The theory and application of a national engineering capacity index
Project ID: 2531bd1700
(You will need this ID for your application)
Research Theme: Engineering
Research Area(s): engineering
UCL Lead department: Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy (STEAPP)
Lead Supervisor: Adam Cooper
Project Summary:
Do you have an economic/political geography background with strong quantitative and data visualisation skills (but keen to develop qualitative) to explore the development of national indicators for understanding the engineering capacity at a country level? This project is a foundational exploration building on the domain of ‘engineering policy’ developed by Dr Adam Cooper at UCL’s Department of Science, Technology Engineering and Public Policy, and projects commissioned by the Engineering X programme hosted at the Royal Academy of Engineering in partnership with the Lloyds Register Foundation under the title Global Engineering Capability Review (see https://engineeringx.raeng.org.uk/programmes/skills-for-safety/global-engineering-capability-review/).
The project would draw from a range of literature to provide the theoretic basis for identifying normative indicators of engineering capability at a national level. This would include drawing from (for example) responsible innovation, value-sensitive design, engineering ethics, sustainable design, job quality, climate and energy justice and related literatures, to build out a set of theoretical indicators. There is also the potential to undertake a comparative analysis with parallel sectors such as health or law to understand how they have tackled this problem or parts of this problem regarding indicators of sector capability at a national level in different countries. The work would involve extensive engagement with engineering institutions, NGOs and government actors to explore their priorities.
The work would seek to map current and previous attempts to generate an index or similar both within and outside the GECR (e.g. World Engineering Index), identifying which datasets are a good match for the data we need, and the strength of proxies, allowing for the identification of data we do not have to understand the engineering capability that exists.
The project may explore how indicators relate to wider evidence on a national development to establish how engineering capacity might be associated with wider social and economic development.