Ethics

good afternoon everybody uh a very well welcome to you all and thank you for joining this Royal Academy of
engineering webinar on ethics in the engineering profession my name is Rhys Morgan I'm the director for education
and diversity at the Royal Academy of engineering over the next hour we'll be
looking at the findings of an independent audit of Ethics in UK engineering that the academy
commissioned last year and we'll be discussing the professional's response to those findings I'll shortly be
introducing panelists who will be joining me to share their own experiences knowledge and insight on
ethical Behavior within the engineering profession before I do however I just wanted to
take a moment to acknowledge what I'm sure many of you are aware of uh that today is the sixth anniversary of the
grenfell Tower of Fire on the 14th of June 2017 the fire that
broke out in the 24-story grenfell tower block of flats in West London resulted
in 72 people losing their lives of those who escaped that fire many were injured
the fire is of course the subject of several complex investigations in the final report of the public inquiries
expected later this year but the impact of those tragic events in 2017 has been
far-reaching very far-reaching indeed and led to some important discussions about ethical behavior in depth in
different sections of society including engineering as a profession that acts in the
services Society Engineers are bound by a moral code of ethical Behavior to act
in a way that upholds the highest standards expected by the public through activities such as today's
webinar and improving the teaching of Ethics both in formal education in
colleges and universities and through professional development our aim is to support ethical practice among
colleagues working across all sectors in this fields of engineering and my hope as I'm sure yours is too is
that by doing so we can continue to prevent work to prevent such tragic incidents happening in the future now
we've got a lot to get through and we'll no doubt have a rich discussion so without further Ado I'd like to invite
colleagues from good cooperation consultancy that undertook this work to give a short presentation for around
about 15 or so 50 minutes or so I'll then introduce our panelists and
invite them to give their reflections good cooperation is a leading ethics consultancy recognized worldwide for its
work in the setting measuring advising on corporate responsibility and business ethics the company was established over
20 years ago with the aim of driving the standards of behavior in business and the sins conducted over 600 assessments
of companies ethical business practices in over 80 countries uh since 2017 uh good cooperation has
been running a survey aimed at measuring ethical culture among the UK Workforce for this project uh on engineering it
extended that model of methodology to compare the UK Workforce the entire UK Workforce to the working UK engineer and
Engineering technician population I'm delighted to welcome Gareth Thomas and Lisa Randalls from a good
Corporation to tell us more Gareth Lisa over to you
thank you very much Rhys and we're delighted to have the
opportunity to um to present the findings from the
review work that we undertook last year um looking as recess mentioned at the
um the ethical practices and conduct amongst the profession and I think it's also fair that we
should just start off by giving it just a touch of context to to the work it is
a continuation of work undertaken by the engineering ethics reference group The
eerg whose remit is to ensure that leadership
and advice is provided so as to develop and enhance uh ethical culture and
behaviors ethical conduct within the profession um and
within that context what we've been doing is again as as uh to just build on what Rhys mentioned is to
um look at a number of elements which we'll come to in a moment in in the
survey but importantly looking at the engineering profession in the context of
the uh Society at large and
also importantly to look for areas for improvement because the the mindset of
wanting to do things even better is really important to ensuring that complacency is kept at Bay so thank you
if I could have the next slide please thank you so very quickly now I'll run
through an overview of the methodology that we deployed you can see that we
undertook four different types of survey there was initially a UK Workforce so
survey of about 4 000 people which included 640 Engineers we then looked
specifically at UK engineers and technicians and had surveys running
online in that regard with the help of the Peis in the sector as well
then on the we also included in the surveys the perspectives of firms
engineering firms themselves um and we conducted online and
face-to-face interviews with with the a number of engineering firms that you can see there and also we engaged with the
professional institutions the professional engineering institutions themselves to understand their
perspective on encouraging sound and good ethical practice amongst the uh the
parts of the profession for which they have responsibility thank you if we could move to the key
findings and we'll move straight to the first slide please so the
the first finding it's it's really important to say was that we we
encountered generally very good um ethical practice and behaviors uh
amongst the the the the people that we talk to and the institutions and
companies that that we talk to um which um is uh it consistent with other survey
work about the public perception of the um of the engineering sector where it is
consistently appearing um as amongst the most trusted professions along with the the people uh
those in the medical profession in the public perception um and you can see from the the first
chart that um on the the left hand side this sort
of is is reflected by um there being a greater proportion of
um engineers and technicians responding in agreement with the the phrases which
are listed on the left so let's start at the the bottom left first our safety is taken very seriously
at work 86 of the engineers and technicians that were surveyed agreed
with that statement compared to 70 in the workforce generally the other area is the environment
um where I am mindful of how my work affects the environment 84 of those in
the engineering and technician survey um responded in agreement with that statement whereas only 65 did in the in
the um in the working population generally so if we look now at the next slide we
think it's important however to also look at areas that may be indicative of
some concern and areas that can be worked on in the future
and on this slide looking in more detail at the responses from the engineers and
technicians we have statements on the left hand side
um which we've we asked people to either agree or disagree with and the bottom
one I often find myself at odds with my employer when it comes to acting
ethically so 58 percent of the engineering respondents
agreed with that statement uh so that that is clearly an indication
that that more is to be done uh the one above it
the work I have to undertake makes me feel ethically compromised 53 agreed
with that statement and perhaps one of the the most
um alarming is is the um the second statement I am sometimes
have to accept situations that I would characterize as professional or ethical
misconduct so if we look at the next slide
um please thank you um this is focusing on one particular
area that we know from our experience is is really crucial in the functioning of
a sound um ethical infrastructure
um and this is to do with raising concerns and again this is one of the areas that we think the institutions
um addressing good practice in the engineering profession should should take
um take a very close look at so this is comparing
um the workforce generally with the engineering responses but we're looking at the top one for instance with 40 of
the respondents from the engineers perspective saying that they sometimes
have to prioritize relationships over raising concerns that have not been
addressed 36 percent of the profession in our
survey said that um that sometimes being a team player
means refraining from Raising concerns and then the final one 36 percent the
culture in my organization discourages bad news so again areas on which to
focus I think because these are indicative of uh problems down the line
if these percentages are remain as high as they they that we found them last
year next slide please so this is just now just looking at the
responses two slides looking at the responses of companies um and the first one is sort of slightly
blindingly obvious until you until until you think about the importance of the implications of it so not surprisingly
we found that larger organizations had more resources with which they could apply to ethical issues
um and we also found that smaller organizations struggled now
this is really important because of the risk of exclusion of smaller organizations which
perhaps don't have the resources that the larger organizations have because increasingly it's not just
um that their own position that will be important but
larger organizations will be asking their supply chain because of Regulation
occurring internationally how they are addressing ethical risks
and the real danger is that smaller organizations unless um the institutions can help them
improve their ability to demonstrate that they're behaving and conducting themselves ethically then they risk
increasingly exclusion from very important parts of their Market
in the next slide please and this is just something which looks
again at the the responses of firms where we ask them to to say which were the ethical issues which were most
relevant from a risk perspective and where their they were prepared and the right-hand side one to to address those
risks and at the top again not surprisingly given that this has been an issue for some time recognized for some
time safety physical mental health and well-being of workers is a a high
highest ranked risk and um for which organizations are most
prepared um you can see the other risk areas which are at the higher end
of the scale and we were surprised a little bit that the human rights area had not featured so highly
um but that um in detail conversations with companies was very clearly something
that was coming um Over the Horizon and organizations were increasingly needing to address
worker welfare issues as well thank you over to you Lisa
thank you Gareth um so the third piece of the research that we conducted was the survey of the
professional institutions and that included professional engineering institutions
so in a similar approach to the firm survey we asked
um Peis to rate by importance a list of ethical issues and we also asked them to
provide a rating for what they perceived to be member support and employers support for those ethical issues
so maintaining Professional Standards Dei and environmental issues came out on
top reducing modern slavery is as you can see from the heat map here very clearly
at the bottom with Peis perceiving that it's also a low priority for employers and particularly for their members
and if you look at that color scale you can see that there's some Divergence between Pei's priorities and what they
view to be their members and employers priorities for example we know from The Firm survey
that mental health and well-being was at the top of companies priorities but the Peis ranked this among the lowest of
priorities for employers so this gap between how firms and Peis
view ethical priorities is something the profession may want to consider how to
address and the next slide please uh so we found that Peis are beginning
to tackle ethical issues um often in a piecemeal fashion so they may
have a position statement on carbon emission reduction and training on bullying and harassment but they hadn't
necessarily recognized the value of putting various elements together as part of a coordinated Ethics program so
for example developing the carbon position statement and supporting that with some learning content and
communication on the topic on what others need to know
so we also asked peas to write in what the top five ethical issues are for their organizations in the next five
three to five years some of the issues mentioned are not
typically considered ethics issues improving productivity building a talent pipeline so I think this question of
what is ethics and how to integrate ethics into their activities is something that's challenging for many
Peis and that's particularly true for the smaller ones several of the non-engineering
professional institutions we surveyed had Clear reviews about what constitutes
ethics for their profession and more mature programs in place to bring that to Market we particularly saw that in
the finance sector they were also engaging more actively on ethics with industry so very much
working as part of an overall ecosystem to support good practice in the profession and there's more about some
of that good practice example in the report next slide please
this final Point leads us to our sixth finding which is not exclusive to the Peis but is very much a challenge that's
presented by the diverse and fragmented profession that is UK engineering
the broad range of stakeholders that represent the profession so the Peis the regulator the academy trade and business
associations interest groups and companies don't all necessarily have
like-minded views on ethics and there seems to be low levels of coordination between these various entities with
regard to how to enhance the culture of Ethics in UK engineering at least to date
so establishing agreement on the role of these stakeholders and more collaborative processes across the
profession on ethics is really essential and this is particularly important to
ensure that ethics initiatives in UK engineering reach beyond the universe of registered engineers and engineering
technicians to this so-called missing three million engineers and technicians
who are working in the sector but aren't affiliated with any Pei
next slide so finally our recommendations and I know the panel is going to discuss this in more detail
along with the profession's response later in the webinar the statement of
ethical principles is a really valuable tool and it Maps very closely to the ethical statements we surveyed engineers
and technicians on in this report so more widely promoting the statement with training and engagement both with
registered and non-registered engineers and technicians would be valuable
whistleblowing is an area that came out very clearly in this report so assessing
the accessibility of current whistleblowing channels and considering the need for Alternatives including
potentially a prescribed body for the industry is something that the profession may want to explore
establishing clearer roles for the Academy the engineering Council Peis interest groups
employers will help with creating more constructive collaboration and sharing
of good practice and on that same note engagement with
employers so creating links for knowledge sharing between Peis and employers
would give the profession an opportunity to learn an enormous amount about the evolving ethical risks and pressures
that engineers and technicians face CPD is an area that came out when we
talked to some of the other professional institutions the other sector professional institutions so promoting
and developing ethics related CPD and perhaps establishing a minimum requirement for ethics related CPD and
sign posting to available resources would be helpful starting points and finally to the point that Gareth
made being mindful of the role of smes and for those driving the ethics agenda
in UK engineering really building ethics programs that ensure that smes and the
professionals that they employ aren't left behind
and with that I shall turn it back to Reese
thank you uh Lisa and Gareth for that much food for thought
um and I know that uh colleagues watching have an opportunity to have advanced sight of the report so
um I'm hoping uh that they've been able to dive in and delve into some of the details and I do welcome questions from
the audience uh through the Q a function on the app um I'd like to first though turn to Dr
Alice Bunn chief executive of the institution of mechanical engineers and importantly for this discussion uh Alice
also chairs the chief Executives group of all the professional engineering institutions which we know as the
professional engineering committee uh Alex I'd be grateful if you could summarize the the professions response
uh the collective response to this study
thank you Rhys thank you very much and um good afternoon everybody um I certainly can provide you with a
synopsis this afternoon although I would encourage people to read um our full response here and thank you
Rhys for introducing what the peck is so it is the professional engineering committee it's all 39 Peis
um plus they're all Academy Plus Engineering Council Plus Engineering UK um I think we've already heard that this
sector is really rather fragmented but uh we are doing what we can to work
together more effectively and I'm really really delighted that as a community we
have committed um to working together we have a committed to working together across
four key areas and one of those key areas includes ethics these are typically topics that aren't
um specific to any particular technical discipline um but are topics like ethics which we
all have a responsibility to take seriously um but none of us are individually
experts it's within that given field so our initial response incredibly helpful
review um and thank you very much for the very comprehensive uh presentation from good
Corporation now I think it's very helpful for benchmarking and for future
audits um we were pleased in some areas that the engineering profession scores well
in most categories concerning ethics compared to the wider Workforce um some of the statistics that Gareth
highlighted there in particular and we were also pleased to see that there is um at the headline level a
great deal of confidence in Engineers from the public um something that I think we should all
around this table feel very proud of however there are some worrying signs in there as well
um particularly those being raised at the individual level so on that basis we absolutely support the review and we do
recognize that there is a deep a need to do something here
um at the individual level and again Lisa um pointed this out very clearly
um continued professional development offers from the Pei Community would seem
to be a very natural tool for us to embrace here to make sure that consideration of ethics of ethical
thinking some training on ethics is really hardwired um into Life as a professional engineer
indeed I've been capturing some of the comments in the chat uh where it looks like some sectors are already including
this in The Graduate training programs and I think that's something that would also very much welcome
um we also recognize um the point made where the SME community may need more help in
embedding ethical thinking in the organizations due to a lack of resources and we're certainly committed to working
with the industry at large and in particular the SME Community to provide that support around ethical thinking
but I suppose more than anything um events like today are incredibly
helpful at raising awareness again I've seen in the chat already this afternoon there are still quite a lot of
um questions around what it really means to be considering ethics um uh everyone will have their own
particular take on that but I think raising the awareness of the importance of including ethical thinking in how we
take engineering decisions is very very important so we welcome the review we
welcome the event today finally and again also flagged by the Google corporation we were concerned
um that some in our community felt that they'd been dissuaded from Raising
concerns and we absolutely must ensure that both uh there is a higher level of
awareness of Ethics across the sector but also that those vital channels of communication are open so those
whistleblown procedures those mechanisms where people can feel able
um often in quite an anonymous way to be able to raise any concerns where they
don't think ethical thinking has been taking place and I will conclude there thank you very
much Reese thank you Alice um and yes a really useful summary of
the professions position on the basis of the report uh yeah it is we are starting
from a kind of uh positive uh uh Baseline aren't we and the confidence of
public in engineering is is very high second only to nurses a much higher than
politicians but that's not a very high bar isn't that face um but we'll we'll come on to some of
the issues we raised shortly uh but before that I'd like to welcome three more people that complete our panel
today we're each going to give us a few minutes summarizing their views uh thoughts and experiences on the culture
of ethics and the importance of this work to engineering uh again to colleagues please listen do pop your
questions into the Q a box and we'll get to that uh very soon but first of all I'd like to uh welcome uh Nathan uh
Nathan is a um what we call an early career engineer um within our community so so at the
professional engineering committee has a um a mirror committee
early career Engineers that helped to guide us about the things that are important to our colleagues who are just
starting out in their um so Nathan I'm going to turn to you first
um and I'd be grateful to hear what resonated with you from the study uh
what did you find interesting or unexpected about the results yeah thanks Rhys
um so I think it was um definitely made for a really interesting and thought-provoking read
um I thought that a lot of the it a lot of the headline points weren't quite as
bad as I particularly feared um so you know particularly the sort of General feelings around how the
profession compares to the wider Workforce um but there were definitely areas where I I was a bit disappointed
um seeing the figure about that 35 of people feel that they've had to but have
been pressured into taking unacceptable shortcuts um that's really disheartening to hear
um and that people feel that a decent proportion of people feel that they are discouraged from sort of asking
questions uh that there's a perception that that means you're not a team player um that one's a bit of a shame to hear
um and the also around the possibility that some of the smaller companies the
smaller to medium Enterprises which do make up the bulk of the engineering Workforce um feel that uh they could be
almost like priced out a bit by not being able to invest same amounts of money into proving that they
um Can can meet these ethical um sort of compliances
and I think that's in particular like as an early careers engineer looking at
those I think that um often a lot of the value the early careers people can provide in their
organizations is is questioning um is asking you know why is it that I'm doing this why is it that I'm doing that
and um around the areas of um you know being a fresh pair of eyes
on on some rather entrenched or established processes and projects
um and so going back to that area of the sort of discouraging environments it does harken back to some of my
experiences of when you start in a company uh in an early careers
um position it can be really quite intimidating to to know how and when to speak up
um sort of in in particular it's um you know there's often a fear uh that
you you've worked so hard to do all these grad applications and get into this job that you really don't want to mess things up
um and it can really be difficult to not not want to rock the boats there uh and that's sort of compounded by feelings of
imposter syndrome um feeling oh well you know I'm new everyone else knows better than me surely they would be raising these so I
think that um organizations have quite a lot of work to do in sort of changing that
culture making sure that that there is that culture to always be asking questions to
um to see you know as an early careers individual you have this particular value and we want to see more of that
great thank you and can I just have a very brief question um uh would you look at the kind of uh
the ethics of a company before applying to them did you when you were starting to look around and were there any that
you thought not quite sure about that or actually is it very difficult to get an
understanding of you know the kind of culture of an organization from uh what you can find
and that's a really good question Rhys um so something that um is always you know generally a pretty good practice
looking around jobs is looking at the um sort of value statements um that these companies make um I think
some of sometimes it can be quite hard to discern what in there is actually
um being lived out what in there is perhaps there to ticks and boxes um so
um I think a lot of it is looking at looking in the news of each company you know what what is it that they actually do in a day-to-day basis you know who
who are their clients what are their products and and do those match up with my values particularly when you're in
you know more contentious Industries perhaps a defense uh that sort of area but yeah it is important
brilliant thank you so much thank you Nathan um I'm going to move us on and I'd like now to turn to uh Libby mayric uh Libby
a good friend of the academies is the chief executive of the institution of engineering designers and importantly
again for this discussion uh chair of a plan profession uh working group who are
getting on with the business of providing this support uh developing resources and materials uh to embed an
ethical culture in our profession now Libby I hope you don't mind me saying I think you are the longest serving chief
executive and Engineering institution is that right uh it'd be I'd be interested to know you know your thoughts on
whether and how things have changed during your time with the profession and any other Reflections you might have on
the study thank you Rhys um uh yes hello everyone I am the
current longest serving chief executive engineering institutions um I'm sure others have done it longer
than me in the past um but yes I've been working with the ID for uh 26 years now
um and just to quickly answer your question about the the change in um
in in ethical practices in the response to ethical practices within engineering it's there's been a huge sea change in
in recent years um obviously there has been work uh underway in this area for many many
years and it's the statement of ethical principles was published you know a very long time ago and um as a profession
engineering is deemed to be uh very ethical and ethically minded and there's been code of conducts Etc but in recent
years um it has been a hugely more um populated discussion shall we say
um and yes I I my one of my roles is to chair the engineering ethics coordination group
um and this report that we discussed today that's that's been that's been launched and the response to it is one
of 20 actions that came out of uh the ethics
um report that was launched by the Royal Academy of engineering back in February 2020
um and at the time they launched um 20 actions that are to be completed by uh
the the engineering community with regards to ethics and um a group was
established a coordination group was established not to make sure not to complete themselves to complete the
actions within the report but to coordinate those actions so that we could um collate information from The
Wider Community uh to bring data together to map out which of the actions
are being carried out and are being fulfilled by different sectors and importantly to identify where our gaps
and to find organizations that will help work on fulfilling those gaps the
coordination group is made up of a mix of volunteers members from a wide range
of Institutions so we've got Society of operations Engineers institution of lighting professionals institution of
civil engineers institutional mechanical engineers uh the Royal Academy of engineering and the engineering Council
so a nice wide group of small and large Peis and a couple of governing bodies as
well um and as I say our role is to look at the it started off as 20 actions we as a
coordination group have actually split them down into slightly more nuanced group of actions so that we can actually
practically satisfy the the requirements of the report and our as I say our our job is
to look at the actions that are proposed within the report and find out which
already being done where we can share good practice which needs which are slightly underway but
actually you could do with some more support and wider promulgation and where there are gaps
um I'm very pleased to say that all the recommendations from the surveys all of the six areas written are proposed by
the good Corporation are actually already being covered within the action plan obviously the survey and the
results from the survey are helping to boost our activities in some areas there
are some challenges um the huge challenge of course that we find as a community is reaching those
Engineers that aren't registered Professional Engineers because we as a community talk to our members and our
registrants and there's a huge Community out there that aren't members of our Network so how do we get to them there
are of course challenges of of time um and trying to find owners for some of the actions so we can progress them um
accordingly but some of the things that we are that we have been working on that we've successfully completed or that
we're currently working on are things like toolkits um for practicing Engineers for smes
um for bigger companies um to help them embed ethics into their culture support for individuals who need help with
calling out bad practice so whistleblowing guidance um uh sharing of ethical behaviors in
other professions so how do the Law Society deal with ethics how do how does the GMC deal with ethics and sharing
that good practice amongst professions um and of course one area that that hasn't
been mentioned so far I don't think in this discussion is is education so it's all very well and good uh
plonking graduates into industry and expecting them to work in in ethical
manners and within ethical practice but actually the journey needs to start much
earlier than that so we're working with with Educators um and uh with universities and colleges
to embed ethical practice and ethical principles in their teachings so it's a
huge huge job we've been working on it for about 18 months but we're we're making really quite good progress
um and it's it's a great project to be involved in thank you Libby uh lots to digest there
and I'm sure we'll be picking up some of those in the Q a there's also a very vibrant chat uh discussion going on
which I'm struggling to keep up with uh while also hosting this meeting but uh
we'll certainly try and pick up some of the questions and comments in each other as well uh but finally I'd like to turn
to uh Professor Chris Atkin uh Chris is head of engineering at the University of
East Anglia a uh fellow of the academy but most important discussion is the
chairman of the engineering Council uh but Chris you're about to step down from the role having completed your term of
office so this is a opportunity for you to let rip uh so to speak um throw
things up throw the cat among the pigeons if that's an ethical thing to do uh I'm sure you're successor won't mind
uh so uh so give us your thoughts thank you Rhys and for the uh the wind
up there so yes I've got a week to go and uh I spoke on ethics at uh Leeds um
before the pandemic I think the Q a is going to be fascinating so
um I I will reflect really looking forward I think a big challenge uh for the engineering Council perspective is
how do we um increase the constituency uh that will tune into events such as
this and obviously the agency works very closely with the academy on ethics
um but we we set standards for education for professional practice and these
include the um the ethical principles and here's the little uh credit card that I was talking
about that I carry around with me and call out to amaze people uh with my um
my ethical awareness um I I think we need to get those
working in the sector to really appreciate the value of the network and Community because when you have ethical
concerns it's a very lonely time for you isn't it so um so my themes will basically be around
the uh you won't be surprised to be hearing this from the chairman of the engineering Council be around the
importance of registration a registration starts with a self-audit
and an audit by your peers of your capabilities your competencies and your commitment and that includes obviously
your commitment to ethical conduct includes a commitment to continuing
professional development likewise this is a CPD event and a professional we're on a journey to improve ethical
standards um and and we don't want to take a minority of practitioners with us we
want to take the community with us and then finally of course um the the professional institutions and
the academy provide a a community a network that we can learn from each
other and we can also go outside uh within the profession but outside the
profession but it's very important that we have a network of uh committed and
enthusiastic parties um within our sector that we can refer
to outside of our employers and the second point I think about registration is something that baffles me you hear it
quite a lot uh from from leaders in engineering is um I don't do technical work anymore
therefore registration's not really relevant for me and I find that extraordinary anyone who knows anything
about leadership knows that you're responsible for the culture of your workplace and therefore the environment
in which your teams operate um and you know there's the the report
highlights very uh accurately how people talk about a corporate culture and
whether they feel they can raise concerns or they're asked to make uh make decisions that they don't uh
believe are ethical um and I think we need to make sure that
the people who set this culture who are often have been through the engineering Mill uh have progressed up
through as organization an organization as Engineers don't suddenly think when they get to boardroom level well you
know I'm not no longer bound by statement of ethical principles that I used to sign up to so
um you know I think we need to from my perspective challenge uh they the large proportion of senior
Engineers who are not registered because they think it's no longer relevant to to who they are or what they do
um so that's my key message is uh agree obviously with my colleagues on there's a very wide
uh view of things that we need to do and activities that are ongoing so that would be my pitch from the engineering
Council Chris thank you very much um I'd uh welcome everyone to uh turn
their cameras on now so that we can uh start the Q a session and uh and try and
get a bit of a free flowing conversation uh going we've got um a number of
questions in the in the Q a chat which I'll uh come to very shortly but I wanted to just uh throw uh one in myself
um just to kind of get things off um it it feels like we're you know what we've heard from the the report from the
audit that we're starting from a reasonably good base they're asking me as a concerned clearly
um but it also feels that there you know there's a there are many kind of forces uh acting against ethical principles
there's a tide uh and we're on the all on the Good Ship uh ethics and we're
having to row to keep uh you know uh ethics on ethical culture so I guess the
question really is um how do we embed an ethical culture in in organizations and what does that look
like on an average working day what does a an engineer experience in a in an
ethical company in an ethical organization how would they how would they know that they're working there
do you want me to take that first go thank you okay so again a general point
I think um you're looking for an environment that allows descent because uh ethical
boundaries are not cast in concrete uh they will adapt with timer with technology
and I think it's very important to um allow free discussion I mentioned
this in one of my responses in the chat um is that ethical influencing and I
think um we we imagine a situation where we don't like something we don't like
something and then eventually we're forced to blow the whistle and that's not the best solution
um and so I think you know answered your question Reese is how how do you create a culture
um is is to invite challenge is to invite dissent is not to be threatened
by dissent um and how do you then do that well
I think it's part of leadership isn't it but I mean leadership starts when you start work doesn't it you'll be leading
in 25 years so that would be my view to a young engineer and maybe Nathan you
can pick me up on this is is don't don't sit there quietly you know say what you
think from day one and if your managers can't handle it well you know then you've got another
influencing Challenge on your hands thanks Chris
uh yeah uh what Chris said thank you very much I mean it is it is all about
the leadership I think the leadership are responsible for setting the tone in the culture of an
organization and I think leaders have to show humility and in showing that humility they're more likely to be able
to encourage people to to speak up we talk about um psychological safety as as a kind of
culture that we aim to achieve where people feel that there is safety in speaking up and you know it was one of
the interesting observations within the survey wasn't it that somehow speaking up is uh not acting as part of the team
I was really surprised to read that because you know in my experience everyone speaking up is absolutely
acting as a team and you want all those voices to be here to make sure that as a team you know you can be most uh
successful I think finally we need to um we need to make sure we're sharing in
successes I think on some of these topics we very often turn to ethics when things have gone wrong and have a
conversation around you know what happened when things went wrong we need to encourage more conversations which
shine a light on when things went right uh because at the end of the day that will be how we all accelerate our
learning thanks thank you
um I I'll turn to some of the questions now we've got about 15 minutes or so left of
this and I wanted to start off with uh um new technologies
um so uh clearly high power Computing artificial
intelligence machine learning is changing the nature of Engineering in ways that we uh weren't expecting uh 20
or so years ago um where do we begin with this so you know what are the ethical challenges
considerations in emerging Fields such as artificial intelligence and then when we get into some of the kind of
interesting areas of bioengineering uh genetic engineering and so on so forth
um how do we wrap our arms around this who'd like to uh get us started on this
Nathan so I'm afraid it doesn't entirely answer your question but it sort of flips it on
its head a little is um I'd be really interested to see where we can perhaps utilize areas such as
artificial intelligence and machine learning to perhaps be a little more proactive in how we address ethical
issues rather earthing a lot of the focus is on the the reactive you know something goes wrong and either it's not
reported and dealt with properly or it's dealt with and done properly but perhaps there's there's Avenue to be using those
Technologies to perhaps um predict when you start a project where ethical challenges may occur to spot patterns
that a person might not be able to and I think that there's whilst there's a lot
to be done to understand where these Technologies are you know quite rightfully you know we don't know a whole lot about them and there could be
so many challenges we don't yet know I think it's pretty interesting to see where there could be benefits
thanks Nick that's a really interesting point actually isn't it and I'm just thinking a bit more about the question I post
actually if you start with ethical principles then it kind of should be
um technology agnostic shouldn't it um you're starting with a set of ethical
rules principles that we should all abide by so it doesn't really matter what the technology is I sort of
guarantee you have your hand there did you want to come in thanks thanks Rhys
[Music] um yes to I mean to endorse endorse that point
um that that should should be the case although I I think it's it's um
it's uh it's harder to actually put yourself into the situation that the new
technologies are changing in order to get the the full Nuance of what the
potential impact on ethics is of the developments that you're looking at
um and and some of the work done um by Rolls Royce in this regard which I think has been referenced in the
um in the chat is is is is really good
um first establishment of a framework within which technology should be assessed from a from an ethical uh
perspective um and the artificial intelligence machine learning all those air areas are
presenting new challenges which which people who understand in depth the
technology and understand the potential ethical implications are brought
together in order to design um a an outcome that that is not
um basically sacrificing the the fundamental ethical rights of individuals
yes thank you thank you um I'm going to move us on uh quickly to
a question posed by Tony Gillespie um training is fairly straightforward at graduate and apprenticeship level
um how come is it more senior staff in this evolving field if I need to give them points of contact and robust
guidance it kind of comes back to Lisa's point about the uh the missing three million so we have our members of
professional engineering institutions and we have registered uh engineers and technicians with the engineering Council
but there's a there's a wide cohort of uh practicing engineers and technicians
out there in the world and we we think there's something like five million practicing engineers and technicians in
the UK how do we get to them and kind of talk about this culture of Ethics that
they should be also um working with Alice Can I Turn to You
you can you can um yeah it's a good question I think in many senses we have to kind of
reconsider what we what we mean by successful engineering I think you know
Years Gone by successful engineering was when something didn't break and it made a lot of money I think you know in the
world we live in now we are becoming much more enlightened about you know
typically things like damage to the environment for instance um for workers welfare Etc there's a
much more complex set of considerations that I think is very very healthy certainly I'm really heartened uh not
not put too much pressure on Nathan but you know I'm really heartened by the Next Generation where you know you have
um our next um you know Workforce coming to interviews and asking about values and
wanting to know about how industry operates so I think
um how do we how do we influence that wider three million well it's a part of
society's overall approach I think to what success looks like and I do think
increasingly that is no longer just measured by financial success in a way it was a few years ago
I'll see Libby's that I end up so I will I will bear it
just on on the on the Practical side of of how we um support a wider range of Engineers
um the work that's been uh carried out by the engineering community and is being coordinated by the group The the
CG um includes developing toolkits case
studies um lists of resources Etc and obviously those won't be applicable and available
just to registered Engineers they will be available to the entire engineering community
um how of course we make sure the entire engine engineering community are aware of them and can access them is is
another hurdle um but all the work that's been done by the Peis and by The Wider community in
this area isn't just for our use it's for use by the The Wider engineering community
um and I just as I said the challenge is making sure that people know it's there and can access it and and also that it
that it's kept up today I know the Royal Academy are continuing to fund some of the projects that are ongoing to make
sure that because again with reference to Ai and developing Technologies this is a Movable Feast and um and ethics and
and engineering and design continues to evolve and and so the principles and the guidance continue to
evolve um but yeah they are available they will be available to everyone it's just making sure that people can access
them and then they're there thanks um what Tony talks about um
apprenticeship level and uh undergraduate uh educational as well
um future engineers and I wanted to ask Nathan uh something that's been discussed in the past is a a Hippocratic
Oath for engineers a kind of symbolic gesture at the end of your degree or at some point in in your formation as an
engineer where you where you make a commitment to ethical principles how how do you feel about that how do you think
your uh colleagues your early career colleagues would feel about that kind of making a statement like that
yeah thanks Rhys um I feel quite strongly about that it's not something I've actually considered
before but I really like it because um forgive me if I'm fuzzy on the details but my understanding is that in
Canada Engineers who graduate from University um are presented with a ring at the end
of their um degree uh where I understand these stainless steel mostly these days but
the idea was that originally it was made of iron from a bridge that collapsed
um quite a long time ago because of uh poor ethical approaches to to that design and I think that's obviously
quite a a strong symbolic example and particularly you know relevant to Canada but I think something like that where
there is a that is a serious consideration of ethics and I I don't recall having that in my University
career I don't really recall it coming up at least not not to the extent of having like a whole module on it but I
think something like an oath or something that is you know physically binding in in that regard I think it's a
really good idea just to get the Engineers to consider that at a early phase in their career and take it from
day one Chris can I turn to you on that I'm not speaking on behalf of the engineering
Council but just from a personal perspective how do you feel about such a
I don't disagree that it would be empowering for for many
um I think one of the challenges though that the engineering Council have identified is that those who are working
in engineering are are not so easily I you know um located they may not
necessarily be engineering graduates uh they may a lot of science graduates
drift into engineering roles a lot of uh organizations that are not engineering
organizations for example my local Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital has an engineering team uh and so it's
it's capturing it's capturing that um you know I think we would say that uh
the professional codes of conduct that you sign up to when you register cover
that sort of commitment there isn't the physical symbolism of of the Ring the
engineers Canada ring um but yes there are ways of doing that whether
whether we would go down that route whether that would be the priority activity that we would look at and I
think again there's some uh interesting comments in the chat about you see the same faces so often in these kind of
things you know I'd come back to the point I made earlier it was how do we reach out to those who are not part of
this network not members of an institution migrated into engineering and have no idea that you know we see
these kind of competences and commitment as as an inherent in in the profession
um that for me I think is is the big question of how how we take the messages that we're discussing today out to those
who perhaps are unaware of the Royal Academy of the engineering Council or or those who don't even think that
they're working in engineering and I think a lot of people perhaps working in it
uh don't think of it as engineering for whatever reason
um so so there's all sorts of issues about how do we broaden the reach um and I think one of the things about
public perception and obviously it's a great stat that you know we are second most trusted profession
um after nursing is how do we then go out and follow up with that you know
that is this a gut reaction or do you know that Engineers are having these discussions about ethics and and
commitment to professional conduct on an almost daily basis
thanks Chris uh Alex yeah I just wanted to jump in on
um Nathan's example because I think what is really neat about that example is it does illustrate what an important
profession engineering is and the impact of getting engineering right and
certainly you know in my community I hear a lot of quite rightly a lot of Pride to be an engineer
um a a wish to have more recognition of how important engineering is for everyone in society so I think somehow
um having that recognition of just how fundamental engineering will be to solving all of our challenges in the
future is helpful in encouraging the ethical behavior and uh the right way of
delivering our engineering projects amazing thank you um we are um unfortunately out of time I
was going to say uh if if we do uh want to uh follow the uh Canadian ring
example I've got a load of failed metalwork projects in my garden I reckon I can supply a few years worth of
graduate routines uh later mild steel and so on
um but um I just want to say a huge thank you to you all uh Alice Libby
Nathan uh Chris and to Lisa and Gareth for the work that you did on the
audience and the presentation uh it will be uh published tomorrow uh for uh
General uh viewing so uh thank you once again everyone and uh for all of you uh
watching and listening today all the best bye