Engineering graduates for industry - Royal Academy of Engineering

Engineering graduates for industry
Active involvement with professional institutions
The ten core staff associated with Building Services Engineering at LSBU all come from industrial backgrounds and actively
maintain a very high profile relationship with industry and the key professional institutions (CIBSE, the IMechE and the
Energy Institute). LSBU considers this to be very useful in terms of understanding how people are developing their
professional careers and, in turn, informs it about the marketplace for its courses and how they could be developed further.
The relationships between the University’s academics and students, the ILP and their professional institutions are almost
familial and are strengthened by encouraging the students to join CIBSE while still undergraduates and to attend
popular and vibrant monthly meetings.
Engagement with statutory bodies
The staff are all involved in high level practical research linking the University and professional institutions with statutory
bodies. Examples include working with the Greater London Authority to review the Mayor’s London Plan policies and
writing a new technical memorandum for ground source heat pumps and developing the associated policy aspect.
There is a strong desire to predict the future skills and graduate demands in major engineering developments and to
consider how best to work towards satisfying those demands. The Visiting Professor is involved in negotiations with
relevant groups and these discussions are attempting to map out the skills demographics for these projects and how
LSBU can be involved in the delivery of programmes that will generate the technical, leadership and management
competencies required.
Perceived benefits
● The close relationship with students, and beyond to their employers, leads to a high level of employer engagement
which, in turn, provides continual feedback on the state of the industry.
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The highly active and multi-directional interplay between academics, the ILP and their professional institutions
results in LSBU being highly responsive to industrial needs. The continuous link with the professional institutions is
two-way: raising the profile of LSBU and enabling academic staff to influence what the professional institutions
demand from HE.
The interactions with statutory bodies on current topics makes students feel that they are entering a dynamic
learning environment where policy is being developed rather than imposed from above.
Future developments and ideas
There is a view that the alumni could have even more involvement with the discipline at LSBU. While the ILP is
considered to work extremely well, there is a huge untapped resource of other alumni that could be utilised. A Business
Development Manager has recently been employed by the Engineering Systems Department to enhance the
interaction with alumni, develop new ways of linking with industry and to capture new business that will also link with
course development.
Effective practice exemplar 11: CEREB at LSBU
The Centre for Efficient and Renewable Energy in Buildings (CEREB) is a unique resource for the teaching, research and
demonstration of low carbon energy technologies in the built environment. CEREB is currently under construction and
has been designed as a roof level adjunct to the
new Keyworth II building at LSBU. This building
has been designed to have a number of
features to reduce carbon emissions, including
thermal massing, solar shading, solar thermal
and ground source heating and cooling.
The creation of CEREB will mean that the new
building will function not only as a building
but also as an engineering teaching tool from
May 2010. CEREB has been designed as a
demonstration facility with an associated teaching (50 person) and research (30 person) space. CEREB’s direct access to
the ‘state of the art building energy management system will enable students and researchers to study the building and its
energy use’ (CEREB brochure).
The Royal Academy of Engineering 33