Workshop Reflection: Future Competencies for Inclusive Engineer

written by Grant Penny and Jolla Schelling, Delft University of Technology

What skills will engineers and scientists need to thrive in an inclusive, rapidly evolving future? The ENHANCE+ Work Package 4, “Future Skills for Engineers and Scientists,” led by TU Delft as part of the ENHANCE+ project, teamed up with the ENHANCE Diversity Office for an inspiring workshop exploring this question. Through vibrant collaboration, the session revealed how Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) can shape the competencies needed for tomorrow’s challenges.

Read on to discover key takeaways and fresh perspectives!

The ENHANCE Diversity Office visited Delft University of Technology in early November for a series of internal workshops and joint meetings with other ENHANCE members. Among these, the ENHANCE Work Package Future Skills for Engineers and Scientists (WP4) hosted a joint workshop with the main aim of exploring future skills and challenges from a Inclusion, Diversity and Equity (IDE) perspective.

WP4 has recently published its Competencies Report, which discusses the research conducted during the first year and presents both a taxonomy of competencies and a taxonomy of challenges. While these taxonomies are well informed by desk research and interviews, WP4 felt it would be valuable to explore the findings in relation to IDE.

To do this, we conducted two tasks with the Diversity Office. Task one asked participants to consider which competencies are most important for the future from a IDE perspective, framed as “I am going on a IDE journey and I am taking the following competencies with me…”. Ethics, empathy, critical thinking, collaboration, communication, curiosity, creativity, and adaptability were highlighted as the most important for facing the future.

We then moved on to the challenges identified in WP4, where participants were asked to complete a SWOT for a chosen future European challenge. This was a particularly thought-provoking task, as it pushed participants to think about possible IDE opportunities that could arise from the increase of ‘instant knowledge’, such as generative AI technologies.

Finally, we brainstormed additional competencies that may be needed to address our future. Notable discussions emerged, such as:

• The limitation that all competencies were considered from an individual perspective, whereas many of the challenges require a collective effort to realize the opportunities.
• How can we learn to appreciate other academic fields and understand their value?
• You need exposure to the real world to see what needs fixing.

In conclusion, this workshop has been a valuable way for WP4 to re-contextualise our work and allow new perspectives to emerge. We very much look forward to continuing to work with the Diversity Office as we continue our research!