Last word Opinion by Sen Moran

Research is Overemphasized
To train engineers, universities should hire more practitioners and fewer pure scientists.

D iscussing the quality of recent engineer-

ing graduates with other experienced
engineers, I hear repeated complaints that
universities are turning out engineers with
no idea of what engineers do, who cant read
basic engineering drawings and who lack a
feel for numbers, process systems, and equip-
ment. These graduates may have a sound sci-
entific and mathematical education and been
trained in all of the skills necessary to follow
in the footsteps of their teachers, but
their teachers were not engineers
they were scientific researchers.
In the United Kingdom, and I
suspect in North America as well,
there is now profound confusion in
academia between science, engineer-
ing science and engineering; between
practice and research; and between
engineers and scientists. This is both
the cause of and the consequence of
a self-reinforcing problem: In order
to enhance their profile, university
engineering departments seek out
scientific researchers whose work
has appeared in high-impact journals.
How can we maintain credibility
and alignment with what is interna-
tionally understood to be the proper
role of an engineer? There is at present
no mechanism to employ staff with significant
engineering experience, and even if there were,
a lack of understanding of and respect for pro-
fessional knowledge and a large difference in
pay make recruitment of practitioners more or
less impossible.
To clarify the confusion, lets differentiate
between pure and applied math, science, en-
gineering science, and engineering:
Mathematics is a human construction, with
no empirical foundation. It is only true within
its own conventions. There is no such thing in
nature as a true circle, and even arithmetic (de-
spite its great utility) is not empirically based.
Applied mathematics uses math to address
some real-world problem. This is the way en-
gineers use mathematics, but many engineers
use English too. Engineering is no more ap-
plied mathematics than it is applied English.
Natural science tries to understand natural
phenomena. It is about explaining and perhaps
predicting natural phenomena.
Applied science employs natural scien-
tific principles to solve real-world problems.
Engineers might do this (though mostly they
dont), but that doesnt make it engineering.
We have removed
the checks and
balances that
prevented
curricula from
drifting too far
from the needs of
the profession.
Engineering science is the application
of scientific principles to the study of engi-
neering artifacts. The classic example of this
is thermodynamics, invented to explain the
steam engine, developed empirically without
supporting theory.
This is the kind of science that engineers
tend to apply, the science of engineered arti-
facts rather than nature.
Engineering is the profession of imagining
and bringing into being a completely new ar-
tifact that safely, cost-effectively, and robustly
achieves a specified aim. The role of academic
engineers tends to exclude this last category
many are really research scientists.
What have been the consequences of al-
lowing research scientists rather than prac-
titioners to take over the education of en-
gineers? Without engineering practitioners in
leadership roles, we have removed the checks
and balances that prevented university curri-
cula from drifting too far from the needs of
the profession.
Many academics think that they, as scien-
tists, possess a better understanding of the fun-
damentals of our profession than we practitio-
ners. Theirs is the commonly held but
infrequently voiced idea that the natu-
ral sciences and pure math are cleverer
than engineering practice. In support
of their approach they will argue:
We need to teach the science under-
pinning engineering.
We do indeed need to do this, but
science and math do not directly un-
derpin engineering. We may need to
teach some pure subjects early in the
course in order to get students ready to
learn engineering science and profes-
sional practice, but this is the equiva-
lent of pre-clinical medical education.
We are educating engineers, not
providing industrial training for
technicians.
This argument reliably comes out
as soon as I propose to academics
putting practice at the heart of the curricu-
lum. They dont mind a visiting industrialist
amusing the students with a few anecdotes,
but they reject the idea that an engineer might
know more about engineering than a non-
practitioner with an academic title.
In fact, engineering practice is quite a chal-
lenging profession. Those who perform it well
tend to make it look easy in a way that confuses
people with no relevant qualifications or expe-
rience. But if it really were easy, it wouldnt be
one of the best-paid professions.
Sen Moran, a chartered chemical engineer, is a former associ-
ate professor at the University of Nottingham, where he won
multiple teaching awards. He is the author of An Applied Guide
to Process and Plant Design (Butterworth-Heinemann , 2015).

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