Environmental Engineers of Tomorrow: Developing A Shared Tool Box Through Collaboration

At a time of unprecedented demand for its skills, environmental engineering has a problem. As a 'postgraduate' profession, it draws its human resources from very diverse backgrounds. Although this diversity can be exhilarating and fertile, it does have a significant down-side: a lack of coherence in techniques (and even design philosophies) between sub-disciplines. To address this, we propose to help young researchers escape from the tyranny of their roots , empowering them to deploy their existing skills in a wider range of environmental engineering applications, and / or to acquire further skills (especially in quantitative analysis, in which few young researchers in this field are especially skilled) to enhance their core work and increase their potential future mobility.We are building on a strong body of research at Newcastle and Glasgow Universities (supported by an EPSRC Platform Grant and a Marie Curie Excellence Grant) which is defining the fundamental theoretical basis for engineered biological treatment systems. By working in close collaboration with one of the leading environmental engineering groups in Asia (at IIT Delhi, India), which has expertise extending beyond that of the Newcastle and Glasgow teams to also embrace air pollution management, we seek to begin forming the 'environmental engineers of tomorrow': young researchers who will be able to confidently across sub-discipline boundaries, acquire new tools (especially mathematical analysis tools), appy their own skills to a wider range of problems, and interact creatively with design engineers in industry. The package will be delivered through a programme of four distinct activities, with personal mentoring for the young researchers from experienced design engineers and leading researchers in all three groups. These activities are:1. ASPIRATION RAISING. This will be based on 3-day technique exposition workshops (2 in UK, 1 in India, spaced evenly through the life of the project), in which young researchers will undertake group work on design tasks under the guidance of experienced design engineers. Each young researcher will be required to tackle a task outside of the scope of their root discipline, slected from amongst the following four options: (i) municipal wastewater engineering (led by Newcastle) (ii) air pollution management (led by IITD) (iii) quantitative analysis (led by Glasgow) and (iv) engineered wetland design (led by Newcastle). 2. RAISING SKILLS THROUGH COLLABORATION. with the assistance of their mentors, the young researchers will identify one or more personal skill gaps which they would like to address (as much for their own strategic advantage as for that of their home research groups). Task-based learning will then be organised to address these skills gaps, in the shape of exchange visits of individuals or small teams (up to 3), typically of 1 to 3 weeks duration. 3. TRANSLATION TO PRACTICE. Mentors will assist young researchers in identifying an appropriate level of exposure to industrial practice for themselves: Many will spend 1 or 2 days work-shadowing design engineers; a smaller cohort will undertake industrial placements of 1 week to 3 months duration; three of the most promising participants (1 from each of the groups) will be offered the opportunity of participating in an advanced programme of entrepreneurial skills development and extended industrial placements (up to 6 months), under Newcastle University's ground-breaking 'Knowledge Transfer Engine Room' programme. 4. DISSEMINATION. This will involve: (i) Hosting two 'Town Meetings' (1 in India, 1 in UK) for the wider Environmental Engineering sector (industrial and academic); (ii) Participating in EPSRC's CSP Cluster Workshop (iii) Posting of testimonies of participants on a dedicated web-site, and (iii) publication of papers in the 'International Journal of Engineering Education' and professional magazines of ICE / CIWEM.