>PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 2009 PAUL JOWITT

Now is the time... >briefing>PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS >>PAUL ? ? ? ? > continued JOWITT

Now is the time...

This is the inaugural century technological and economic pow- individual, corporate and national behaviours, address of Paul erhouse came much of the world as we see but there is no doubt that we are now enter- Jowitt, who became it today, with successive waves of technical ing the systems phase, and with it the need to innovation and periods of rapid social change. develop systems-level solutions. That nineteenth the 145th president From it sprang the transportation systems century era of great engineering in the UK and of the Institution of of canals, highways, railways and ports; the the west – and with it massive growth in effec- Civil Engineers on 3 power systems; the water supply, sewerage tive infrastructure which saved the health of November 2009. and irrigation systems; the production and nations and powered their economies – enjoyed consumption of consumer goods on a mas- two advantages: seemingly unlimited sources of sive scale in an increasingly urbanised society; energy – coal, oil and gas – and a world environ- To stand in the shadows of Thomas Telford’s and the development of large-scale construc- ment of apparently boundless capacity in terms Dean Bridge, beneath the vaulting roof of tion and the changing form of cities and of water supply, food, materials and other natu- William Barlow’s St Pancras station (Figure 1) towns. But from it also sprang the problems ral resources relative to human need. or inside Joseph Bazalgette’s pumping sta- of congestion, air pollution, damage to the It was largely unfettered by the demands of tion at Crossness is both an inspiring and a environment, profligate resource use, global democracy and planning restrictions and had lit- humbling experience. The Institution of Civil warming, over-abstraction of watercourses, tle regard for health and safety. It was funded by Engineers (ICE) building at Great George water pollution, urban blight and social injus- ambitious men of massive private wealth, had Street in evokes a similar sense of tice. easy access to raw materials from the empire place, a cathedral of civil engineering echoing It was never anticipated that man’s activities and scant regard for the rights of other nations. with the voices of the great engineers of the would lead to impacts on a global scale, which Not so today; now we know differently. past whose names are carved in its Portland now threaten the environment and humanity’s stone, whose portraits adorn its walls and place in it. Despite our scientific understanding, The challenge whose spirits inspire us today. we did not anticipate the wider physical and This time the scale of the problem is It is easy to think of the nineteenth century non-physical consequences at the systems level. orders of magnitude greater; environmental as the halcyon days of civil engineering, but I The emergent properties and behaviours of constraints are dangerously close to being wish to state at the outset that now is the time large and complex systems were neither fully breached; there are growing international ten- for an engineering renaissance – to build and appreciated nor fully understood. sions for access to water, minerals and other rebuild our infrastructure in a burgeoning There is still a long way to go in changing scarce resources. We no longer have the moral world in the face of the complexities of climate change, in the face of a globalised economy and the fallout from a collapse of the financial systems upon which it was built, in the face of international competition for natural resources, and the fact that much of the world’s popula- tion has no access to the infrastructure plat- form upon which civilisation and its survival depends (UN, 2003, 2009a; Burns, 2009). The great nineteenth century heyday of engineering – that era of massive mechanisa- tion and urbanisation – took the early indus- trial revolution from the eighteenth century right through into the twentieth century. It simultaneously improved the health of a nation and the wellbeing of the common man, with improvements in water supply and sanitation, economic growth and greater equality of opportunity and social mobility. Figure 1. The vaulted roof of William Barlow’s 1868 train shed at St Pancras station From the crucible of that nineteenth in London is both inspiring and humbling – now is the time for an engineering

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freedom to power our way into the future by Climate change The economy burning fossil fuels. For all practical purposes, the climate change The world’s economy over the past 50 Around 1 billion people do not have access debate is over. The relationship between the years or so has been built on the production, to safe water, 1·6 billion people are without greenhouse effect and carbon dioxide emissions acquisition and disposal of consumer goods in electricity, 2·5 billion live without adequate from the burning of coal was postulated long an increasingly material world. But the mate- sanitation, over 1 billion are without access to ago by Fourier (1824). The effects were predicted rial world has failed to have due regard for the telephone services and roughly 1 billion of the in 1896 by the Swedish chemist and Nobel underpinning infrastructure that provides the world’s rural poor do not have adequate access laureate Arrhenius (1896). The debate effectively foundation upon which civilisation depends. to all-weather roads (World Bank, 2008). ended with the work of the Intergovernmental Existing infrastructure has been left to rot, Resolving all this will require tremendous Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007). We now under-funded. Investment in new infrastruc- innovation and ingenuity by engineers, work- know that the continued use of fossil fuels is ture has not been forthcoming anywhere ing alongside other technical and non-technical certain to accelerate the earth’s climate to a point quickly enough. disciplines. It requires the civil engineer’s ability of no return. What is left for the climatologists is The world’s financial systems of the past 20 to synthesise solutions, not simply an ability to now a matter of monitoring and calibration. years or so have seen money and risk shuffled analyse problems. It needs the civil engineer’s For the politicians, now is the time to agree around the world in ever more complex and ability to take a systems view at a variety of scales to massively reduced carbon dioxide emis- arcane ways. Short-sellers have short-changed ranging from devices and products through to sions and global convergence to a low-carbon the public and shattered the economic founda- the large-scale delivery of infrastructure services. economy. For engineers, now is the time to pro- tions of the financial casinos in the process. We also need to take a long-term view – not vide the solutions that will give the politicians Now is the time for a more solid foundation one where the future is discounted and where the confidence to make the right decisions, the and an infrastructure platform for the world. In major decisions on engineering infrastructure time to design and deliver the infrastructure a searing critique of the financial sector, Lord are thwarted by blind obedience to the Treasury adaptation and mitigation measures necessary Adair Turner, chairman of the UK Financial discount rate, or where regulatory cycles of 4–5 to secure a sustainable future. Services Authority recently described much years do not account for asset lifetimes of 25–50 The measures are not about saving the planet of the City’s activities as, ‘socially useless,’ and years. This means not just a shift to whole-life as such – it will save itself by finding another set of questioned whether it had grown too large. costs but a shift to whole-life values. stable ecosystems and sets of biodiversity – but During a recent visit to the London School of We face two issues of truly global proportions: about saving humanity’s place in it and those other Economics, the Queen asked why nobody had climate change and poverty reduction. The species we will take with us should we fail. Noah noticed that the credit crunch was on its way. tasks confronting engineers of the twenty-first saved biodiversity by building an ark to save it from A response came quickly from leading econo- century are a flood; he did not destroy it by causing one. mists from the British Academy (Besley and engineering the world away from an envi- At their triennial conference in London in 2006, Hennessy, 2009): ‘Many people did foresee the ronmental crisis caused in part by previous ICE, the American Society of Civil Engineers and crisis… (but) the timing of its onset and feroc- generations in terms of energy use, green- the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering signed ity were foreseen by nobody… Risk managers house gas emissions and their contribution a protocol for engineering a sustainable future for frequently lost sight of the bigger picture…So to climate change the planet. In 2009, at the next triennial confer- in summary, your Majesty, it was a failure to providing the infrastructure platform for ence in St Johns, Canada, the three bodies agreed understand the risks to the system as a whole.’ an increasingly urbanised world and lifting to a follow-up action plan on climate change. I was Readers might be thinking that I am not a large proportion of the world’s growing proud to be involved in drafting both of these. saying enough about civil engineering, that population out of poverty and the associat- A 2009 protocol on civil engineering and I am focusing too much on economics. But ed problems encapsulated by the UN mil- climate change acknowledged the need to unless we understand the system in which we lennium development goals (UN, 2009c). adapt infrastructure to the anticipated effects of operate, unless we engage with those who climate change and the worldwide impacts of determine policy and command the economy, This will require a combination of re-engineer- increased exposure to flooding, reduced access and unless we start to speak in the language of ing existing infrastructure and provision of to drinking water supplies, and the threat to their discourse, then we will fail. Remember this first-time infrastructure at a global scale, and food security in large parts of Africa, Asia and – when the politicking is over, it will be to civil simultaneously reducing carbon emissions by Latin America – with implications for us all. engineers and other professions that they will up to 80%. The plan determined that civil engineers must turn. Remember too, civil engineering was also So now is the time for an engineering renais- lead the way in developing new mitigation tech- founded on a moral imperative: ‘civil engineer- sance, for a golden era of engineering to take nologies and materials to reduce emissions over ing is the art of working with the great sources us safely through the rest of this century and the whole life cycle of infrastructure systems. It of power in nature for the use and benefit of beyond. My great friend and mentor, Colin committed the institutions to develop guidance society’. (Thomas Tredgold’s original definition Brown, recently put it to me as follows: ‘This is to assess the vulnerability of civil infrastructure was ‘Civil Engineering is the art of directing the about asking engineers to engage in a process and best engineering practice for adaptation great sources of Power in Nature for the use – it’s a test of reality not a test of laboratory. It’s measures to address those vulnerabilities. and convenience of man’.) about how we decide to do this or do that – In November 2009, ICE produced a State of Now it the time to recapture that – not for and to avoid surprise.’ This means that the great the Nation report on low-carbon infrastructure ourselves, but to benefit the societies we serve age of engineering is now. (ICE, 2009b). and to influence those who set the policies that

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will enable us to do it. Now is the time to ready to a sustainable future, about infrastructure that ourselves, to make the case for infrastructure, provides sustainable urban environments, and to develop the technologies and to inspire and about infrastructure that inspires (Figure 2). prepare our young engineers to deliver it. Yes, Now is the time for practitioners – planners, we have the imagination, and yes, we have the architects and engineers – and the engineering innovative solutions. research community to work together with However, there is no point in talking to end users and stakeholders to build sustainable ourselves in a language that others do not and fulfilling environments, or, to put it more understand. This is why ICE has developed a bluntly, ‘to make places where stuff works and much more intensive and focussed public-affairs people are happy’. Figure 2. Michel Virlogeux’s 2004 Millau policy. Its State of the Nation briefings on key For the past 6 years, UK Engineering and Bridge across the Tarn Valley is a recent issues to key policymakers have been very Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC) example of infrastructure that inspires effective. ICE advocated the establishment of has been funding the ‘Sustainable urban the UK’s Infrastructure Planning Commission, environments’ (Sue) research programme, a climate change and catastrophic systemic launched in October 2009, to ease the plan- £38 million programme involving 18 research failures from natural and other sources. It is bad ning process for large-scale infrastructure. ICE consortia, 60 universities, 213 project partners enough when infrastructure fails through natural pressed for the appointment of a government and stakeholders and covering urban and built causes. It is unacceptable that it should fail by chief construction adviser, to oversee UK con- environments; waste, water and land manage- neglect. struction strategy, and play a leading role in the ment; transport and knowledge management; ICE’s recent State of the Nation report on development the government’s advisory body, and decision-making. What is required now is critical infrastructure (ICE, 2009a) called for Infrastructure UK, and provide a focal point for to put the fruits of this research into practice the establishment of a new single point of the construction sector in delivering a sustain- through implementation strategies for sus- authority for infrastructure resilience. It is vital able, competitive and low-carbon economy. tainable urban environments (e.g. the Issues that we understand the potential impacts of project) (EPSRC, 2009). the failure cycle and its societal context. We Time to reboot Sustainable urban environments are not need to manage infrastructure lifelines in all In December 2008, the US columnist and just places to live and work, but places where phases of their lifetimes. triple Pulitzer prize winner Thomas Friedman we feel fulfilled and inspired. It was Winston Let us remember that civilisation – a function- wrote the following in the New York Times. Churchill who said, ‘We shape our build- ing society and business – depends on a series ings, and afterwards our buildings shape us’ of complex infrastructure networks, providing ‘The day started well. I took off from (Hansard, 1943). Now is the time to shape our our cities and towns with clean water, transport, Hong Kong’s ultramodern airport after riding cities for future fulfilment and, despite the eco- energy and the capacity to trade efficiently. out there from downtown on a sleek high- nomic situation, now is the time to invest in the However, this complexity also makes these speed train. Landing at Kennedy airport from critical infrastructure that inspires. networks vulnerable. When infrastructure fails, Hong Kong was like going from the Jetsons In the 1930s, the response to the economic things go wrong. The risks of infrastructure to the Flintstones. As I looked around at this depression in the USA was Roosevelt’s ‘new breakdown, and the scale of its consequences, dingy room, it reminded of somewhere I had deal’: investment in critical infrastructure, are increasing from a range of random and been before. Then I remembered: it was the such as the Grand Coulee and other hydro- non-random sources including climate change, luggage hall in the old Hong Kong Kai Tak power dams on the Columbia River. The folk potential over-dependence on high-technology Airport. It closed in 1998. All I could think to singer Woody Guthrie was hired by the US infrastructure and increasing urbanisation (in myself was: if we’re so smart, why are other Department of the Interior to write songs both the developed and developing worlds). people living so much better than us? What about the Columbia River scheme (YouTube, The waters might be muddied but issues are has become of our infrastructure, which is 2009; MySpace, 2009). He was inspired to crystal clear: nature is a great leveller. We saw so crucial to productivity? To top it off, we’ve write 26 songs in 28 days, including three of it when hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in fallen into a trend of diverting and rewarding his most famous: Roll on Columbia, Pastures of 2005. A few simple civil structures failed – some the best of our collective IQ to people doing Plenty, and Grand Coulee Dam. Of the Columbia flood levees. Eight hours later, the social cohe- financial engineering rather than real engi- River and the Grand Coulee dam, Guthrie sion of a city in the world’s richest and most neering. John Kennedy led us on a journey sang, ‘Roll along Columbia, you can ramble to advanced country was reduced to chaos. No to the moon. Obama needs to lead us on a the sea, But river, while you’re rambling, you electricity, no ATMs, no cash, and therefore an journey to rediscover, rebuild and reinvent can do some work for me’. There are massive inability to buy food or water. our own backyard. That’s why we don’t just opportunities today to power the future using We have seen it recently with the floods in need a bailout. We need a reboot. We need renewable technologies, not least those that Cumbria and Dumfries in November 2009. We a build out. We need a build up. We need a can exploit wave and tidal energy, harnessing saw it in Yorkshire and Scotland in 2007: loss of national makeover.’ (Friedman, 2008) the great sources of power in nature (Scottish homes, people camping out in their driveways to Government, 2009). protect their shattered properties and remain- Friedman was writing about infrastructure. Woody Guthrie also wrote This Land is Your ing possessions. Some would not return to their However, it is not about infrastructure for its Land – and so it is. Now is the time to re-invest in homes for over 12 months, some still haven’t. own sake, but about infrastructure which leads our infrastructure – and future-proof it against We saw it with the earthquakes in China,

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neers, we need to develop systems-level solu- tial for international conflicts – not least in the tions to enable us to give better advice and to Middle East, in Africa and in the Indian sub-conti- arrive at better decisions. nent. As Mark Twain once observed, ‘whiskey is We need to distinguish between complexity for drinking, but water is for fighting over’. and complicatedness; to distinguish between those things that are rich in structure compared International development to those which are just rich in detail. The criticality of infrastructure is not con- We need to tackle issues of land-use plan- fined to the developed economies of the world. ning, urban regeneration and transport as parts ICE has worked with other built-environment of the same system. In terms of transport, we professions and the Max Lock Centre to pro- need to see different travel modes as com- duce a guidebook for disaster risk reduction plementary, not just as competing alternatives and response. The effects of climate change and leading to all manner of undesirable and unin- the fallout from political strife add to the cata- tended consequences at the systems level. In logue of disaster-relief work. terms of water and water resources, now is the ICE has long been a supporter of RedR – the Figure 3. Charles Darwin (1800–1882) was time to stop thinking of water as just another Register of Engineers for Disaster Relief. There one of the world’s first systems thinkers – civil engineers need to develop systems- commodity. is hardly a place in the world where engineers In a recent presentation to ICE’s council, from RedR have not been deployed in the wake the government’s chief scientific advisor, John of some disaster or another to bring humanitar- Pakistan, Italy and just recently in Indonesia. We Beddington, outlined ten twenty-first century ian relief – re-establishing or establishing from saw it with the tsunami in 2004 in Indonesia, challenges as the ‘perfect storm’ scratch the fundamental human requirements Sri Lanka and India, and again just recently in of water supply, sanitation, power, shelter, Samoa: thousands dead, thousands displaced – urbanisation food and medical supplies and other essential loss of homes and livelihoods. population services. We have seen it as a result of terrorist food security However, civil engineers also need to be events – the World Trade Center, the London poverty alleviation proactively involved in international develop- Tube bombings, Madrid, and in India, energy demand ment, not just responding to disasters after Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan: severe loss of climate change they have happened. Effective economic life, economic damage, massive disruption to water demand recovery and sustainable development will also transport and communications systems, mobile- counter-terrorism depend on extending infrastructure to those phone networks swamped. infectious diseases in the world who have been left behind in the The incidents show that we are only hours biodiversity. past 50 years and who will be exposed to even away from social collapse if critical infrastruc- greater threats in the next 50 years. ture fails. Now is the time to look at the bigger These challenges are not independent – they are The world’s population is now over 6 billion picture – in terms of timescales, in terms of interconnected. They are the emergent proper- and set to rise to 9 billion by 2050. Urbanisation connecting disciplines, in terms of whole-world ties of large-scale, complex systems. One way is increasing apace. There is a tide of humanity thinking, in terms of systems. or another, civil engineers have a positive role heading from the countryside to the city: tens to play in addressing all of these – by dealing of millions per year. The demand for effective Systems with the underlying systems. More to the point, infrastructure services is immense. The prevailing western and north-American Beddington and others in government increas- Progress towards the UN millennium devel- view of science and technology has been essen- ingly recognise that too: they realise the role of opment goals (UN, 2009c) is behind schedule, tially reductionist, which does not encourage the civil engineer and are ready to listen. and the global economic crisis has had grim a systems or holistic view of the world. As we Later in 2009, Beddington encouraged repercussions (UN, 2009b). The consequences enter what has also been called the ‘ecological the Royal Academy of Engineering, ICE and of climate change – sea level rise, changes in age’, civil engineers need to adapt and learn the Chartered Institution of Water and rainfall patterns, drought and flooding – will from other disciplines and from other cultures Environmental Management to hold a workshop impact most on the most impoverished people that have a much closer relationship with the to examine the key issues of water security. The of the world. The first six of the eight UN goals world in which we live – the American Indian, workshop covered water resources and urbani- are directly concerned with the human condi- the Celt, the Inuit, the Aboriginal, the people of sation in Asia, agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa tion: their physical health, their economic and the Masai Mara, the Maori. and sustainable water resources development in social well-being and their capacity to play a full In recent years we have justly and proudly Europe. The recurrent message that emerged and useful role in the world. This all depends on celebrated the anniversaries of great engineers was the need to adopt a systems approach to access to infrastructure, on civil engineering. – Thomas Telford’s 250th, Isambard Kingdom water security, to develop a systems-level under- The other two UN goals relate to the envi- Brunel’s 200th, Thomas Hawksley’s 200th. Last standing to enable better decision-making. ronmental limits within which we have to oper- year was the bicentenary of Charles Darwin Water security is not confined to the UK, ate, and the partnerships we need to build, to – one of the first systems thinkers, at least in it spans the world. Rivers and aquifers do not deliver the infrastructure upon which civilisation ‘western’ philosophy (Figure 3). As civil engi- respect national borders and this has the poten- depends – infrastructure that achieves real, pro-

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poor outcomes in the process of its planning, price – exactly the same values and expectations construction and operation. that we would expect in the developed world. Lack of access to basic infrastructure is at A functioning local business sector can also the root of world poverty and the human reduce poverty through direct involvement in tragedies associated with it. Many communi- the development of effective and sustainable ties are marginalised with little access to even infrastructure, providing an internal demand for the most basic of infrastructure, education and local skills and employment. This is exemplified healthcare, and tenuous legal tenure to land by the work of Ron Watermeyer, former presi- or property. In the massive Kibera township in dent of the South African Institution of Civil Nairobi, the people are exploited, with most of Engineering. Watermeyer was seconded to the dwellings owned by private landlords and the South African government in 1995 and led where the payback period is 9 months (BBC, Soweto’s contractor development programme. 2009). Yet even in Kibera, community groups He was closely involved in community-based are bettering their community, by construct- job-creation programmes and the development ing toilet blocks and running a maternity unit, of local engineering businesses and enterprises. assisted by aid funds and personal subscriptions Now is the time to work with our engineer- of a few Kenyan shillings per month. In their ing colleagues across the globe to build the Figure 4. ICE is a partner of the Africa– overcrowded classes, schoolchildren are atten- engineering capacity to create the infrastructure UK Engineering for Development tive and smartly turned out. In her schoolbook services to deliver the UN millennium develop- Partnership, one of many initiatives an 8-year-old girl writes in neat handwriting ment goals. If we are successful, the lessons to build engineering capacity in that cutting down trees is bad for the environ- learned by that 8-year-old girl in Kibera will ment because it leads to soil erosion – and yet have been worth it and put into practice. She Supporting young engineers much of Kibera relies on fuel wood for cooking. might still be at school in her teens, her family The current state of the economy is having That 8-year old girl is taking a systems view. part of a recovering local economy, her com- profound effects on civil engineering – and civil Even in the emerging economies of such as munity less at risk from disease from poor engineers. We know that many civil engineers India and Brazil, there is scant evidence that the wastewater disposal and fetid solid waste. have lost their jobs and the recruitment of grad- underclasses are benefiting significantly from their Perhaps she will go on to college and become uate engineers has slowed. Now is not the time countries’ transformation into technologically part of the infrastructure delivery process. to lose a generation of young engineers. driven powerhouses. Most are still living in what It is not limited to Kenya (Parikh and McRobie, Now is the time to inspire them and allow are euphemistically called ‘unplanned settlements’: 2009): elsewhere slum dwellers are organising them in turn to inspire the rest of us through slums. From Mumbai to Nairobi, from Cape themselves through organisations such as Slum their passion, their values and their energy. Now Town to Rio, the urban landscape is scarred by Dwellers International (SDI, 2009a, b). Rose is the time to encourage, nurture and support the amorphous, slum-grey shanty towns, built from Molokoane, president of the South African engineers of the future. We must do this through- whatever materials come to hand, with water Federation of the Urban Poor, puts it like this: out the engineering professions – individually as courses polluted by sewage and solid waste. ‘Poor people are really fed-up of being objects role models, corporately through the engineering The solutions today are deceptively straight- and subjects. Instead, they want to be partners in industry and professionally through the ICE. forward – the provision of basic urban infrastruc- the creation of cities without slums’. The graduates and student members of ture and effective infrastructure services. Now is Infrastructure delivery also requires invest- ICE are our lifeblood. Many of our gradu- the time for an engineering vision for delivering ment. Those mired in poverty do not have ates are members of Engineers for Overseas the UN millennium development goals. and cannot afford all the resources necessary Development, an initiative started by Ian There are certain prerequisites for develop- to resolve their plight. They will need external Flower of ICE Wales to, ‘assist in the develop- ment, without which attempts to improve liveli- investment from business and international ment and training of graduates by challenging hoods in the developing world will be unlikely agencies, and assistance from the worldwide them to undertake projects that improve to succeed. These include reasonable govern- engineering community. There will be no public health in developing countries’. Many ance structures; a functioning civil society; an spectators as the future unfolds, but there are of our younger members are also members effective local economy; and freedom from particular roles for civil engineers. of Engineers without Borders, a student-led persecution, conflict and corruption. ICE is doing all it can to build engineering charity established to, ‘facilitate human devel- ICE and the charity Engineers Against Poverty capacity at the international scale. We are work- opment through engineering’. are partners in the ‘Construction sector trans- ing with the Royal Academy of Engineering, the At the international scale, many engineering parency’ (CoST, 2009) initiative funded by the South African Institution of Civil Engineering and students from the developed and develop- UK Department for International Development the African Engineers Forum to build engineer- ing worlds are taking part in the Mondialogo (DFID, 2009). The project is being piloted in ing capacity in Africa (Figure 4). We are working engineering awards (Mondialogo, 2009), devel- Tanzania, Zambia, Vietnam and the Philippines. with Unesco and Engineers Against Poverty on oping engineering projects to address the UN It is tackling problems of corruption and shoddy university curricula for engineering for interna- millennium development goals. As a member workmanship in construction to ensure that gov- tional development. We are in contact with sen- of the Mondialogo Jury I have witnessed first ernment-funded construction projects are deliv- ior officials at DFID, UK Aid and politicians from hand the way in which young engineering ered on time, at high quality and at a reasonable all parties to pursue all these initiatives. students work together – crossing boundaries,

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disciplines, nationalities and cultures (Figure 5). and the pumping systems, I shall be only too neering capacity worldwide for international One of ICE’s distinguished past presidents, glad to make all the necessary arrangements.’ development and to deliver the UN millennium Thomas Hawksley, made some very pertinent Hawksley was an engineer committed to the development goals. observations about supporting young engineers in provision of public services, the underpinning Now is the time for an engineering renais- his presidential address. They are worth repeating. infrastructure upon which civilisation depends, sance, the time to build and maintain the critical Hawksley said, ‘On the subject of profession- and committed to developing the next genera- infrastructure upon which civilisation depends al education, I would say to the students – of tion of engineers to deliver these goals. Like – both at home and abroad. Now is the time all things, don’t attempt too much’. He advised Joseph Bazalgette, he was an engineering hero to take a systems view of the world and deliver them to maintain their skills in mathematics and then, and he would be a hero now. systems-level solutions. engineering science, to develop their language Providing the platform for a sustainable skills and to keep up to date with cognate sub- Conclusion future for succeeding generations has never had jects. He advised them to practise as much as Now is the time to support our young a more important moral, economic, social and possible the art of mental computation, for this engineers, the time to unleash their skills and environmental imperative. Now is the time to would give them the means of almost intuitively enthusiasm. Now is the time to build engi- deliver. As civil engineers, this is our job. arriving at the best of several alternative plans or methods; to develop a knowledge of form References Arrhenius S (1896) On the influence of carbonic acid in the air upon the temperature of the ground. and function; and to develop an understanding Philosophical Magazine 41: 237–276. of practice, adding that this knowledge is not to BBC (2009) BBC World News The World Debate: Housing the Future. See http://www.bbcworldnews. be obtained in a school, a college, or an office. com/pages/ProgrammeMultiFeature.aspx?id=196 (accessed 11/12/2009). Besley T and Hennessy P (2009) Letter to Her Majesty the Queen on behalf of the British Academy. See He said, ‘Don’t be afraid of soiling your hands or http://www.britac.ac.uk/news/newsrelease-economy.cfm for further details (accessed 10/12/2009). dirtying your boots, but be in every other respect Burns M (2009) Why does two thirds of the world’s population still not have access to safe drinking water? See http://www.alternet.org/water/140269/why_does_two-thirds_of_the_world’s_population_still_not_ – in thought, feeling, and conduct – a gentleman’. have_access_to_safe_drinking_water/?page=1 (accessed 10/12/2009). This was before we had a female president! What CoST (2009) http://www.constructiontransparency.org/ (accessed 11/12/2009). DFID (Department for International Development) (2009) http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Media-Room/Press- he meant was to be well-mannered and consider- releases/2008/Launch-of-Construction-Sector-Transparency-CoST-Initiative/ (accessed 11/12/2009). ate with high standards of proper behaviour – that EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) (2009) http://www.urbansustainabilityex- change.org.uk/ (accessed 11/12/2009). is, to adopt a professional ethic. Fourier J (1824) Remarques générales sur les températures du globe terrestre et des espaces planétaires. A few years ago I led a task group to define Annales de Chemie et de Physique 27: 136–167. 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Figure 5. The Mondialogo engineering What do you think? awards encourage engineering students If you would like to comment on this paper, please email up to 200 words to the editor at [email protected]. to work together – crossing boundaries, If you would like to write a paper of 2000 to 3500 words about your own experience in this or any related area of disciplines, nationalities and cultures civil engineering, the editor will be happy to provide any help or advice you need.

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