Engineering Professors’ Council
Minutes of the 94th meeting of the Committee
held 13th February 2008
At 1 Portland Place, London W1B 1PN
Professors Helen Atkinson (HA), Fred Maillardet (FJM), Jim Yip (JY), Barry Clarke (BC), Bill Banks (BB), Bill Milne (BM), Bob Reuben (BR), Raffaella Ocone (RO), Tony Unsworth (TU), Dik Morling (DM), Ray Allen (RA) (Chair), Clive Neal-Sturgess (CNS), Sarath Tennakoon (ST), Roger Green (RG), John Turner (JT), Alistair Sambell (AS), David Harrison (DH), Dr. Dave Twigg (DT), John Dickens, Ian Whyte (IW), Mrs Fiona Martland (FM), and Mrs Vicky Elston (VE).
All other members of the Committee.
Minutes from the previous meeting held on 12th December 2007 were approved, with the exception of the mistyping of CASE under section 4, which should be CaSE.
6.6 CNS strongly recommended everyone on the committee to read the paper from the Royal Society entitled ‘A Higher Degree of Concern’. It is on the Royal Society website and FM has a hard copy to borrow.
RA said that the committee had a lot to be proud of during the first six weeks of the year.
Future Meetings
11th June 2008 - JD said he would be attending and would report back to committee.
23rd April 2008 -Nuclear Institute Launch - the House of Lords. RA said he had been invited.
21st February 2008 – discussion on Manufacturing Diploma. CNS volunteered to attend on behalf of EPC and to report on the Mathematics module developed for the Engineering Diploma.
27th February 2008 - FM to attend.
13th March 2008 - BB volunteered to attend on behalf of EPC.
Also, FM reported that she had met with the new Education Officer at EEF and is hoping that they will be able to give a talk at the July committee meeting. They have just begun a survey of their members on Education and Skills Strategies and should have the results by then.
5. Treasurer’s Report
IW tabled a graph showing EPC’s bank balance. He said that turnover over the past few years had been £65k-£70k and that the balance had tailed off at approximately £80k.
FM pointed out that the office have not been billed for general office costs since moving rooms last year, so a bill should be imminent. Action: FM to chase UNiS
IW mentioned that he was considering changing banks as the current bank, Yorkshire do not have many branches.
IW also pointed out the increase in travelling expenses by committee members due to the increased activity of the working groups.
6. Annual Congress 2008 – Warwick
RG went through the draft programme for the Congress in detail and stressed that he still needed to obtain titles for the talks and to tidy up the format of the programme. Fred expressed concern that given the number of speakers due to talk, it is important that someone keeps on top of the timing to avoid over-running. RA then suggested that chairs should be named for each section of the Congress. It would be up to these people to make sure speakers stick to their scheduled time-slot. Names agreed were:
RA said that the final timetable needs to be sent out to the EPC members by email and by post to the EPC list of other institutions and press etc as soon as possible. It was also suggested that the ‘early discount date’ of 29th March be put back by a week to 7th March to give delegates more time.
TU led the committee through the latest response and asked for comments. It was agreed that the response should be returned to HEFCE as read.
The Enquiry, launched on January 29th, is asking for general responses as well as specific responses on the selected case studies of Nuclear and Plastics Electronics Engineering. Groups of committee members were agreed to look at each of the case study responses:
BC stated that the general response could be made up of 6 topics:
Action: FM, RA, JT and BM
RA took the committee through the paper entitled The Future of EPC Membership and pointed out the three options: a) no change, b) minimal change and c) full reform whereby corporate membership is allowed along with educational institutions other than universities.
This was followed by a lively and lengthy discussion with some members expressing concern that allowing corporate members, who could gain influence within the EPC, could change the group and what it stands for. The argument against this was that due to the increased activity of EPC committee members, more income needed to be found to keep the group sustainable. It was felt that increasing the subscriptions by too much could cause some universities to not renew and hence the EPC’s current position of having the majority of the UK’s engineering departments as members could be lost and that this would change EPC even more.
The conclusion reached was that industry and other professional institutions would be accepted as corporate members. Also, any HEI or equivalent that has degree-awarding powers would be accepted as members. However, any future prospective member would need to be agreed by the Committee who would also agree who or how many people would be allowed to represent their organisation at the Congress and AGM .
The amended Incorporation documents will need to be agreed at this year’s AGM and it was suggested that members may wish to see the papers before the meeting. RA to finalise them before the end of the month and FM to email the members asking if anyone wishes to review them in advance of the AGM, to contact the EPC office.
Action: RA/FM
RA took the committee through the proposed changes for the website and asked them for agreement on payment for the upgrade expected to be in the region of £2000. Agreement was given.
RA also introduced AS as the committee member in charge of overseeing the changes by liaising with VE. AS and VE to finalise specification and arrange for changes to be made as soon as possible.
Action: AS/VE
11.1 Admissions
DM reported that the group had not met since the last committee meeting. He gave thanks to FM for putting together the programme for the event planned for 7th May at the RAE. FM then asked if the committee felt a charge should be made to delegates. A figure of £75 was agreed. JD stated that a facility set up at York University could be used to allow payments to be made by credit card.
FJM then went through his report on EEA.
11.2 Assessment
FJM then went through his written report.
11.3 Communications
RA asked the committee whether it felt that the group was still required. Many members felt that it had fulfilled it’s original objectives, but that there was still a need to keep it going. RA and FM will look at external communications) civil service, parliament, press etc) and will bring thoughts to next committee meeting.
Action: RA/FM
RA then asked for a volunteer to produce 4 newsletters each year, but no immediate response was forthcoming.
11.4 Costings
HA paid tribute to RA, FM, FJM and RP for their work on the report and also gave thanks to the four universities used as case studies which required a significant amount of work.
She said that there were three parts to the report – the full report, a glossy (set as an email attachment) and a covering letter.
The conclusion was that each of the four case study university departments run at a deficit and have to rely on overseas students to get back into credit.
HA said that if anyone is contacted by the press, they should be shown the ‘glossy’ report and be directed to HA or RA. The ‘glossy’ should also be added to the website.
Action: VE
11.5 Ethics
There was no report on the group, but RO went through the tabled programme for the event scheduled for 14th March. The idea is to gain experience from those who have previously taught Ethics so that a future workshop can be planned for those who would like to be involved in teaching Ethics.
RA pointed out that the EPC logo was not on the programme and booking forms. RO will investigate.
Action: RO
RO said that the next meeting of the working group was planned for early March.
11.9 Future of engineering degrees (out of order)
BC went through his written report. He said that he had been talking to various professional institutions such as the Sector Skills Council and the Engineering Subject Centre and he had had an EPC member volunteer to join the working group.
11.7 Mathematics and Diploma Task Group
FJM said the focus since the last meeting had been on the Task Group. He said that they were looking to get the new Maths module accredited and the QCA had approached the group to join it. FJM stated that the DCSF had offered QCA £40k to finalise everything.
FJM stressed that only approximately 10% of Engineering Diploma students are likely to take the new Maths module i.e. it is not for everyone. It was discussed whether, once the module has been accredited, the EPC should say anything to the members regarding the acceptance of the new diploma as entry to university. RA felt that EPC should wait before commenting widely on it.
RA then asked whether the working group chairs would report on their respective group’s activities at the AGM. It was agreed that Admissions, Assessment, Ethics, Future of Engineering Degrees and Maths would all be reported on. The other groups were being covered within the congress programme.
The committee is seeking two nominations in addition to the agreed John Turner and Denise Bower. FM said that she had met the Dean of Ulster University who was keen. It was also stated that having regional representatives in Northern Ireland and Wales was important for gaining contacts in those parliaments. It was suggested that a committee member from Cardiff University would be useful.
FM said that she was looking at various options and would report before the end of the month.
Action: FM
FM asked for a volunteer for the APEG dinner on 23rd April.
The next meeting of the Committee will be at the Annual Congress at Warwick on 31st March.