AEngD Launch Conference 2012

On 1 November 2012, twenty years after the inception of the first EngD courses in the UK, the Association of Engineering Doctorates held its launch conference, looking back to the birth of the first industrial doctorate centres, and looking forward to growing awareness and interest in the EngD qualification in UK industry and beyond.

The AEngD launch conference was held at the Royal Academy of Engineering in London, and assembled representatives of the engineering research community listened as Dr Paul Golby, chairman of the EPSRC, and the Rt Hon David Willetts MP, Minister for Universities and Science, applauded the achievements of the EngD programme (see AEngD news release).

EngD support

The day saw numerous endorsements of the EngD programme in the UK. For example....

"On behalf of Thales, ... I confirm that we strongly support the Association, and would strongly urge BIS, EPSRC and HEFCE to continue and augment the Engineering Doctorate model for postgraduate training and research. As industrial sponsors, we find it the most cost-effective model in achieving our combined research and specialist postgraduate recruitment requirements."

Paul Davies, Head of Systems Research
Thales Research and Technology, Thales UK

After speaking to the conference, Mr Willetts was joined by Dr Golby, Professor James Powell (who described himself as the "midwife of the EngD") and Professor Patrick Godfrey (chairman of the AEngD steering committee) to cut a special AEngD birthday cake marking the 20th anniversary of the launch of the EngD qualification in the UK.

Programme

• EngD: starting a revolution in postgraduate training (Dr Paul Golby, chairman of EPSRC) - Keynote presentation
• Rt Hon David Willetts MP, Minister for Universities & Science - speech transcript
• Happy 20th birthday, EngD! (Prof James Powell) - presentation
• An industrial sponsor's view (Prof Nick Weston, Renishaw plc) - presentation
• An Alumni view (Dr Gareth Rice, O2) - presentation
• A research engineer view (Charlotte Dunford, Rolls-Royce plc)
• A European view (Prof Kees van Hee, Stan Ackermans Institute) - presentation

Videos

• All the presentations were filmed - see AEngD launch videos page - and video interviews with IDCs' people were undertaken (see their pages or YouTube).

Posters

• Alongside the conference was a poster exhibition of IDC research programmes.