The Smallpeice Trust's forthcoming event in Stirling aims to inspire young people and also redress the gender imbalance in STEM careers
“The art of engineering is the greatest of all the arts of mankind in that it uses science and art in the creation of useful objects and does so in the service of humankind in all of its aspects.” These are the words of Professor Dugald Cameron OBE, former Director of Glasgow School of Art and a fellow of the Institute of Engineers in Scotland.
They speak right to the heart of the importance of engineering – not only throughout history but for the future development of humankind and the world we live in.
The Smallpeice Trust has a mission to inspire young people aged 8 to 18 to embrace Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and nurture the next generation of innovative engineers.
With a strong focus on residential engineering courses and in-school STEM Days, the independent charity is hosting Engineering Experience Scotland from June 28-30 at Stirling University especially for 12 to 14 year olds.
Dr Kevin P Stenson, CEO at the Trust, which incorporates Arkwright Engineering Scholarships, notes: “The key thing students will take away from Engineering Experience Scotland is learning new skills, both technical and soft in nature.
Dr Kevin P Stenson believes diversity in engineering will boost performance in the industry
“From a technical perspective, there are three elements. One is focused on space, one on electrical and one on cyber security.
“In soft skills, ultimately each of the projects is a team-based challenge. By their very nature, they will involve communication, teamwork and presentation. Inevitably, some things won’t work first time so they’ll have to build their resilience too.
“They’ll also make friends. There are 50 students on the course: 25 males and 25 females. In addition to the teamwork and enjoying the day, there’s also a social side with sports and quizzes in the evenings. They’ll have fantastic fun, all with the ultimate aim of exploring potential future careers in engineering.”
This 50-50 gender balance is no accident of accounting. Gender equality, as well as diversity in all its forms, is integral to the Smallpeice ethos of inspiring and enabling opportunities in engineering for all.
“Only 16% of engineers in the UK are female,” Dr Stenson points out, “yet we have a chronic shortage of engineering talent. Around 100,000 new engineers are required by the industry every year.
“Despite this recruitment challenge we’re really only appealing to half the population. We’re doing well, if you can call it that, in bringing males into the sector, but there is a real problem when you have such a shortage of young female talent pursuing careers the country desperately needs.”
Dr Stenson believes diversity drives high performance, pointing out, if you have a team that is only male, you’ll get a very male-dominated view of the world.
“If you look at other under-represented groups, including people from less advantaged backgrounds or different ethnic minority backgrounds, that diversity, that difference in thinking, drives high performance and ultimately creates better products for the benefit of society.”
Being equidistant to Edinburgh and Glasgow and in the Central Belt, Stirling University was an obvious choice for accessibility for students from around Scotland.
“It’s also a welcoming campus, where we’re able to keep children safe. Safeguarding is one of our key priorities when bringing students to good universities.”
Engineering Experience Scotland is also supported by Thales in the UK, a global company with 80,000 employees in 68 countries.
It is estimated the UK requires 100,000 new engineers each year – but only 16 percent of new recruits are female
Dr Stenson says: “It’s great to be able to work with a company like Thales, who will have really good role models at the course. That’s important. All the evidence shows, if you can have real role models who engage with children, and specifically female role models, female students are more likely to consider engineering.
“Thales have a clear purpose, which is to create a safer world. That’s a message that can inspire young people. Engineering genuinely offers young people a route through which they can change the world.”
Another benefit of the event is the opportunity for hands-on activities in a safe space.
“Young people can see they can make things and explore practical skills with the academic skills that sit alongside them. The children will make radios as part of an electrical project and experience success – at the end they’ll have a radio that works.”
There will also be Q&As by engineers, discussing the realities of an engineering career. However, the learning and mentoring do not stop after Stirling.
“Each year there is an opportunity for children to take part in a sequence of courses,” Dr Stenson says. “As children get older, these can get more in-depth. So we have things like future cities, cybersecurity and aerospace courses.
“We have brilliant young people in this country. We have brilliant teachers. We have fantastic employers, like the Thales of this world. But we aren’t yet getting the number of engineers we need, which tells us we need to do more.
“We need more partnerships and more courses of this type to ensure young people are inspired to stay on this pathway. We’ll always need more brilliant people who become teachers.
“Ultimately, it’s a jigsaw . . . and everyone is a part of the jigsaw.”
Click here for more details on the Stirling University event
------------------------------------------
Trust in charity to support students
Dr Cosby D P Smallpeice, a self-taught engineer, donated £1.6 million to set up The Smallpeice Trust in 1966.
Supported by universities, institutes and corporations, its aim is to give young people the support and guidance to “bring big ideas to life” through science, technology, engineering and maths.
Dr Kevin P Stenson joined as CEO in 2013. Since then, the Trust has tripled its reach to nearly 60,000 students annually, raising female participation from 32% to 50%.
Dr Stenson’s commitment to widening participation and boosting diversity was recognised in 2018, as a finalist in the (Women in Science and Engineering) WISE Man of the Year Award.
The merger of The Smallpeice Trust and Arkwright Scholarships Trust was finalised in 2018, enabling the organisation to provide truly transformational journeys for young people.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here