. 

Tariq Hussain said:

Aligning academic activities (teaching, supervision, research) with the required professional competencies

The first two are evidence of C competences, but absolutely they are probably not A and B evidence. Again that's not what CEng is intended to indicate. But if their research doesn't align with the As and Bs - again that probably suggests CEng isn't right for them. If engineering research doesn't meet the A competencies then is it really engineering research? I agree the B's can be trickier if it is research without an identified industrial application (it doesn't have to be immediate). But I'd ask in that case is it truly engineering research or is it science research? If it is engineering research it should be possible to show that the industrial needs and potential applications have been considered (at least in outline) which should be enough to satisfy the B competencies.

Tariq Hussain said:

Providing strong evidence for design, development, and implementation in practical settings

Plenty of successful CEng applicants can't show that. What the applicant needs to show is that they carry responsibility for engineering decisions - which could include responsibility for research decisions and direction.

Overall what I'd suggest is that this isn't an issue with UKSPEC or the IET process, but rather (and apologies for being a bit blunt here) one of the following dependent on the case:

•  Applicants not seeking advice from a PRA who can explain to them how to answer the actual "exam question" in the competencies, irrespective of the examples in UKSPEC (which are only examples), or
• Maybe if they can't show the competences the applicant isn't actually "an engineer" and is looking for the wrong certification? We do need to remember what the purpose of CEng is - to indicate those engineers who can be trusted to take final technical responsibility on significant technical decisions. If the applicant can show they can - and do - do that, then whatever their background and field a good PRA will be able to help them construct a robust application.

As usual, I agree with Andy.

Although I haven't PRA'd for any academics and I'm not a IET PRA (I'm an IfSE PRA), I seen a number of applications from people that worked for organisations that were involved in developing engineers (primarily technicians) but not actually delivering what might be considered as a "engineering project".

My view is that it has parallels with those that are engineering managers, who have the C's in bucketfuls but struggle with B's. In the extreme I know cases of engineering managers without any actual formal engineering qualifications (and yes, they were still good engineering managers).

The issue here is that you sometimes have to take a somewhat tangential view on the competencies in order to recognise where your experience matches with them. A good example is C1/C2, which talks about budgets. Budgets don't have to be money, they can be technical budgets such as power, mass, heat, etc. I'm sure someone can identify even more examples.

The question is, what are you engineering as an academic?

We don't only engineer physical products (although many of us do), but we also engineer processes and other systems. I would consider it quite valid to consider the design and delivery of an engineering course as a engineering project.

It may depend on what sort of academic we're talking about here.

I have known university lecturers with Chartered Engineer status.  They will have written up business cases for research projects, applied for funding, recuruited PhD students or postdoc researchers, and maganged the research projects.

This is essentially the same as an R&D group leader in industry. And nobody would claim that they couldn't be chartered.

I think it very much depends. I've met many a university lecturer that, not only where developing their own courses, but were engaged in research coming up with some very good engineering ideas. Mmany of them were CEng's (or similar) and for those that were not, they absolutely could be if they desired.

But I've also come across an academic, who wrote a book which we used as a course book for a project management course, that the content clearly indicated that they had done very little real world systems engineering. This is the pure science researcher. I would argue they lack certain engineering competencies, regardless of if they are a PhD or not. They probably would meet the requirements for Chartered status in a science domain, such as CPhys. Which I'm going to state, isn't a lower standard, but it has a different scope.

Although, i've come across similar cases with corporate trainers giving requirements courses! They often assume a perfection of stakeholder requirements that never exists.

I'd absolutely agree Simon, and further I've worked with many academics who get their funding from working on industrial projects where they basically form part of the partner's (e.g our) engineering team. In my original post I nearly said that all of the engineering academics I come across are actively engaged on industrial projects so wouldn't have a problem with any of this - but then realised that was a slightly silly statement since of course it's true by it's own definition! However, university funding being what it is, I wouldn't be surprised if a large proportion are.

Thanks Andy, really helpful points. I agree that the main issue is often not the process, but how applicants present their experience. In academia, many of these competencies do exist, but they are not always explained in the right way.

Your point about A/B and C competencies is very useful. I think academics especially struggle with showing real-world application and impact, particularly for B competencies when research is more theoretical. I also agree that speaking to a PRA early makes a big difference this is something I have seen as well.

Thanks Mark, that’s a really helpful perspective. I agree that academics need to take a broader view of the competencies and recognise that we are often engineering systems like courses, assessments, and learning processes. For example, C1 can include managing module resources, staff allocation, and assessment planning, while C2 can be shown through leading module teams, supervising projects, and mentoring staff. The experience is usually there the main challenge is presenting it clearly in an engineering context.