Educating engineers to embrace complexity and context Edmond P. Byrne MSc, MA, PhD Senior Lecturer, School of Engineering, University College Cork, Ireland Gerard Mullally MA, PhD Lecturer, Department of Sociology, University College Cork, Ireland Education represents a key intervention point in encouraging the emergence of a professional engineering ethos informed by a sustainability ethic. In terms of establishing an appropriate relationship between sustainability and education, many would contend that incorporating sustainability as merely add-on material to already overcrowded curricula is insufficient. Instead sustainability should actually be a leading principle for curricula. Traditional reductionist models of engineering education seek to extinguish context and uncertainty and reduce complexity across socio-economic and ecological domains. They therefore constitute a wholly inadequate response to the need for fit-for-purpose, twenty-first century graduates required to address broader sustainability issues. This paper presents research from an undergraduate module at University College Cork, Ireland. The module is aimed at developing students’ conceptions of complexity, uncertainty, risk, context and ethics as foundational bases for productively engaging with sustainability. The paper also highlights some problematic issues. 1. Introduction There is a realisation that what has been called a ‘new engineer’ is required for fit-for-purpose twenty-first century engineering in order to address the attendant challenges and crises around (un)sustainability that face contemporary society (Beder, 1998). This is a professional who recognises that values and ethics pervade all engineering practice, leaves hubristic illusions of control aside and embraces context, complexity, inherent uncertainty and risk (Bucciarelli, 2008). S/he recognises the ‘deep sociotechnical complexities that are often at the heart of [engineering] ‘‘Grand Challenges’’’ while making ‘explicit the social and ethical responsibilities of engineers’ (Herkert and Banks, 2012). Moreover, while they recognise the value of scientific and technological approaches in relation to con- temporary societal challenges, the ‘new engineer’ acknowledges that technocentric approaches alone are incapable of achieving progress towards sustainable outcomes among inter-related complex social, techno-economic and ecological systems (Conlon, 2008). Such approaches need to be complemented by recognition of the importance of context and the presence of contingency and indeterminacy in these complex systems, and hence value the additional knowledge that can be provided by experiential and local knowledge and intuition. This is a view consistent with one proposed across the domain of engineering education for sustainable development (EESD) over the past two decades. Such a view proposes the in- corporation of sustainability within and across engineering programmes as a ‘leading principle for curricula’ to elicit a broader conception of the engineer (in contrast to incorporat- ing content merely as ‘add on’ material to an already overcrowded curriculum) (Mulder et al., 2012). It also aligns with contemporary directions in the sociology of sustainable development (e.g. Baillie et al., 2013) and with education and pedagogical theory (e.g. Boud, 2000). 2. Module description This paper reflects on the experiences of a first-year module on a (four-year) undergraduate engineering programme at University College Cork (UCC), Ireland which seeks to help facilitate the development of a fit-for-purpose twenty-first century engineer. The module (PE1006: professional engineering communication and ethics) is taken by engineering students across all four engineering programmes at UCC (civil and environmental, electrical and electronic, energy, and process and chemical). The four programmes incorporate varying degrees of material and ethos associated with sustainability across the respective programmes, with, for example, the chemical engineering students taking a ‘Sustainability in process engineering’ module in the third year, two ‘Safety and environmental protection’ modules in the third and fourth years and a final year capstone design project module in the fourth year, which entails a significant sustainability component (Fitzpatrick et al., 2013). The module includes contributions from academics across the school, including the lead author who is module coordinator and teaches half the module. The following learning outcomes are associated with this part of the module: & relate professional engineering practice to the ethics and ethos of the profession and the role of engineering in society & understand the nature of complex, wicked problems and apply appropriate strategies for resolving such problems. Engineering Sustainability Educating engineers to embrace complexity and context Byrne and Mullally Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers http://dx.doi.org/10.1680/esu.14.00005 Paper 1400005 Received 10/02/2014 Accepted 24/07/2014 Keywords: education & training/social impact/ sustainability ice | proceedings ICE Publishing: All rights reserved 1