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“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.” – Goethe (1749–1832)
It is highly unlikely that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe had engineering in mind when he wrote these words. But he understood what was impor-tant to the advancement of Western culture and
civilisation; he was a polymath: a poet, a philosopher, a novelist, a playwright and an educator. And during his long life, he earned great respect and had a profound in-fluence over Western society.
With this quote Goethe unknowingly described the essence and substance of engineering. Engineers turn knowledge into application. They devise plans, they de-sign products and processes and they deliver results; they are the ultimate doers. But as we drill down further, we can appreciate that engineers are actually the bedrock be-hind innovation and, when circumstances permit, they
make excellent entrepreneurs. I will define what I mean by entrepreneurship and innovation.
The term entrepreneur was coined by Jean-Baptiste Say (1767-1832), a French contemporary of Goethe. Say was pilloried by Napoleon for his critique of Napoleon’s appalling fiscal policies and he was eventually relieved of his duties in the French Civil Service. He then became an entrepreneur/industrialist, based on cotton technol-ogy sourced, it is believed, from England; he set up a spinning-mill in France which eventually employed up to 500 people. Say became wealthy and then ended his illustrious career as Professor of Political Economy at the College de France in Paris. He expounded the doctrines of Adam Smith; he was a free trader and a proponent of both globalisation and minimal bureaucracy. However, he understood, beyond what was covered in Smith’s Wealth of Nations, that the entrepreneur was the per-son at centre stage to turn Smith’s theories into practice. He completely understood that entrepreneurs were the people who shifted economic resources out of an area of lower into an area of higher productivity and greater
Engineering, innovation and entrepreneurship
By Peter [email protected]
Statements and opinions presented in this publication are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of ATSE.
There is no copyright restriction on material published in ATSE Focus. It may be reproduced provided appropriate acknowledgement is given to the author and the Academy.
Production: www.coretext.com.au
In ThIs Issue: Contributors discuss the future of engineering education in Australia; introduce the 2006 national symposium and continue the GM products debate
NuMbER 141 AuSTRAlIAN ACAdEMy oF TEChNoloGICAl SCIENCES ANd ENGINEERING (ATSE)juNE 2006
honorary editor: dr d C Gibson FTSE Technical Consultant: dr Vaughan beck FTSE
AusTrAlIAn ACAdemy oF TeChnologICAl sCIenCes And engIneerIngAddress: Ian Mclennan house, 197 Royal Parade, Parkville Vic 3052Postal Address: Po box 355, Parkville Vic 3052
Telephone: 03 9340 1200 Facsimile: 03 9347 8237 email: [email protected] 008 520 394 AbN 58 008 520 394Print Post Publication No 341403/0025 ISSN 1326-8708
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yield. He stated that “entrepreneurial success is not only sought after by the individual but also essential to society as a whole. A country well stocked with intelligent merchants, manufacturers and agriculturists has more powerful means of attaining prosperity, than one devoted chiefly to the pur-suit of arts and sciences”.
Let me stress, additionally, that the essence of entre-preneurship is not risk taking but opportunity seeking; entrepreneurs create value by seeing a little further over the horizon than most, and they bring their ideas and plans to fruition.
Innovation is the essential link between an inven-tion or discovery and the delivery of that invention or discovery into the marketplace; innovation is not com-plete, however, until someone writes a cheque. In short, the innovation process is only complete when the prod-uct or procedure has been anointed by the marketplace. And without innovation there is no wealth creation and, as a consequence, no economic growth; simply put, the economic pie needs to be grown before it is sliced. In es-sence, advanced societies require innovation to survive and prosper over the long term. Furthermore, innova-tion is invariably based on technology and although the individuals who drive innovation are entrepreneurs, those who make the best entrepreneurs are people with a basic training in engineering.
The suggestion that engineers make optimal entre-preneurs came from Dr Michael Hammer, a former pro-fessor of computer science at MIT. Dr Hammer is now a consultant on business process improvement, as well as an author, and he also teaches at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. A number of years ago, he also wrote an influential book on re-engineering the corporation. More recently, in an article in Fortune, he wrote:
“The best qualification for innovation is a basic training in engineering. Engineers are taught that design matters; that most things are part of a system in which everything interacts; that their job is to worry about trade-offs and that they must continually be measuring the robustness of the systems they set up. Such a frame of mind fosters innovation. Many of the greatest corporate leaders in America, Europe and Japan, past and present, trained first as engineers.”
In my view, aptly put. Now, whether or not a corpo-ration is in its early stages or is at a mature phase, the only guarantee that the entity will succeed, or continue to suc-ceed, is for it to continually innovate. And that goes for a company the size of General Electric, with revenues of US$160 billion and a market capitalisation approaching US$4 billion. Parenthetically, ResMed, with a focus on
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cover story: engineering education
FRoM ThE EdIToREngineering is a creative profession. Engineers are neither scientists, nor technologists, nor motor mechanics. Few Australians have any idea what engineers are, what they do, or how important they are for the development of a nation. Engineers use scientific and technological knowledge and professional experience to create, design, fabricate and operate productive assets. They generate wealth for society.
during the 20th century Germany, Sweden, the uS, japan and South Korea built strong economies with the aid of powerful engineering and manufacturing industries. In Australia our construction and mining engineers were second to none; the results of their efforts are everywhere, but we have to look very hard to find highly engineered, value-added manufactures that originate here. Even Australia’s information technology advances are now developed offshore. during the 21st century China and India will follow and possibly overtake those that preceded them, but without change we can have little confidence that Australia will improve its ranking.
In a recent publication (People and Place, V13) dr bob birrell and Monash university colleagues drew attention to the severe shortage of professional engineers in Australia, and the accelerating decline in domestic undergraduate engineering student commencements since 2001. The situation seems to be getting worse, not better. The uS National Academy of Engineering in its publication The Engineer of 2020: Visions of Engineering in the new Century (www.nap.edu), says that in the past changes in the engineering profession and engineering education have followed changes in technology and society. disciplines were added and curricula were created to meet the critical challenges in society and to provide the workforce required to integrate new developments into our economy.
Today, as technology changes at an accelerating rate, we must ask if we can permit Australia’s engineering profession and engineering education to lag behind the rest of the developing world. The uS National Academy notes that technology has shifted the societal framework by lengthening our lifespans; enabling people to communicate in ways unimaginable in the past; and creating wealth and economic growth by bringing the virtues of innovation and enhanced functionality to the economy in ever-shorter product development cycles. Even more remarkable opportunities are fast approaching through new developments in nanotechnology, logistics, biotechnology and high-performance computing.
The educational and experiential needs of engineers are different to those of scientists. Professor Sir john horlock, FRS, a distinguished uK academic engineer, spoke once about investigations that the Cambridge engineering department had made to find factors, other than o-levels and A-levels, that help to identify successful engineering graduates at the time of their matriculation. Correlations of entrance and exit scores with interviews by tutors and student advisers revealed that by and large successful Cambridge engineering graduates were stable introverts. In the 21st century Australia will need engineers who are much more than that.
The education and development of our engineers to be more than just employees – to be risk takers, entrepreneurs and creative employers – is a challenge that Australia must meet if it is ever to become more than a farm for Europe and Asia, and a quarry for China. In Focus 141 several of our academic engineering Fellows and two of our most successful engineering entrepreneurs present a vision for their profession in the 21st century, and provide a compelling case for the future of engineering education in Australia. It is an important step down a very long road for the nation.
ATSE Focus responds to feedback from its readers, both positive and negative. Opinion pieces of between 800 and ��00 words on topics of national importance will be welcomed. Please address commentary, topics for examination and articles for publication by email to [email protected] , or by mail to The Editor at Academy Headquarters. Electronic communication is preferred.
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sleep-disordered breathing, has compounded, since in-ception, at 35 per cent at the top line and 40 per cent at the bottom line. We have been listed in the Forbes 200 Best Small Companies in America for nine consecutive years (1997-2005); and the data are hard to fudge, since it is based on the past five years of verifiable public data on return on equity, growth in revenues and growth in net profit after tax. And small, in the Forbes context, re-fers to revenues of less than or equal to US$750 million. We on the ResMed team are undeniably proud of this record; our aim is to extend it.
In the context of Dr Hammer’s remarks on engineers and entrepreneurship, it is noteworthy that the legendary chairman and CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch, is a PhD chemical engineer (Illinois), and the founder and long-serving chairman and CEO of Intel, Andy Grove, is also a PhD chemical engineer (UC, Berkeley). Nei-ther man has formal business qualifications yet they give regular talks, for example, at business schools within Harvard, Stanford and MIT. The just retired chairman and CEO of Exxon Mobil, Lee Raymond, is also a PhD chemical engineer (Minnesota), as were most of the re-cent heads of du Pont.
The current chairman and CEO of Dow Chemi-cals, Australian Andrew Liveris, a US$36 billion glo-bal chemical and plastics manufacturer, is a chemical engineer (Queensland), as is Chris Roberts, one of my former students at UNSW, who is the current CEO of Cochlear and a ResMed Board member. There are many other examples which I could quote. Finally, my earned degrees are also in chemical engineering (Sydney, MIT, Washington [Seattle]); I regard chemical engineering as the arts degree of technology. Having said that, a number of us have committed substantial funds to an initiative in innovation and entrepreneurship at the AGSM , which will involve the UNSW engineering faculty, to try to stimulate some traction in these important areas; we hope others will follow in our footsteps at other Austral-ian tertiary institutions.
Chemical engineering is naturally the engineering area with which I have the most familiarity; there are clearly many examples of highly successful aeronautical, electrical and mechanical engineers who have initiated and successfully run large and important businesses. For example, Henry Nicolas III, founder of the communica-tions and semi-conductor giant Broadcom, is an electri-cal engineering PhD from UCLA, while Bob Metcalfe, the legendary founder of the ethernet (which allowed multiple PCs to communicate with each other), is an MIT electrical engineer with a PhD in computer science from Harvard. He also founded 3COM and was for a
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time chairman and CEO of the company. In the same vein, Irwin Jacobs, a PhD electrical engineer from MIT, and a former academic at both MIT and UCSD, started the telecommunications giant QUALCOMM while on the faculty at UCSD; he recently retired as CEO but has remained chairman. It is also worth pointing out that all three of these entrepreneurs are billionaires as well as significant philanthropists, particularly Jacobs, who has been very generous, inter alia, to MIT, UCSD and vari-ous San Diego-based museums and cultural institutes. And there is no need for me to emphasise the pivotal importance which mining engineers played in the devel-opment of Australia’s iron ore, steel and other mineral industries.
Before joining Baxter Healthcare in 1984, I was founder and director of the Graduate School for Bio-medical Engineering at UNSW. Several of my former students at UNSW joined me later at ResMed when it was bought from Baxter in 1989. These included Dr Klaus Schindhelm, Dr Phil Hone, Walter Flicker (UNSW, mechanical engineering), Dr Michael Hallett, Dr Chris Roberts (CEO/Cochlear) and Greg Brewer (UNSW, electrical engineering). Dr Schindhelm, like me a Visiting Professor at UNSW in biomedical engi-neering, is still at ResMed as a senior vice president in charge of advanced technology; and Greg Brewer largely oversees our Japanese and Asian business development activities. It has been a great pleasure to work with these former students.
To summarise, engineers are the drill-down back-bone of wealth creation, without which we cannot have a truly equitable, fair and just society. Disappointingly, the Australian tertiary system under-produces engineers, across all engineering disciplines. Ironically, we do not do too badly with the production of scientists; but scientists are quite unlike engineers. Science tends to be universal by nature; results are meant to be shared, as soon as prac-ticable, with fellow scientists on a global basis, prima-rily through peer-reviewed publications and appropriate conferences.
In contrast, for engineers the focus tends to be more local than global and there is, in general, a specific prob-
‘ Without innovation there is no wealth creation and, as a consequence, no economic growth’
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“I’m an engineer and I think everyone should be an engineer. I have a feeling that there are probably other life choices that are as valid as that. But other people should advocate those. I will advocate science and technology, particularly engineering, engineering being slightly different than being a scientist in the grand scheme of things.
“So I recommend it. It’s a great life. Solving problems. Developing mastery over subjects.”
I couldn’t put it more succinctly.
dr Peter C Farrell Am FTseFounder of ResMed Inc. and Chairman and CEO since �989. Dr Farrell sits on various public (Nuvasive, Pharmaxis) and non-profit (Harvard, MIT, UCSD and UNSW) boards. He was Australian Professional Engineer of the Year in �99� and received the David Dewhurst Award from the Institution of Engineers, Australia in �997. He was Australian Entrepreneur of the Year in �00� and US Entrepreneur of the Year for Health Sciences in �005.
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lem to be addressed, with an associated benefit for find-ing a solution. Scientists also focus on problems, but the problems tend to be more generic by nature, and the ex-istence of an immediate benefit is not a necessary driver or focus of their activities.
Engineers turn theory into practice and our academ-ic institutions must never lose sight of the importance of introducing practical experience into the engineering curriculum, as soon as is practical. Engineering is not only an honourable profession, it is vital to our contin-ued prosperity as a nation.
In short, we cannot afford to continue to under-invest in engineering education. I will leave the final comment to Dr Metcalfe. Bob is still very active on the technology front, in writing and mentoring and in com-puting and computer-related technology. Metcalfe said during an interview five years ago:
generATIonAl ChAnge And ITs ImPACT on engIneers
By Archie [email protected]
Succession planning for replenishment of the na-tional community of engineers is vital but has received scant attention in the past. The demand for science and mathematics in schools, engi-
neering programs in universities and for some crucial engineering disciplines nationally is not encouraging.
These trends become even more worrying when the current skills shortage in Australia is considered. It is therefore timely to reflect on the reasons that underpin these trends as well as review communication strategies between the engineering community and young people.
Recent studies, for example Henry, A. Motivat-ing and managing different generations at work, ‘Skill-ing Australia’, Australian Financial Review conference, Melbourne, September 2005, suggest that generational differences can be categorised into four groups.
Veterans were born prior to 1946, grew up during wartime, tend to be disciplined and respect law and or-der, like consistency, directive, command and control style and prefer formality rather than informality, with communication either face-to-face or by phone.by phone.phone.
Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964, are open-minded, were rebellious in their youth and con-servative in their 30s and 40s, are optimistic, ambitious, loyal, believe that job status and symbols are important and espouse values of inclusive leadership.
Table 1: generation X attributes and characteristics compared with current professional engineering normsGENERATIONAl ATTRIbUTES/CHARACTERISTICS FOR GENERATION X
ENGINEERING CAREER ATTRIbUTES AND ATTRACTIONS
born between �965 and �979, often had both parents working; are resourceful, individualistic, self reliant and irreverent
Valued strengths in many engineering settings
like to focus in the workplace on relationships and outcomes
Possible weakness in the area of relationships and people skills
Not interested in long term careers, corporate loyalty or status symbols
Seems a problem for engineering at first glance, but engineering might actually be an enabling component in some careers
Easy to recruit and hard to retain Reverse is true. Students are hard to recruit but relatively easy to keep; hard to recruit because engineering enabling courses (science and mathematics) are perceived as harder options at school and university compared with those linked to business and law.
Informal recognition is appreciated
Should be able to accommodate
Effective leadership Need to showcase engineering role models
Give them multiple tasks but allow them to set priorities
Easy to accommodate in engineering contexts
Need opportunities to learn new skills
Strong suit of engineering, need to package effectively
like to be asked for their reactions and opinions
Some workplace cultural adjustment needed
Tell them what needs to be done, but not how
Improve culture
Regular honest feedback and mentoring/coaching
Improve culture
Want managers to live up to espoused values
Improve culture
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engineering education
Generation X and Y are the remaining groups and they are described in Tables 1 and 2.
Are the current engineering leaders (generally Veter-ans and Boomers) communicating the benefits to future potential engineering professionals (who will come from generations X and Y)?
To answer this question the attributes/characteristics of these groups need to be understood and assessed in terms of engineering career attributes, as shown in Tables 1 and 2.
The demand trends for engineering places in uni-versities has declined in some disciplines (software and telecommunications) and increased in others (civil). A number of factors are responsible for the flat demand for engineering enabling subjects at schools and these in-clude limited perceptions about likely careers, the fear of mathematics, the apparent lack of appeal of subject con-tent, modes of delivery, enthusiasm and base knowledge of teachers.
Inspecting the characteristics of the younger genera-tions and the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the engineering profession described above, three observa-tions can be made:¢�engineering careers have rich latent potential for
young people; ¢�in areas of particular strength the engineering com-
munity needs to better communicate about current Australian role models; and
¢�the engineering profession needs to harmonise its workplace cultures with those of the young. Impressive Australian role models include:
Dr Peter Farrell (chemical and biomedical engineer), one of Australia’s great technological entrepreneurs who took an Australian invention internationally through ResMed Inc and became the global leader in its field. Tim Besley, a civil engineer and barrister-at-law whose career has covered engineering, government, business and academia, is chairman of the Australian Research Council and the Wheat Export Authority. Ross Fowler (MBA and BEng) is managing director for Cisco Systems’ operations in Australia and New Zealand and has responsibility for Cisco’s sales and marketing activities in two of the company’s best performing loca-tions in the Asia Pacific region.Bruce Grey is the group managing director of the Bish-op Technology Group Limited, which has trebled in size and has offices in Sydney, the US and Germany.
Young people are conscious of image and have poor perceptions of careers in professional engineering, which are seen as having a narrow technical focus, to be lacking in opportunities to springboard into other careers, and
being for people who are only strong in mathematics and physics and who are not particularly ‘people-focused’.
Where these perceptions are false, they need to be changed by education and exposure to the profession’s greatest exponents. Where they are true, the profession needs to change its educational, developmental and pro-fessional practices.
Professor Archie JohnstonA Fellow of Engineers Australia and identified as one of EA’s top �00 most influential engineers in �00� and �005. He is Dean of Engineering at the University of Technology Sydney; President of the Australian Council of Engineering Deans; member of the Steering Committee for the Australian Government’s Science, Engineering and Technology skills audit; and; has recently been appointed as an Advisory Professor to the prestigious Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China.
Table 2: generation y attributes and characteristics compared with current professional engineering normsGENERATIONAl ATTRIbUTES/CHARACTERISTICS FOR GENERATION Y
ENGINEERING CAREER ATTRIbUTES AND ATTRACTIONS
born after �980; have similar values to veterans – optimistic, confident, sociable, strong morals and sense of civic duty
Highlight suitable veteran role models who would harmonise with these generational groups
Expect greater workplace flexibility
Should be no better or worse than other professions
Think differently to other members of the workforce
Vital characteristic of innovators and entrepreneurs
Communicate informally through email and hallway conversations
Should be no better or worse than other professions
Inspiring leadership Highlight successful engineering leaders
Need an environment that respects skills, creativity and entrepreneurial flair
Generally strong in Engineering but needs effective communication
Must have access to the most up-to-date technology and state of the art training
Strong suit for engineering
Need to know their goals and how they fit into the big picture
Improve communication about the contextual setting of engineering projects
See leader more as a coach and less as a boss
Change in culture needed
Need a supportive environment which encourages new ideas, and gives regular constructive feedback
Cultural adjustment needed
‘The engineering profession needs to harmonise its workplace cultures with those of the young’
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other 37 per cent was derived from externally funded research, trusts and other external sources yielded seven per cent, while the government contribution for under-graduate students and for research totalled 31 per cent. Thus, 69 per cent of the total income of the faculty is externally derived. This contrasts with the situation in the late sixties when almost all the income was derived from government. Thus, approximately 50 per cent of the operational resources (not including external re-search grants) are directly derived from full fee-paying students. At the same time, 75 per cent of the students do double degrees.
The movement away from the single, four-year en-gineering degree by the bulk of our students has been telling us for a long time that the students are looking for a broader education and perhaps more choice.
There is another side to the coin. In addition to the attitude of teaching and research staff changing, so has the attitude of students, and so has the marketplace. The attitudes of the current undergraduate students have changed dramatically since the sixties. On the positive side the students are much better informed.
There is, however, an expectation of passing, inde-pendent of performance; failure rates have decreased dramatically in an era of not necessarily improved teaching. Students have significantly greater expecta-tions of staff which they did not have in the past (they now pay for their education); students are very good at manipulating software but are much less interested in learning the underlying principles; often they do not understand the physical picture well enough to realise that they have made a significant error.
This is all part of a cultural change which has taken place in the era of instant gratification. Students read less, expect complete sets of lecture notes, and are less likely to persevere. This all sounds like an old person saying “things are not like the good old days”. The pre-vailing attitudes of both teaching/research staff and the undergraduate students are simply a reflection of the environment in which they live.
During this same period the market has changed significantly. Employers now want graduates who can communicate well; graduates who can appreciate di-versity; graduates who are committed to a lifetime of learning; graduates who can not only tolerate change but can drive change. We should be moving towards problem-based learning. Peter Drucker said it rather well: “We will redefine what it means to be an educated person. Traditionally an educated person was some-
engIneerIng eduCATIon – A PersonAl PersPeCTIve
By david [email protected]
T here has been a great shift in the engineering culture in Australian universities from the late 1960s, when I first arrived in Australia at Monash University, until today. In the late six-
ties, extending perhaps into the seventies, the culture was dominated by the undergraduate students and teaching. External performance measures were hardly applied, other than the quality of the undergraduate students, the number of graduates, etc.
Today many universities have evolved into research-intensive institutions. Success is measured on the pro-duction of new knowledge, publication in the most prestigious journals, the extent to which external fund-ing can be developed and the impact the research has had. In these institutions research cannot be conducted without external support. These research measures dominate the management of a modern research-inten-sive university in Australia and in much of the rest of the world. In fact, international rankings are based to a large extent (although not entirely) on research-related measures which include peer review. These research-re-lated measures dominate attitudes in regard to hiring, promotion and, often, survival in the system. Australia has caught up with the great research institutions of the world in this regard. Thus a research-intensive Austra-lian engineering faculty shares the challenges associated with engineering education in other parts of the world, particularly in the US.
The emphasis on research in Australian universities, with continued decreasing government funding and relatively static teaching and research staff numbers, has meant that less time and effort has been devoted to undergraduate teaching and on the development of innovative undergraduate programs. Many people will argue and say this is not true, but in fact we have been driven by the research initiative and, in Australia in particular, by the number of bums we can place on seats, particularly full fee-paying bums, to make up the shortfall in government funding.
Current issues and changes in Australia, and in par-ticular in engineering education, influence to a large extent how a faculty will survive a declining govern-ment contribution. At the University of Melbourne in 2005 in the Engineering Faculty, 25 per cent of the income was derived from full fee-paying students, an-
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one who had a prescribed stock of formal knowledge [a current graduate]. Increasingly, an educated person will be someone who has learned how to learn and who continues learning through his or her own lifetime [the future graduate]. Basically, the engineering curriculum of the future must reflect the very significant change in the market. The new curriculum will have less emphasis on science, for example physics, more emphasis on biol-ogy, less emphasis on technical material, more emphasis on humanities, arts and social sciences, less emphasis on analysis and more emphasis on synthesis.”
The future engineer will have to integrate knowl-edge from the natural sciences with that of the social sciences and humanities.
Clearly the traditional, almost entirely technically based Australian engineering degree must change and is changing. It will be broader and reflect the broad in-fluence of biological sciences, the need for an education involving humanities and social sciences, and the needs in regard to communication skills. The path shown in Figure 1, from the work done at the University of Michigan, reflects a possible path for an engineering career. What is absent in the pyramid is formal com-munication training, which needs to be an element throughout the entire course.
There is a great deal of argument these days about systems, that is, should departments disappear, should we go to entirely new systems. I firmly believe that the
departmental structure and the four-year degree need to remain intact but what badly needs changing is the contents of the course, to reflect the needs of the mar-ketplace and in fact the needs of the students. Students are rightly critical of current engineering courses as they can be irrelevant and sometimes boring. We need to smarten up our act and do a better job. My intention is not to point the finger at any one group in terms of blame, but basically to suggest that we accept the fact that there have been huge changes in staff attitudes, student attitudes and the marketplace while the basic engineering degree has really changed very little. It is time for a significant re-evaluation of engineering edu-cation, which is already taking place in many parts of the world.
An ancient Chinese proverb says it all: I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand. Problem-based learning will form the basis for engi-neering education in the future.
Professor david Boger FTse laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne, Professor of Chemical Engineering and immediate past Director of the Particulate Fluids Processing Centre (a Special Research Centre of the Australian Research Council). His research is in non-Newtonian fluid mechanics with interests ranging from basic polymer and particulate fluid mechanics to applications in the minerals, coal, oil, food, and polymer industries. Professor boger has received numerous awards, including the Prime Minister’s Prize for Science in �005.
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ProFessIonAl PrACTICe
Civil engineering mechanical engineering Chemical engineering electrical engineering other engineering
materials Thermodynamics mechanics systems social sciences
mathematics Physics Chemistry Biology humanities
The eduCATIon PyrAmId
An engineering education
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looKIng BACK To looK ForWArd
By mark [email protected]
D espite a number of reviews of engineering education, including a major review in the 1990s, engineering education, at least at the undergraduate levels, seems to have changed
little since my own somewhat unspectacular days as an undergraduate more than 40 years ago. The view that huge amounts of content are essential still prevails and the emphasis on continuous assessment in addition to final examinations leads to very little time for learning or researching a topic, let alone time for other activi-ties that broaden the young engineer. This emphasis on content and over-assessment must be reversed if we wish to attract greater numbers of talented and enthu-siastic school-leavers into our degree programs.
One of the important aspects of a university degree is the nexus between teaching and research. This gener-ally refers to the importance of academic staff conduct-ing their own research programs in order to inform their teaching. However, this emphasis on research frequent-ly leads to a major problem for the education process in that engineering academics are generally appointed on the basis of prior research performance, with almost no reference to practical engineering experience. Their courses therefore generally over-emphasise engineering science.
As an aside, one of my senior colleagues informed me that “we train undergraduates who get admitted for PhDs at MIT”. My reply was that very few of our gradu-ates wish to study for a PhD and that we should give greater emphasis on the needs for training professional engineers. There is also the other aspect of the nexus between teaching and research, and that is the involve-ment of undergraduates in research, not only in their fi-nal-year project but throughout their degree programs. Most surveys, both formal and informal, suggest that very little of this experience takes place. Brendon Park-er at UNSW has established the ‘Taste of Research’ summer scholarships, which offer more than 55 schol-
arships each summer for undergraduates from all over Australia to work in some of the leading research labo-ratories in the faculty. For more information, see www.eng.unsw.edu.au/current/scholar/tasteof.htm.
The areas most under-represented in undergradu-ate programs are entrepreneurship, management and design. It is very pleasing to note that some of our lead-ing entrepreneurs, led by Peter Farrell and Gary Zamel, have generously provided significant funds to establish a Centre for Innovation, Commercialisation and En-trepreneurship at the Australian Graduate School of Management at UNSW. As one of its goals, the cen-tre will deliver courses in entrepreneurship and inno-vation to undergraduate and postgraduate students in engineering programs at UNSW. There are increasing numbers of students enrolling in combined Bachelor of Engineering/Bachelor of Commerce programs around Australia but frequently the compromises made in the curricula for the combined programs are not optimal.
One of the most successful programs combining engineering and management is at my alma mater, McMaster University in Canada, where the highly suc-cessful Engineering and Management programs have produced more than 1300 graduates in the five-year undergraduate BEngMgt degrees since 1975. These degrees are offered in nine engineering disciplines and combine “the best of both worlds, providing students with a full engineering curriculum, as well as training in communication skills and project management”. The graduates from these programs have higher employ-ment rates and higher starting salaries than graduates with traditional engineering degrees. BEngMgt pro-grams should be given greater consideration here in Australia, particularly if courses in entrepreneurship and innovation are included. For more details go to www.eng.mcmaster.ca/engandmgt/index.html.
The other area that is frequently neglected or under-emphasised in the BE programs is design. It is pleasing to note that Brendon Parker is driving change at UNSW to see a greater emphasis on design. Again, it is the empha-sis of engineering science in the appointment and pro-motion processes that leads to a lack of suitably qualified
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‘The areas most under-represented in undergraduate programs are entrepreneurship, management and design’
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academic staff with design experience. This will only be overcome when design is appropriately recognised as a scholarly activity, which it can and should be.
On reflection it appears that I have dwelt too much on the past and not enough on the future in my mus-ings. The past has been largely successful, with Austral-ian engineering graduates being recognised as some of the best in the world. However, the changing demands on young people need to be recognised, as does the availability of excellent learning materials online.
Therefore, in future engineering programs should meet these needs with greater emphasis on self-learn-ing rather than face-to-face classroom teaching and far fewer assessments. Five-year programs with an empha-sis on business in its broadest sense, including entre-preneurship and innovation as well as creative design, should become more widespread in order to develop young engineers who will contribute to wealth creation and the wellbeing of the nation.
Finally, the future should include far more women in the engineering cohorts. Women constitute more
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than 50 per cent of the enrolments in Australian univer-sities, whereas the percentage of women in engineering programs is less than 14 per cent. The other professions such as law and medicine, which attract larger numbers of students in the top one per cent of the HSC cohorts, have more than 50 per cent women in their enrolments. Engineering cannot afford to miss out on this talented group and renewed emphasis must be made to attract more of them. Combined degree programs and BEng-Mgt degrees should help.
Professor mark Wainwright Am FTse Appointed Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of New South Wales in July �00�. He holds an Honours Degree in Applied Chemistry and a Master of Applied Science in Chemical Engineering from the University of Adelaide, a PhD in Chemical Engineering from McMaster University in Canada and a DSc for his research into skeletal catalysts from the University of South Australia. His academic career at UNSW commenced in �97�. In �99� he was appointed Dean of Australia’s largest Faculty of Engineering, a position he held until the end of �000. During �998 and �999 he was also Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research). He has served on the boards of a number of Cooperative Research Centres.
A PersonAl vIeW oF engIneerIng eduCATIon
By roger [email protected]
Nowadays an overwhelming amount of infor-mation about innovative teaching techniques flies around, but I believe this addresses only a small part of the issues involved in the for-
mation of engineers. My comments will be concen-trated elsewhere, on the more basic ingredients. My comments will encompass enthusiasm, relations with industry, the need to be technically competent and the need to be able to communicate with others.
The machines I saw as a child in the English coun-tryside (including especially, steam traction engines!) intrigued me greatly and caused me to become a keen maker and modeller of working steam engines, boats, aeroplanes and tractors. This enthusiasm for machines made me decide to leave school at 16 years of age and become an aeronautical engineering apprentice with the Bristol Aero Engine Company (now part of Rolls-Royce). At that time (1950–53) the company was ending its production of new piston aero engines (culminating in the magnificent 18-cylinder Bristol Centaurus) and was beginning on gas turbine design as a new exciting venture. This was a high-tech company
that took care of its apprentices, and so we were sent one day a week to Bristol Technical College. I enjoyed the practical work on engine production, the design work and also the Technical College. Eventually, the company gave me a scholarship to Bristol University to study mechanical engineering.
At the university there were several of us who had been apprentices. We all felt that our degree studies had benefited from our previous experience of engi-neering, and we all did well at university. Thus the first thing that students of engineering need, in my view, is a genuine interest in and enthusiasm for technology; it is necessary that they have the ability to see a connection between what is taught and what is done in practice. It is difficult to insert this into academic courses, but an attempt must be made, and it can be done.
Looking at relations with industry, already touched on above, it is clear that exposure to active profession-als (carefully chosen!) can be helpful in enlivening in-struction; getting help from the right busy people is an art. These practitioners can also give vital feedback on course content to the academic community. However, one should not expect infallibility from industry pun-dits. For example, in 1896 Professor Warren wrote to a leading NSW technology company to get suggestions on what should be taught in the new mechanical engi-
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neering course at the University of Sydney. The princi-pal recommendation that came back was that graduates should be experts in managing fires in steam boilers. While this may well have been a pressing problem to the company, it had too narrow a focus to be taken seri-ously, and it was not. Hopefully we can do better these days. Relations between Engineers Australia and aca-demics are not as close as they should be. Many young engineers and academics find the fees quite high and in return they seem to get little satisfaction.
Technical competence is a must, and course content must be kept up to date. However, my favourite basic subject still is mechanics – statics and dynamics. Students find this testing because it requires an understanding of the physical problem; establishment of a suitable model; a solution; and the ability to reach conclusions from the solution. This demands many-step problem solving, not the straightforward one-step solutions often seen in school curricula. Mathematics is another art that needs to be cultivated and kept up to date. There is a certain dustiness about some courses, and unfortunately, some of the same old questions continue to appear in recent exams, despite the fact that every integral that is solvable can now be done by machine. On the other hand, some creative ideas (Fourier series, matrix algebra) are associ-ated with new technology, and should not be omitted.
I would plead for continuing substantial laboratory and project work – virtual engineering is not the same as the real thing. Industry-linked projects are particu-larly valuable. As far as the curriculum goes, I do not be-lieve the details are as important as the breadth. Since one has absolutely no idea what problems will need to be solved by any given graduate, the courses should aim at breadth. Provided a graduate can read, learn and un-derstand well, he or she can deepen understanding as required. Learning is the key.
Finally I turn to communication. Regarding my own university experience and those of my formerly ap-prenticed fellow-students, it was found that our time in industry had a drawback – we had (almost) forgotten
how to write during the six to eight years since finishing English at secondary school. This was discovered dur-ing our final year, when all engineering students had to take a compulsory course in English taught by a patient member of the English department. He discovered that I could write grammatically, had an adequate vocabu-lary and could spell well but that the ideas were not laid out in a logical order. The course permitted a most hum-bling and useful rectification of a fault I did not suspect I had. Many students have such faults and these need to be rectified. In some cases instruction in the mechanics of language may also be necessary. Good writing needs lots of practice and constructive criticism.
Sketching and more formal drawing, with or with-out a computer, are also part of creative engineering and communication. Finally, oral presentation is so impor-tant in getting one’s ideas across to others. Awareness of this aspect has improved recently, so I will not elaborate.
In short, communication, in all forms, is a most, if not the most, important part of any education, includ-ing engineering education. From beginning to end, one is faced with the need to persuade others that what you propose and wish to do is correct, important and worth funding. To be persuasive one must be able to commu-nicate with one’s colleagues and superiors – often they will seem to be quite opaque (even stupid). I rate com-munication as the most useful skill for engineers – be it in writing, reading, drawing or oral communication. In-cidentally, I consider that the writing of a long, original, coherent research thesis is one of the very best features of traditional PhD degrees.
Recently we have management, financial consider-ations, intellectual property rights and so on making their way into engineering curricula. As long as they cause students to write more, I have no real problem. (Plagiarism, especially via the internet, has somehow to be contained in such subjects; this is not an easy prob-lem). Similarly, industrial relations can be interesting, but can be politically biased. However, too lopsided an accent on these ‘commonsense’ subjects is not what draws many students to university engineering studies – they generally want to be technical wizards, at least at the beginning. We must satisfy this desire, but, in the end, they must learn to communicate effectively.
Professor roger Tanner Frs FAA FTse P N Russell Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Sydney since �975. He has a bSc (Mech Eng) from bristol University (UK), an MS (Elec Eng) from the University of California (berkeley) and a PhD from Manchester University (UK). He works mainly on polymer processing and rheology and belongs to both Chemical and Mechanical Colleges of Engineers Australia.
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‘I would plead for continuing substantial laboratory and project work – virtual engineering is not the same as the real thing’
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neW Issues oF mAsTery And gloBAlIsATIon
By John [email protected]
O ver the past two decades there has been much debate about the future of engineering edu-cation in Australia. A lot has been achieved. We have an active Australasian Association
for Engineering Education. Curricula now address the non-technical aspects of professional engineering and a widely accepted set of graduate attributes. In presenta-tion of courses, we have moved from ‘chalk and talk’ to IT-based delivery of lectures and resources, and project-centred learning is widely accepted as best practice. But we have new issues of globalisation and discipline mas-tery to debate.
The PastThe first major review of engineering education resulted in the Williams Committee Report of 1988. The general conclusion was “that Australia has a fairly good system of engineering education that should be made better”. Recommendations addressed the need for more empha-sis on communication skills, the human element in tech-nology, and program content and delivery that enhance enrolments, retention and motivation.
The Williams Review also looked at enrolments in master’s degrees, found that they lagged well behind enrolments in the US, Canada, Japan and the UK, and argued that more use should be made of master’s degrees “as a natural extension of the first degree”.
The second national review reported in 1996 with the title Changing the Culture. It placed much emphasis on a need for engineering education to develop the tech-nical capability of graduates and their understanding of the social, economic and environmental consequences of their professional activities. It advocated development of broad graduate attributes and concentration on measures of successful education. It also argued for diversity in the focus on breadth versus depth in BE programs, to meet the wide range of career opportunities and students’ in-terests. . This was taken up by Engineers Australia in the development of new accreditation guidelines.
I was close to the 1996 review. Our thinking was in-fluenced considerably by a US report which was driving changes to the US accreditation system. We reported that the four-year engineering degree structure was “adequate to prepare many graduates to a basic level of competence and orientation for conventional practice and recogni-tion”. Five- and six-year double degrees programs (with
science, arts, law, commerce, economics and business management) were seen as appropriate for those students who wished to give added breadth and flexibility to their education. Because course enrolment overload was gen-erally required, the content of the BE degree component was barely affected. By 1996, coursework master’s degree enrolments by Australian students were declining and received little attention in the review.
The PresentThe present system of engineering education in Australia is well regarded by industry, overseas students and the Washington Accord group of countries through which our BE degrees are accredited internationally. However, I believe our system is being affected by new issues, in-cluding: ¢�increasing reliance on international and domestic
full-fee income;¢�declining quality of high school preparation for engi-
neering study;¢�expanding interest among students in pursu-
ing breadth and flexibility in university education through wide uptake of double-degree programs, in which engineering content has been reduced follow-ing abolition of required enrolment overloading;
¢�declining entry cut-off scores to BE programs in a number of universities;
¢�negligible support of coursework master’s degrees by employers, and the imposition of full fees for Austra-lian students; and
¢�declining female enrolments. I am uneasy. I believe we are acceding to too much
provision for a broad education. There is a clear need for engineering graduates with a broad education, but the trend is towards this becoming the norm. Australia needs more graduates with discipline mastery than we presently produce. I have experience in the US aerospace industry, where a master’s degree is widely accepted as an impor-tant step in the development of a career in engineering. When our BE programs are being pressured at the start by deteriorating high school preparation in the enabling sciences and mathematics, and at the end by growth of double-degree enrolments, can we comfort ourselves with the recognition that undergraduate study is only a part of career development? I think not, given the explo-sion of complex new engineering disciplines and the need for Australia to excel in terms of international competi-tiveness, innovation and engineering leadership.
The FutureGlobalisation is resulting in mobility of students and
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professional engineers. Europe is endeavouring to ac-commodate this with the Bologna Process for increased standardisation of degree structures. The two-stage pro-cess of an undergraduate degree (typically three years) followed by a master’s degree (typically two years) has the added aims, in the engineering context, of ensuring discipline mastery and preparation for responsibility and leadership in society.
A decade after Australia’s 1996 review of engineer-ing education, new directions are again being proposed in the US. Two reports from the National Academy of Engineering present a vision of the engineer of 2020 and radical recommendations for change to the system of education. Much of the thrust of the second of these US reports is summarised in the following extract:
At the heart of the issues is, I believe, the word ‘pro-fessional’. For decades now, Australian engineers have bemoaned the lack of value that the public puts on their ‘professional’ status, even though there is clearly no one in society above senior engineers to understand fully and to develop the ‘engineering’ in the nation’s large en-gineering projects and engineering innovation. Stature will not change with our present system of education. We must keep an open mind to developments in the US and Europe that put emphasis on a master’s degree. The UK might be hesitant about the Bologna Process, but some of its universities have recently moved to a master’s degree for professional recognition.
In the belief that our present funding model is un-sustainable in the context of their particular aspirations, some Australian universities are looking hard at bringing the structure of their programs more in line with those in Europe, not only to enhance student mobility, but also to position themselves for growth in overseas and full fee-paying Australian students’ enrolments. Some of these universities are considering engineering education struc-
tures that are based on a liberal three-year undergraduate degree containing an engineering stream, followed by a two-year master’s to provide for discipline mastery and professional leadership. In such changed structures, dou-ble undergraduate degrees would be abolished, but the career flexibility they provide would be retained.
Debate of these possible changes has been put on the national political agenda by the Minister for Education, Science and Training. I have difficulty with our system which through HECS encourages dual undergraduate degrees and consequent breadth of education, but dis-courages the BE/ME combination for discipline mastery through imposition of full fees for the master’s.
Structural change will be difficult and expensive, and care will be needed to avoid exacerbating the engineering skills shortage. Care will also be needed to ensure that graduates from a liberal undergraduate degree have both wide university and career options and an appropriate foundation for master’s degree study in engineering.
Given that Australia has engineering master’s pro-grams that are becoming increasingly attractive to over-seas students, and a four-year undergraduate degree structure which is internationally accredited and which has satisfied industry’s needs for a long time, many Aus-tralian universities will no doubt stay with the present engineering education structure for some time. Others may change.
I see a strong case for diversity. With our nation re-quiring innovative engineering leadership and sustain-able funding for our education system, we must now review that system with an open mind to overseas de-velopments, in order to maintain quality, international competitiveness and the graduation of sufficient engi-neers with discipline mastery. Ten years ago, the Acad-emy, the Council of Engineering Deans and Engineers Australia rose to the challenge. We must regroup.
Further reading:The Engineer of 2020: Visions of Engineering in the New Century (2004) National Academies Press, Washington, dC. http://www.nap.edu/openbook/0309091624/html/1.htmlEducating the Engineer of 2020: Adapting Engineering Education to the New Century (2005) National Academies Press, Washington, dC. http://w ww.nap.edu/openbook/0309096499/html/51.htmlww.nap.edu/openbook/0309096499/html/51.htmlThe Bologna Process and Australia: Next Steps (2006) department of Education, Science and Training, Australian Government, Canberra. http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/higher_education/publications_resources/profiles/bologna_Process_and_Australia.htm
Professor John m simmons FTse Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Queensland, after �� years as Dean and Head of School. His bSc, bE and PhD from the University of Sydney were followed by periods in the US aerospace industry and at the University of New South Wales. He initiated the �996 national review of engineering education while president of the Australian Council of Engineering Deans. He is on ATSE’s Education Strategy Forum.
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“Industry and professional societies should recognise and reward the distinction between an entry-level engineer and an engineer who has mastered an engineering discipline’s ‘body of knowledge’ through further formal education or self-study followed by examination. The engineering education establishment must also adopt a broader view of the value of an engineering education to include providing a ‘liberal’ engineering education to those students who will use it as a springboard for other career pursuits, such as business, medicine, or law. Adequate depth in a specialised area of engineering cannot be achieved in a baccalaureate degree. To promote the stature of the profession, engineering schools should create accredited ‘professional’ master’s degree programs intended to expand and improve the skills and enhance the ability of an engineer to practise engineering.”
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FIve yeArs To ComPleTe A BAsIC engIneerIng eduCATIon
By rob evans and Iven [email protected]
The University of Melbourne is contemplating the introduction of a new engineering curricu-lum leading to a Master of Engineering (ME) qualification after five years of study. The ever-
broadening curricula, accompanied by a lack of speciali-sation in the sciences and mathematics at high school, combined with the requirements to deliver a profession-al, internationally recognised engineering qualification, are the main drivers. Add to this the desire to graduate engineers that are seriously internationally competitive in the labour market, and it is our thesis that the transi-tion to a five-year integrated engineering curriculum is inevitable.
Advances in engineering and technology underpin our present standard of living. Moreover, it is very clear that even simply sustaining our present standard of liv-ing while sharing it with the whole world is a non-trivial proposition. Among other things, it will require the en-tire economy to shift from its present reliance on non-renewable resources to renewable alternatives, and even then efficiency will have to take centre stage. This point shows how increasingly important the role of engineer-ing education is. At present, however, engineering is not attracting the brightest minds to address these noted challenges. Also, engineering is not a popular choice for young people despite the attractive career prospects. Worse still, in much of the developed world (the US, Europe, Japan and also Australia) the number of people obtaining bachelor degrees in engineering is actually de-clining. Some even speak of a crisis for science (and engi-neering) in the making.
For a variety of reasons, the transition from high school into engineering is considered a particularly diffi-cult one. There are definite issues of image with engineer-ing. Perhaps the problems in society are not perceived to require new technology. Perhaps in high schools stu-dents lack information or even gather misinformation about what engineering really is.
Education in general, and engineering education in particular, is ‘squeezed’ for the simple reason that there is an ever-increasing body of knowledge and yet there are only limited resources available to pass on deep understanding of this knowledge to the next generation. In the face of this, the education system delivers specialists, who know more about less as the body of knowledge develops. At the
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same time, it is inevitable that the foundation in education becomes broader and less specialised as more knowledge is rightly competing to become part of this foundation. These trends are all too obvious. In our present education system, we consider the foundation as delivered over three stages: early childhood, primary and secondary or high school education. Tertiary education delivers the speciali-sation, also in three stages, through bachelor, master’s and doctoral degrees. Here we are mainly concerned with the bachelor and master’s education.
As the body of knowledge increases, unavoidably the high school graduates know fewer particulars, but have presumably accumulated a broader base of knowl-edge. At the same time, the requirements for engineering graduates have not diminished. On the contrary. There is thus a need to increase the resources in education in order to keep pace with this evolution, so as to bridge an ever-widening gap between foundation outcomes and professional, specialist requirements.
The first higher education response, clearly seen in en-gineering curricula in the 20th century, was to introduce greater specialisation in tertiary engineering education. Specialisation brings more resources to the educational process, since it requires a greater diversity of teachers. More specialisation in individuals also requires a change in the way new technology and engineering must be further developed. Indeed, teams of specialists are now required to achieve particular outcomes, as no realistic problem fits within the confines of a single specialisation discipline. Where such teams are not available, progress will be knowledge-limited and become uncompetitive.
Increasing specialisation creates a range of new prob-lems. Firstly, it leads to waste. The more specialisation occurs, the more likely that the same progress/invention is made or must be made in different, ‘unrelated’ disci-plines. Secondly, there is a lesson to be learnt from Babel. Specialists tend to develop their own discipline-based languages, facilitating communication inside the disci-pline but making it hard to communicate across a disci-pline’s boundary, which again stymies progress. Hence, the need for a new breed of specialist communicators, people who are more broadly trained and facilitate cross-disciplinary collaboration.
The other very natural educational response to the gap between a broad-based foundation and a need for specialist understanding is equally clear from the devel-opment of education services in the 20th century: in-crease the duration of an individual’s formal education. Clearly, this response also necessitates increased resourc-
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es for the overall educational process.To maintain its international standing, at least in ed-
ucation, Australia may have to consider a longer tertiary education than at present. Shouldn’t a basic engineering education require five rather than four years of univer-sity study? In Europe, the Bologna model as applied to engineering leads to a five-year university education, cul-minating in a professionally recognised Master of Engi-neering qualification. Similarly, in the US the ME degree is seen more and more as the real professional engineer-ing degree. Leading engineering schools such as MIT are clearly advocating this.
In Australia, however, there does not appear to be any appreciation in industry, and hence by local students, of the importance of an ME education. Indeed, there is little differential between BE and ME graduates as far as starting salaries are concerned. In many other parts of the world the difference is often significant; in the US, an ME graduate commands a starting salary which is of the order of 10 to 15 per cent greater than the starting salary of a BE. Admittedly, in a very similar vein, universities also do not fully appreciate the importance of a ME edu-cation. There is indeed no clear or broadly accepted edu-cational statement about what a ME education should be. The proliferation of diverse ME degrees offered by Australian universities demonstrates this rather clearly.
It is our thesis that in line with the broader high school education, with greatly reduced emphasis on the basic sciences and mathematics that are so critically important for an engineering education, the classical four-year BE education must concentrate more on fun-damentals of engineering and concomitantly deliver less specialisation than presently is the case. This obser-vation is further strengthened by the trend across the Australian university system to considerably soften the entry requirements into the BE in order to attract – and rightly so – a broader cohort of students. Furthermore, there seems to be reasonable educational evidence that in order to be attractive to newly commencing engineer-ing students, this deficiency in science and mathematics must be overcome within the context of engineering ab initio. All of this really amounts to an evolution of BE curricula that in fact aspire to do less engineering. Con-sequently, to achieve the required depth in engineering design, and also in order to prepare the next generation for much needed research and development, an extra year of formal education is essential.
If this rationale gains currency and other universi-ties in Australia also move towards a five-year engineer-ing program, then it would be highly appropriate and desirable that those universities and the University of
Melbourne work together to produce an Australia-wide version of a Bologna-like model to provide flexibility, integration and student mobility between all Australian (and perhaps European) universities providing five-year engineering programs.
Concurrent with these developments is the desire to broaden the humanities, sciences and other non-en-gineering professional degrees with the introduction of specific engineering and technology subjects. This is further encouraged by the broadening of the high school curriculum, where engineering and technology are recognised as an integral part of the core competen-cies. Arguably, appropriate engineering and technology subjects could be introduced in non-engineering curri-cula to at least the same degree as engineering curricula have always embraced the need for positioning engineer-ing within the broader context of society. The latter is clearly reflected in the so-called non-technical subject requirements in a typical BE degree. There is already a clear trend in this direction in the US, where leading schools are mandating that engineering and technology form part of any bachelor degree. New texts, expounding technology to the non-engineer, are being introduced to support these subjects.
All of this is further compounded by the observa-tion that for the past two decades, the Australian Gov-ernment/society has ignored the fundamental need for more resources in higher education, and has basically asked universities to ‘fund the gap’ by becoming more productive and/or more entrepreneurial. Clearly, Austra-lia cannot maintain the current standard of living with-out further investment in engineering education and it is becoming urgent for leaders in industry and academia to articulate their concerns.
Further reading:1. h. oner yurtseven, how does the image of engineering affect student recruitment and retention? A perspective from the uSA, Global Journal of Engineering Education, Vol 6, No 1, pp17-23, 2002 2. Realising the European Higher Education Area - Achieving the Goals; also From Berlin to Bergen, the EU contribution, May 2005, http://europa.eu.int/comm/educatoin/policies/educ/bologna/report05.pdf
Professor rob evans FAA FTse Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Melbourne and Director of NICTA Victoria Research laboratory. He has conducted research at Newcastle, MIT and Cambridge universities. His research interests include theory and applications in industrial control, radar systems, signal processing and telecommunications.
Professor Iven mareels FTse Professor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Melbourne. Educated in belgium, Iven has held appointments and conducted research at Ghent and Newcastle universities and the ANU. His research interests are in non-linear systems and control.
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engineering education
Why Aren’T We TrAInIng more engIneers?
By John [email protected]
This article is based on ‘Why no action on engineering training’, by Bob Birrell, John Sheridan and Virginia Rapson, published in People and Place Vol 13, No 4, 2005.
Australia is experiencing a shortage of trained engineers at a time when it aspires to develop an economy that has a knowledge-based focus, a focus that will clearly need a highly trained
science and technology workforce. The case for this has been forcefully put by Engineers Australia, the Austral-ian Academy of Sciences and the previous Chief Scien-tist. In both the business and general community there is a belief that we have already started down the path of creating such a workforce. However, the reality is that the Australian Government has shown little inter-est in expanding the training of domestic engineering students. Such a lack of interest would be unthinkable in our competitor nations, who are rapidly orienting their workforce towards a future based on innovation derived from science and technology.
Since 1996 domestic undergraduate commence-ments in Australian higher education have changed little across all disciplines. In engineering there has been no increase in commencements of local students at the un-dergraduate and postgraduate levels, despite the recent strong demand for engineers by industry, as evident in Graduate Destination Surveys (GDS), and the strong demand from prospective students, as seen in the rising ENTER scores of students. The GDS shows that 78 per cent of engineering students who completed their degree in 2003 were in full-time, professional employment in 2004, in contrast with the equivalent figure for comput-ing graduates of 48 per cent. In addition, starting salaries were high, with starting mining engineers earning up to $65,000. Most recently the shortage of engineers in the civil engineering, mining engineering, chemical en-gineering and petroleum engineering professions has re-sulted in their being placed on the Migrant Occupations on Demand List (MODL), a list that identifies skilled occupations in national shortage.
This situation will be exacerbated over the coming years as the fall in commencements over the past few years translates into reduced completions. This comes after a period when, as shown in Table 1, the number of graduating domestic students has been static (7856 in
2001 and 7843 in 2003).Figure 1 shows the change in domestic commence-
ments (undergraduate and postgraduate) since the Coa-lition came to office in 1996. The figure shows a break in the data in 2001, arising from the fact that the De-partment of Education, Science and Training (DEST) changed the date on which it recorded the census data on university students. The data shows that undergradu-ate engineering enrolments reached a peak of 11,500 in 1997 and have since declined. The changed census date, combined with the growth of overseas student com-mencements, has masked the decline in engineering enrolments. The strongest growth in engineering enrol-ments has come from an increase in demand from over-seas students undertaking postgraduate training, most of which has been in Master’s by Coursework degrees. Figure 2 shows where the growth (and decline) has been across the higher education sector, broken down by dis-ciplines. The data show quite clearly the decline in do-mestic undergraduate commencements between 2001 and 2004. Clearly, there is a decline in training across the board, including in areas where there is a perception that we are producing too many graduates. Australia is one of
Table 1: engineering course completions, domestic students and overseas students onshore, 2001-2003Total engineering and related technologies Domestic Overseas
�00� �00� �00� �00� �00� �00�
Higher degree by research �7� 5�9 570 �5� ��7 ��8
Master’s by Coursework 6�6 6�� 66� 7�� 888 �,�50
Other postgraduate �09 ��� ��� 5� 5� 96
bachelor’s 6,06� 5,7�� 5,8�� �,�85 �,�59 �,5��
Other undergraduate �79 �78 �68 �8 �� 8�
TOTAl 7,856 7,686 7,8�� �,��� �,�79 �,�06
Figure1: Total and undergraduate domestic commencements, engineering and related technologies, 1992-2004Total and undergraduate commencements, engineeringand related technologies, 1992-2004
16,000Commencements
All levels (old method) All levels (new method)Undergraduate (old method) Undergraduate (new method)
12,000
8,000
4,000
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1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
Undergraduate and postgraduate commencements, domesticand onshore overseas students by �eld of education, variationbetween 2001 and 2004
15,000Commencements
Undergraduate Postgraduate
Overseas onshore Domestic
10,000
5,000
–5,000
–10,000
0
–15,000
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the few Western countries with a declining participation rate in higher education for domestic students in recent times.
There are of course ways that Australia could meet this demand for engineers other than by training our own. We could, for example, use some of the overseas students trained in Australia to fill the gap or use over-seas trained engineers, either onshore through the im-migration program or offshore via outsourcing. This of course raises the issue of whether there are not inherent dangers in a country relying on others to provide its highly-trained workforce at a time when all countries are seeking to develop and employ knowledge workers. Many governments are now actively seeking to make their regions more attractive to the “creative class”, including engineers. The potential of using the above strategies to meet the demand is discussed below.
Figure 2 shows that the major area of growth in engi-neering enrolments has been in Master’s by Coursework degrees. The number of overseas students commenc-ing in such degrees grew from 1022 in 2001 to 2560 in 2004. More than 80 per cent of this growth was in elec-trical and electronic engineering, which does not cor-respond to the areas of significant shortage in Australia, especially as many of these students were doing master’s degrees in fields such as telecommunications.
The Government has responded to the need for en-gineers, and other skilled professions, by increasing the skilled immigration intake. Data from the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Af-fairs (DIMIA) shows that the number of skilled im-migrants granted visas in engineering-related fields increased from 1012 in 2000–01 to 2636 in 2004–05. Most of this increase came from overseas graduates of Australian engineering schools who applied for perma-
nent residence on completion of their degrees. Many of these engineers will face an increasingly difficult de-cision as their countries of origin rapidly expand their own high-technology industries and become major players in the global marketplace.
The other potential source of engineering skills is to outsource, in much the same way as has occurred in the IT sector. Given that many engineers now work in inter-national, virtual teams, the basic infrastructure is in place in many companies and the mode of operation is reason-ably well defined.
There is also a large number of engineering students in countries such as China and India that could be seen as future supply of talent. For example, a recent study has shown that there are currently 1.6 million young engi-neers in China and with 33 per cent of all Chinese uni-versity students studying engineering, that number will continue to expand.
Thus, on the face of it there seems to be real potential to outsource engineering projects to China. However, the same study estimates that only about 10 per cent of these engineers would be considered as suitable for work with multinational companies. Many of that select group will find careers with leadership potential in China and the actual numbers available for outsourcing is likely to be quite modest.
When these issues are raised in discussions with local managers of multinational engineering companies, they ask the question why would companies operate out of Australia, if the development skills move offshore when the local market is already small. This leaves only manu-facturing as a significant competitive advantage and, while they value the ingenuity and ‘can do’ approach of the Australian workforce, this is unlikely to be enough to encourage them to come to, or indeed stay in, Australia.
The issues raised are clearly a concern for Australia; if the Government wants to realise its vision of compet-ing globally in high value-added industries it must ad-dress them as a matter of priority. The mechanisms for doing that have been much discussed and many of these are being enacted successfully elsewhere. Australia now needs to plan for and develop the engineering work-force that it will need in the near future.
Professor John sheridanProfessor of Fluid Mechanics, Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Deputy Dean at Monash University. He has also acted for periods as Dean and DVC Research in the University. He was involved in writing the university’s Strategic Plan for Research and was a member of the committees that reviewed the university and its research. His research is in experimental fluid mechanics, with a focus on vortex-induced vibration.
Total and undergraduate commencements, engineeringand related technologies, 1992-2004
16,000Commencements
All levels (old method) All levels (new method)Undergraduate (old method) Undergraduate (new method)
12,000
8,000
4,000
0
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
Undergraduate and postgraduate commencements, domesticand onshore overseas students by �eld of education, variationbetween 2001 and 2004
15,000Commencements
Undergraduate Postgraduate
Overseas onshore Domestic
10,000
5,000
–5,000
–10,000
0
–15,000
Scie
nce IT
Engi
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ing
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Figure 2: undergraduate and postgraduate commencements, domestic and onshore overseas students by field of education, variation between 2001 and 2004
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engIneerIng And AusTrAlIA’s FuTure In The 21sT CenTury
By Jim [email protected]
“Every advanced industrial country knows that falling behind in science and mathematics means falling behind in commerce and prosperity.”
– Gordon Brown, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Budget speech, March 2006
Australia has been enjoying a dream economic run with solid rates of growth, low interest rates, low inflation and increasing per capita wealth. So at first look, what’s there to do but
more of the same? Dig a little deeper and you will find some disturbing structural issues that I think present a generational challenge.
We have seen stratospheric price rises for our core commodity exports, with demand being driven by China and to a lesser extent India, as those econo-mies transform both themselves and the world. With mineral and energy exports booming, it is surprising to see that despite record volumes and prices for our commodity exports, we still run a significant current account deficit.
If Australia was a company, you would expect to see significant activity in taking the ‘super’ profits arising from a traditionally cyclic economic sector and mak-ing sure that investments were being made in areas that balance the income portfolio and trade balances for the long haul. Knowledge-based industry investments would be a smart hedge to the prospect of weaker com-modity prices down the track and to an increased par-ticipation in the largest and fastest growing component of world trade – knowledge-based products and ser-vices. I see none of this taking place.
Fundamental to our future in the 21st century is our nation’s approach to:¢�science in schools;¢�engineering graduate numbers;¢�industry-based R&D expenditure; and¢�capital formation for new and expanding
businesses based on knowledge products.Even if Australia decides simply to be technology
adopters/followers (which I strongly reject, by the way) then we still need engineers in business and the com-munity to make this happen. Our prosperity in part depends on ever-increasing productivity, and engineer-ing skills are at the base of this. Indeed, I believe that engineers are at the backbone of our wealth creation
with their targeted and outcomes-driven approach to the intersection of technology, science and commerce. Whether engineers remain in the profession or move to the business side of the ledger, without engineering-savvy bankers, business leaders and decision makers generally, our country will be disadvantaged and have a very much reduced participation in the ever-increasing pool of international wealth.
We are all (or should be) familiar with the dramatic impact China and India are having on the world econo-my and our resources boom is obviously driven by this. However, it may not be so well understood that their mission is not to be locked in simply as low-cost sup-pliers but rather to rapidly transform into knowledge-based economies. So how are they doing this? They are both strongly and publicly committed to a national strategy that has science and engineering at the fore-front of their plan.
China, by way of example, reported more than 600,000 graduates in engineering, IT and computer science in 2003. Australia reported about 30,000, of which only 5000 were engineers. At a time when theonly 5000 were engineers. At a time when the5000 were engineers. At a time when the world is beefing up its spend on engineering and sci-ence education, we are doing less. (OECD countries increased their expenditure per student over the pastper student over the pastover the past decade by 38 per cent, Australia’s expenditure per stu-per stu-dent fell by eight per cent).fell by eight per cent).
So message one is: accelerate the production of engineering graduates. Falling tertiary entry scores for engineering education in our universities further lead me to worry about the ultimate ‘quality of the prod-uct’ and to why the brightest and best of our secondary students are turning their backs on this most vital of professions.
Perhaps we need to eliminate HECS on engineer-ing degrees to encourage more competition for places. Alongside this is the overall state of funding of our en-gineering schools. For universities at large, I think we have become too ‘hooked’ on overseas student income. While it is a great export story in one sense – and again I wonder what the impact on education quality has re-ally been (have the universities really been consistent on student entry skill levels?) – this foreign student income has also now become more ‘core’ than incre-mental to day-to-day operations, and this is a sector clearly under threat from the rise of education systems in China and India. Remove this income and our own education programs are even more exposed.
The US is a technological powerhouse. It is the
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home of major IT, telecommunications, healthcare, automotive and electronics components companies. Many of the leading companies in these categories spend more on R&D as individual companies than we do as a country! Added to this are fabulously endowed and iconic universities such as Stanford, Cornell, Har-vard and MIT, to name a few, which are embedded in a capital market and entrepreneurial environment that continues to produce new enterprise apace. Yet despite all this, the US is very concerned about their place in the world of knowledge-based trade and major announce-ments to beef up that science and technology spends and education have been released by the US Govern-ment and President Bush over the past few months.
If the US is concerned, then we with our (unbal-anced) commodity-based economy ought to be very concerned.
Australia’s industry-based R&D spend ranks way down the OECD league table, which of course is old news. Economists will say that our industry structure means inevitably, ‘per GDP’ R&D statistics will be low. Again I think this is a cop-out and retrospective analy-sis like this hardly ever drives strategic change in tiny economies.
Let me put the issue more graphically. Only 44 companies in Australia spent more than $10 million on R&D in 2003–04. $10 million is a minuscule R&D spend on a world scale. We know from work in our company (Vision Systems), in the international health-care sector that $10 million represents one relatively small scale project a year. Johnson and Johnson spent $5.2 billion in 2004 on R&D, Motorola $3.1 billion and Nokia more than $6.5 billion – need I say more?
My recommendation is that the R&D tax concession needs restructuring (up to 200 per cent rather than the current 125 per cent) and weighting towards the higher R&D spenders, who by definition, will rely more on competing with knowledge-based products and services and on exports to prosper than low R&D spenders.
This re-weighting can be based on R&D expenditure as a percentage of sales and can be simply structured so that it delivers a more targeted and economically ben-eficial outcome for taxpayers, at no incremental cost to revenue from a Government perspective. A higher-im-
pact R&D tax concession worked during the 1990s and it will work again now.
Increasing industry-based R&D will of course gen-erate an increased demand for engineers in an environ-ment where significant skills shortages already exist. Our own company is struggling to recruit high-calibre mechanical engineers right now, with declining enrol-ments and a resources boom soaking up more than the usual number. Added to this is the fact that global de-mand for engineers is climbing rapidly, particularly in Asia but also in the US and UK as Asian expatriates head home. Given the lead time in filling the gap, we need to get moving on this.
Obviously, the emergence of China as the world’s largest economy over the next decade and the increas-ing globalisation of supply chains, R&D resources and customer reach mean we can see all of this as a threat or a fantastic opportunity. There are a few companies, such as Cochlear and ResMed and ourselves at Vision Systems, that exemplify one way of prospering interna-that exemplify one way of prospering interna-exemplify one way of prospering interna-tionally despite the changing ground rules. We com-pete with IP-based, high-value products and were born global.
However, to roll this out on any scale over the next decade means a rapid increase in Australia’s investment in engineering education, science in schools and indus-try-based R&D. Restructuring of our universities to achieve much higher asset utilisation, productivity and academic salaries sits alongside increased funding from the public purse.
Twenty more companies the size of Cochlear and we eliminate our annual trade deficit. How hard is that?
dr James (Jim) Fox FTseManaging director of publicly listed Vision Systems limited (VSl) since �99�. VSl incorporates the Invetech Group founded by Dr Fox in �987. VSl has been a serial ‘hands-on’ creator of technology-based businesses around the world. These include a drug discovery business in the UK built up and sold out of for a profit of $� million, a UK mobile telephone chip and software business for a profit of $70 million, an Australian-based defence electronics business for a profit of $�� million and now the fire and security business for a profit of $�75 million. VSl’s largest investment currently is in the development and manufacture of automated cancer detection systems aimed at the worldwide pathology services market.
engineering education
‘only 44 companies in Australia spent more than $10 million on R&d in 2003–04. $10 million is a minuscule R&d spend on a world scale’
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By John [email protected]
Australia’s infrastructure planning falls far short of what is being achieved in other countries and of what is required to enable Australia to improve its ability to provide a competitive
business and industrial environment and an acceptable social climate.
Australia is a sophisticated nation but our short-cycle, politically based planning and development of essential infrastructure fails to properly serve the coun-try’s needs. In contrast with some so-called ‘developing’ nations, we rate poorly in our ability to ensure we have the essential infrastructure in place to meet our water, energy, transport and communications needs for the present, let alone for the decades ahead. The benefits of efficient infrastructure and the need for long-term planning cannot be over-emphasised.
Australia must have a resurgence of thought and ac-tion – and a convergence between community interest and energy, government resolve and policy develop-ment – to assure the provision of essential infrastruc-ture to achieve economic and social goals.
Technology is an essential ingredient in making in-frastructure more effective. As a nation we punch above our weight in developing and adopting science, but we are demonstrably unable to plan sustainable futures for our nation and our cities. Even more, in a country that is increasingly urbanised, our planners seem unable to address our decreasing capacity to ensure sustainable water, energy, housing, transport and ‘liveability’ for our cities.
It is time for community, professional, commercial and industrial leaders to take the argument up to gov-ernments around the nation to make things happen rap-idly in infrastructure planning and development. The Academy has an important role to play in highlighting the new technologies which will make a difference and bring these to the attention of planners, governments and investors. Its 2006 National Symposium will be a first, important step along this road.
New Technology for Infrastructure – The World of
Tomorrow, the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering’s National Symposium 2006, will be held at the Sofitel Wentworth, Sydney, on 20-21 November.
This Symposium asks what bold innovative tech-nologies will leapfrog the present into the future? How will infrastructure be planned and financed?
The focus will be on technological innovations in infrastructure in the timeframe 25 to 50 years from now. The object is to identify those technologies which will shape future infrastructure, focusing on cities and their needs, and examining their sustainable implemen-
hIghlIghT Issues¢�Predictions of demographic changes and the
community’s trends and needs¢�global influences and world trade patterns¢�Identification of new technologies and their influence on
infrastructure¢�Integrated long-term planning and its encouragement¢�Appropriate delivery systems to encourage
implementation¢�Cross-fertilisation of ideas across market sectors¢�sustainable processes and assessment of environmental
effects¢�Prioritisation of policies and investments
sessIon TITles¢�Infrastructure Technology
The susTAInABIlITy ImPerATIve¢�Infrastructure ownership
Who PAys, Who ProFITs?¢�The urban Challenge
desIgnIng TomorroW’s CITIes TodAy¢�The ICT revolution
TeChnologIes, ImPACTs And BeneFITs¢�Transport reality
AdoPTIng ChAnge, AdAPTIng PeoPle¢�energy options
PICKIng The rIghT CArds¢�health delivery
PlAnnIng For The neXT neW World¢�The road Ahead
oPPorTunITIes For AusTrAlIA
2006 national symposium
building the world of tomorrow – today
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tation in the fields of health, energy, water, transport and communication. It will seek appropriate delivery systems and financial models, at the same time bench-marking the Australian scene against global influences and experiences.
This is a Symposium about asking questions and finding answers – and then taking the findings and recommendations to government and industry leaders around Australia.
It is something you should be part of.The speakers will be outstanding practitioners,
some from overseas whom the Academy has brought to Australia, in the spheres of technology, engineering, research, resources, trade, finance, business, economics, community, social services, planning, government and international affairs. They will explore the Symposium topics, including: ¢�environmental, social and commercial issues for
infrastructure technologies;¢�changing infrastructure funding and its
implications;¢�contributing to tomorrow’s cities in a highly
urbanised world;¢�developing and delivering tomorrow’s technologies;¢�more adaptable and efficient transport for the
future;¢�energy technologies for a sustainable future;¢�profound changes in health care through
technology; and¢�global opportunities for Australian technology
advances.Overseas speakers will include:
Lord Oxburgh, the recently retired chairman of Shell’s UK arm, who brings a wide and knowledgeable per-spective to the issues and policies of a global corpora-tion, particularly in the energy field, and the social con-cerns of greenhouse gases and the problem of climate change. He is a crossbench peer in the House of Lords, having chaired its Science and Technology Select Com-mittee. Professor Rodney Brooks, director of the Massachu-setts Institute of Technology Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Panasonic Pro-fessor of Robotics. His research is concerned with both the engineering of intelligent robots to operate in un-structured environments, and with understanding hu-man intelligence through building humanoid robots.Sir Duncan Michael, a long-time leader and now Trustee of the Ove Arup Partnership, who headed the renowned worldwide consulting engineering firm with such credits as the new Channel Tunnel Rail Link in
England, the Sydney Opera House and the recently commissioned planning for a new major city based on eco-sustainability principles on a greenfield site outside Shanghai, as the first of many to be built in China.Professor Lena Treschow Torell, President of the Roy-al Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, who is a director of SAAB and a former director of L M Eric-sson. Her former positions include director, Joint Re-search Centre, European Commission (Brussels), Vice President and Professor in Material Physics, Chalmers Institute of Technology, Gothenburg, and Professor in Solid State Physics, University of Uppsala.Michael Treschow, chairman of the board of Ericsson and Electrolux and a non-executive board member of ABB. He is a former president and chief executive of-ficer of Electrolux and Atlas Copco.Professor Enrico Drioli, director, Institute for Mem-brane Technology, University of Calabria, and a world leader on water recycling technologies, will speak in the session which addresses many of the issues of water which affect Australia – resource recovery, potable re-use, desalination and supply security.
Each of these will bring their own highly valued perspective to the world of technology – The World of Tomorrow.
Fellows are urged to attend the Symposium and particularly to encourage leaders and influential think-ers from government, industry, commerce and research areas also to attend.
The key to the success of the Symposium is not only what is said in November, but how we take forward the thinking and ideas that emerge as recommendations to government and community leaders around Australia. This process will be enhanced and underpinned by a strong attendance from senior figures from around the country.
Registration details for this most important Sym-posium are on the Academy website at www.atse.org.au/?sectionid=695.
Please act now to play your part to ensure that we attract a strong attendance so we can further the work and influence of the Academy and help drive the essen-tial reinvigoration of long-term infrastructure planning and delivery for Australia’s future.
dr John nutt Am FTseFormer chairman of Ove Arup and Partners, consulting engineers, in Australasia, helping to found the practice in �96� and overseeing its development for �5 years. He has been global chairman of The Arup Partnerships, the organisation for coordination and strategy planning of all Arup practices throughout the world and a director in london, New York, and Hong Kong. He is chair of the NSW Division of the Academy.
2006 national symposium
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By Chris [email protected]
E xpatriates working in global agribusinesses are often asked about the disparity between Australia’s stellar achievements in the science and technology of GM crops and food and
its indifferent record in bringing new products to the market. Many of my former colleagues have already ar-ticulated cogent reasons for encouraging the adoption of GM foods in Australia in ATSE Focus 139, January 2006; I want to comment primarily on the global com-mercial and industrial implications of non-adoption.
The real question is: can Australia catch up with international developments in GM commercialisation? How Australia answers this question may well deter-mine whether it will be an international leader and innovator in agribusiness, or just a plodding follower condemned to the grind of commodity cycles and their attendant threats to the health of rural and regional Australia.
GM crops and food are clear examples of disruptive innovation. The technology has not only transformed the landscape of traditional production-driven com-modity businesses, it has also enabled new business models of end-user driven specialisation. Furthermore, global economic growth has fuelled an increase in de-mand for food commodities to such an extent that it will only be met through GM-enhanced productivity. For these reasons, adoption of GM technology is grow-ing fastest in the developing world, especially since af-ter a decade of increasing global adoption, none of the supposed safety and environmental disadvantages of the technology have come to pass. In North America, so great are the yield advantages conferred by GM traits that all new varieties, specialist or otherwise, need to in-clude them to achieve a commercial level of adoption
Traditionally, early adoption of productivity-en-hancing technologies has allowed Australian agribusi-ness to prosper as a major exporter in a global environ-ment of highly competitive and often distorted markets for agricultural produce. Yet despite these international developments and its tradition for innovation, on the
10th anniversary of the release of the first GM cotton varieties in Australia it is a sobering fact that the coun-try which was then number two in the world in this field now stands at number 11 in crop area planted.
The principal reason for this interruption in in-creased agricultural productivity is the introduction by many state governments of moratoriums on the commercialisation of GM technology. Through these measures Australia has aligned itself with Europe rather than their natural allies in the Cairns group. The only exception to this approach is cotton, where local variet-ies, including GM cotton, have provided nearly $5 bil-lion in net present value to their growers.
Why does this political intervention matter? There are four reasons.
Blocking technology-enabled innovation sends a strong message to potential investors about the risk of investing in Australia. State-based moratoriums, and the confused and inconsistent criteria that will determine when and whether they will be lifted, have fragmented an already small market. The final ap-proval process has been moved from a Federal level, embracing science-based regulation, to a state-by-state approach determined by overtly political, and thus ar-bitrary, considerations. This capricious environment in-troduces great uncertainty and risk, and investors may well prefer more attractive opportunities in the rapidly developing economies of South America and Asia.
Investors may also be perplexed by Australia’s regu-latory incoherence, because at the Federal level a sci-ence-based approach is advocated in its WTO dealings as leader of the Cairns Group as it tries to reduce po-litical intervention in world trade. Whether such a con-tradictory posture can be sustained in face of a WTO challenge seems questionable, given recent rulings on European moratoriums.
The second reason concerns the technology itself. Success in persuading farmers to adopt GM crops re-quires not only excellent germplasm but also the inser-tion and promotion of stacked traits that enhance yields through insect or herbicide resistance. The development of this elite germplasm and the adoption of these traits require extensive field trials and commercial exposure
Science a century, products a duck
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to hone the product features. This learning experience is currently unavailable in Australia except for cotton, and substantial investment in biotechnology R&D and elite germplasm may become stranded assets.
The third reason for concern is a generational one. Young Australians, who will build the agribusiness of the 21st century, are less likely to be attracted into agri-business or research when they know that liberalised, innovative and profitable markets free from opportu-nistic government regulation are the exception rather than the norm.
The final reason is that without a commercial outlet, public and private investment in agricultural biotech-nology in Australia may drop, with a consequent de-cline in its outstanding international reputation. That this threat is not an idle one is shown by a EU survey of the impact of their GM moratoriums, that found 39 per cent of public sector and 61 per cent of private sec-tor organisations had cancelled projects in GM areas.
Canola is a case in point. It is estimated that the cur-rent moratoriums have denied Australian growers just under 300,000 tonnes of extra production and $135 million in revenue. Australian farmers export more than one million tonnes of product to markets in com-petition with growers from Canada, the US, Argentina and, increasingly, China. As commodity oil, much of the return to farmers growing the crop is determined by international supply and demand for the oil and the meal, rewarding those with the lowest cost of pro-duction. Initially some argued that non-GM produce would command a premium with enhanced returns, a contention that has not been borne out by the market.
In contrast to Australia, Canadian growers have adopted GM varieties with substantially improved ag-ronomics. Today more than 80 per cent of the canola crops planted use herbicide-tolerant technology that
allows growers to practice minimum-till farming, which improves soil structure, moisture retention and crop quality and enhances yields. Well-managed fields have improved yields by more than 10 per cent, and re-cently these gains have been boosted by up to 30 per cent through the introduction of canola hybrids. Cana-da exports increasing amounts of its canola production as seed to Japan and China
As if reduced competitiveness in export markets is not worrying enough, local farmers may soon face threats from imports. The next generation of GM va-rieties with output traits unachievable through conven-tional breeding, such as high oleic acid, is now being commercialised to provide high-stability, zero-trans frying oils for the finished goods and food service sec-tors. Under current conditions, if Australian consumers want nutritional benefits similar to those enjoyed in the Americas, that demand could only be met by imports.
Furthermore, were moratoriums to be lifted to al-low late adoption of GM crops with these technologies, intellectual property costs, and the fact that much of the margin in such a speciality would have been com-peted away earlier in the S-curve of adoption, would diminish returns to local growers. So, what can be done to catch up? What can be done to avoid the fate of the local IT industry, which lost an early lead and became an importer of technology?
1 Agribusiness leaders should lobby for access to a technology vital to their future local and interna-
tional competitiveness;
2 Senior technology leaders, such as Academy Fel-lows, need to alert the public to the costs of non-
adoption for the future of science and industry; and
3 Politicians, rather than stooping to short-term electoral gain by exploiting fear and ignorance,
should be publicly encouraged to rise to the challenge of promoting a key industry and the health of Austra-lians for generations to come.
Maybe then the prowess of Australia’s agribusiness and science might match that of its cricket team.I would like to thank my colleagues lorin debonte and randal giroux for their help in preparing this article.
dr Chris mallett FTseCorporate Vice-President for R&D for Minneapolis-based Cargill Inc, a private A$�00 billion international provider of food, agricultural and risk management products and services. He is also a member of the board of Renessen, a joint venture between Cargill and Monsanto to develop quality traits and customised products that enhance the functionality of grains, oilseeds and other crops. He has been chief technology officer for Fonterra, a multinational dairy company based in New Zealand; deputy chief executive of CSIRO, responsible for its food, nutrition and agribusiness operations; and a senior R&D executive in Europe with Unilever.
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‘ It is estimated that the current moratoriums have denied Australian growers just under 300,000 tonnes of extra production and $135 million in revenue’
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WTo deCIsIon on gm CroPs WIll AFFeCT AusTrAlIASir, The World Trade organisation ruling that condemned the
European union for its unscientific moratorium on genetically
modified (GM) crops will have major repercussions for Australia.
The judgment by the WTo concluded that the Eu had an effective
moratorium on GM foods that violated international trade laws. The
de facto ban, which prevented the import of GM crops and products
from entering Eu markets, was not based on scientific evidence, the
WTo found.
The WTo has made it clear there is no market or trade basis
for separating GM crops and foods from other foods. With GM
moratoriums in all states except for Queensland, Australian farmers
are being disadvantaged and denied choice without good reason.
opponents to the technology often cite Europe’s unease with
GM crops as cause for stymieing GM production in Australia, but this
line of reasoning is no longer valid. The Eu’s position on GM imports
has been shown to be unsustainable. The unscientific barriers
Canada, Argentina, the uS and other GM crop-producing countries
once faced have been judged unfair.
At the heart of the ruling was the Eu’s failure to provide
adequate scientific evidence for rejecting GM crops. Proper scientific
assessment of each new GM crop is essential. In Australia, the office
of the Gene Technology Regulator (oGTR) has approved a number of
GM crops as safe, yet farmers are prevented from growing many of
them because of state moratoriums.
last year the World health organisation (Who) released a report
acknowledging the potential of GM crops to enhance human health
and development. The report found that GM foods are not likely, nor
have been shown, to present risks for human health. The Food and
Agriculture organization of the united Nations (FAo) has also found
no verifiable reports of health or environmental harm from GM crops.
because GM crops can increase protection against pests, reduce
chemical use and reduce emission of greenhouse gases, they are
being rapidly adopted by farmers across the globe.
Australia’s competitors are not hesitating to embrace GM
crops. And now that the doors to Eu markets are opening, many
developing countries will be moving towards the adoption of this
technology. last year more than eight million farmers in 17 countries
planted more than 90 million hectares to GM crops. Since the first
commercial plantings a decade ago, adoption of GM has increased
by double-digit growth rates every year. The area planted in 2005
represented a 20 per cent increase on the previous year.
– dr glenn Tong [email protected]
The energy CosT oF FuTure urAnIum mInesSir, both bill Charters and Ian lowe make contributions to Focus 139,
which refer to the study by Storm Van leeuwin and Smith (SlS). The
study predicts that the energy cost of future uranium mines will soon
exceed the energy cost of generating energy from the uranium.
SlS make this prediction based on an assumption that new mines
will have to employ successively lower-grade ores which will be
prohibitively expensive to mine.
leaving aside the assumption that no further high-grade ore
bodies will be discovered, SlS overestimate the energy cost of
the Ranger, olympic dam and Rossing uranium mines which are
the largest of the low-grade mines in operation and collectively
represent 35 per cent of world production. The predictions from SlS
for the yearly energy cost of these operations in Petajoules (Pj) are:
5Pj, 60Pj and 69Pj for Ranger, olympic dam and Rossing respectively.
These mines report their energy use to be: 0.8Pj, 5Pj and 1Pj. The
energy use at olympic dam includes a substantial copper smelter
unrelated to uranium activities. In the case of Rossing, which has the
lowest-grade ore of the three, the SlS over-predicts energy costs by
a factor of 69.
SlS do not make reliable predictions for the energy cost of
uranium mining. Without this point their conclusion that the Earth
will soon exhaust its available uranium is invalid.
Further information regarding our critique of SlS is available on
our website at http://nuclearinfo.net
– martin sevior [email protected]
letters to the editor
ConFIdenTIAl AdvICe And The nATIonAl InTeresTSir, First congratulations on the new layout for Focus. Then a couple of
suggestions.
The first would be to introduce in Focus a column letters to the
Editor. Fellows are busy people and not all of them have the time to
write self-contained papers. on the other hand, a few lines to the
Editor might be sufficient to make a relevant point and/or start a
discussion.
The second is more complex. For some time I’ve had a feeling
that the content of Focus is rather ‘thin’ when compared with the
number and eminence of the Fellows of the Academy. I have never
come across any quotations from Focus in the media. yet, with the
emasculation and muzzling of organisations such as CSIRo and
dSTo, it becomes even more important for authoritative opinions
to be brought to the attention of the voting public. The areas I have
in mind are the level of R&d in Australia, the commercialisation of
Australian research, high-tech industries, water usage and all issues
concerned with global warming.
While it could be argued that the Academy is well represented
on some of the committees dealing with the matters, the reports of
such committees are not always publicised or acted upon and public
pressure is often the deciding factor.
– stanley s schaetzel FTse, Westleigh NSW
EdIToR’S NoTE: letters to the Editor are becoming a feature of Focus and are welcome. Correspondents should note, however, that Focus is only published four times a year.
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The Australian Miracle: an innovative nation revisitedby Thomas S barlow
reviewed by Ian d rae FTse
Criticisms of Australia’s performance in R&d show that we don’t
understand ourselves, says Thomas barlow. his experience as a
researcher at oxford university and at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, as a journalist with the Financial Times, and as science
adviser to the Minister for Education, Science and Training, has given
him evidence to back up his contention.
barlow’s writing flows easily, and nowhere better than when he
begins with ‘Ten Myths about Australian Science’. he goes to some
pains to demolish them. Australia’s best scientists do not leave for
overseas appointments (at least, not permanently) and being a
technology user and adaptor does not relegate us to a position low
on some international scorecard.
Some of his rebuttals rely on information that will be new
to some readers. For example, business spending on R&d is
low in Australia, but that is because in other countries it is the
manufacturing industry that invests in R&d. Australia’s manufacturing
industry is proportionately smaller, so it is no wonder that spending
here is not on the same scale.
he is on more familiar ground when he says that characterising
Australia’s mining and agriculture sectors as non-technological is
a mistake. We overlook technologies that have made important
contributions to the prosperity of these sectors, and are sold around
the world just like the grains and ores.
As for the brain drain, barlow sees value in exporting some of
our talent, especially if it comes back, bringing with it the strings of
a valuable network or at least knowledge of different research and
other cultures. Similarly, he sees the Australians working here for
multinational companies as leaders in global interactions that will be
increasingly important in the years ahead.
barlow does not support government setting priorities for
research because he believes that too many new ideas emerge from
what would be non-priority areas. Nor does he like the massing of
forces in such ‘theme’ areas. hedging his bets just a little, he reminds
us that “quantity is rarely a substitute for quality”. he also questions
whether there is real value in insisting that everyone be part of a
team, and … shock, horror! … he even sees a role for silos. he claims
that Australian researchers undermine themselves in a number of
ways, among which are “selling visions that could never have been
realised within the timeframe for which money was sought” and
pulling the wool over the eyes of granting bodies with “some new
hare-brained idea or pie-in-the-sky priority”.
“Nineteenth-century Australians were not only compulsive
users of technology, and they were not only surprisingly proficient
at building profits through the application of technology,” barlow
reminds us. To make his point, he assembles case studies, many of
them sourced from the Academy’s Technology in Australia: 1788-1988,
which work he gratefully acknowledges.
Finally, barlow develops the concept of desegregating low-tech
and high-tech industries. just as there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution,
there are many ways to skin the innovation cat. We have been, and
still are good at that, a recent example being the application of
biotechnology to mineral ore leaching.
barlow even goes back to C.E. bean and World War 1 to remind
us that resilient Australians have always been good at picking up
other people’s ideas and doing better with them. A Government
department calls this ‘fast follower’ status, but there is a little more to
it than just following.
Many Fellows will enjoy this book. Some might even take
encouragement from it. ‘understanding ourselves’, the title of the
last chapter, is barlow’s recipe for continued success of an innovative
nation, and it is harder to argue with that after one has read his book.
The Australian Miracle is published by Picador, Sydney, 2006. ISbN 13 9
7803 3042 2321 Australian RRP $25.00
email: [email protected]
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ACAdemy APPoInTs Key sTAFFmr Bill mackey commenced as ATSE Communications director on 23 january. bill trained as a
journalist and held communications appointments in Australia and Asia before establishing his own
communications consultancy in Perth. he became CEo of the National Wine Centre in Adelaide
in 2001. Prior to that he held the posts of National President of the Public Relations Institute of
Australia and President of the Wine Industry Association of WA. email: [email protected]
dr vaughan Beck FTse commenced as ATSE Technical director on 13 February. Vaughan is
the former Pro Vice Chancellor (Industry, Research and Region) and director of the Centre for
Environmental Safety and Risk Engineering at Victoria university. his research interests are in risk
engineering, with particular emphasis on fire safety in buildings and wind engineering. email: [email protected]
