5th Annual Symposium of the United Kingdom & Ireland Engineering Education Research Network: Time for Change

The proceedings of the 5th symposium of the UK & IE Engineering Education Network set about challenging the status quo in all areas of engineering education. Over two days colleagues discussed and debated a number of issues ranging from engineering in schools and attracting young people into engineering, to innovative engineering pedagogies. The highly contentious question of whether ‘maths’ is, or is not, a vital prerequisite to studying engineering at university was debated whilst an expert panel asked the question “Are engineering educators fit for purpose?”.Needless to say the Symposium proved to be a lively event. In an attempt to provide the engineering education community with a taste of the debates the short Symposium Papers presented here represent ‘the tip of the iceberg’ with regards to the wide range of problems and solutions discussed and proposed. Divided into three main sections this publication shows that the Symposium did indeed achieve its objective of ‘challenging the status quo’. The papers presented in the first section argue the case for change in engineering education. Whilst the second section turns to look at engineering education practice and pedagogy, with an additional section included to assure non-expert researchers are given a voice. The final section brings the document to a close with a number of papers that look at how colleagues across the UK are beginning to innovate change in the engineering classroom and beyond.