Prof Christopher Snowden, president, Institution of Engineering and Technology

Turmoil in the economy and environmental upheaval: it’s an interesting time to head up an engineering institute. Christopher Snowden, taking on the presidency of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) this year, takes the view that it’s an opportunity for engineers, both for technology and industry to take over from finance as the powerhouse of the economy, and to find solutions to energy conservation and climate change.

But this is the UK; a country where, many believe, engineering has been underappreciated, overlooked and discounted for years. How to restore technologists to their proper standing is something which Snowden, a microwave technology specialist and now vice-chancellor and chief executive of the University of Surrey, has high on the agenda for his year at the top of the IET.

It’s a familiar complaint that the UK is bad at exploiting its technological innovations, but Snowden doesn’t agree. ‘Just because you’ve come up with something, doesn’t necessarily mean that the best place to exploit it is in the same country,’ he said. ‘We’ve actually done a pretty good job of it; there are an awful lot of spin-offs companies originating from UK research. But for example, in my own university, we invented the quantum dot laser which is now used in CD and DVD players, but that had a lineage where Philips acquired the technology and brought it to the world. We shouldn’t feel bad because we don’t commercialise everything we discover, as long as we commercialise enough of it to keep our industry healthy.’

“A lot of my colleagues say that the exciting projects are all done now and that’s why engineering isn’t popular. It’s just not true.”

The IET is a relatively new organisation, formed in 2006 from the merger of the Institute of Electrical Engineers and the Institution of Incorporated Engineers. As such, it’s representing the interests of a far wider variety of engineers than it used to, and Snowden is becoming very conscious of the problems of societal standing that has relegated engineering to the back of many people’s minds.

‘People always hark back to the Brunel type projects, and I grew up in an era where men were landing on the moon and we were developing Concorde; those were times when engineering was very visible,’ he said. ‘A lot of my colleagues say that the exciting projects are all done now and that’s why engineering isn’t popular. It’s just not true.’

Snowden points to the Large Hadron Collider as an example of charismatic engineering: ‘It’s seen as a physics experiment but it’s 99 percent engineering; it’s engineers that are helping the scientists with the most exciting work that’s happening today, by finding ways to keep it the coldest place in the universe.’ Moreover, he’d claim the iconic Apple iPod as the result of engineering: ‘An English engineer designed it. These days you have to think about the concept of these things – a lot of ideas, designs and concepts exist in a virtual space, unlike in the days of Brunel, and the boundaries between engineer, designer and so on are much softer.’

The achievements of UK engineers are highly visible — Snowden nominates not only the jet engine but even the winglets used on all modern airliners, which were invented at Cranfield, and the quantum dot laser, ubiquitous in most homes at the heart of CD and DVD players, invented at his home base of the University of Surrey. So why is engineering so neglected here? Snowden thinks it’s down to how engineering, and technology in general, is presented in our education system.

‘You’ve only got to go across the Channel to France and Germany, where they put a much greater emphasis on mathematics and the sciences, but not in the sense that they are difficult subjects. In our country, that’s how young people perceive them. Why’s that? It’s the way you’re taught.’

“At the moment, most of the government thinking about getting young people into engineering and technology is focused on what happens at A level, but that’s far too late.”

Snowden thinks that the abstraction of much maths and science teaching is what makes these subjects so daunting. ‘Many youngsters find mathematics inaccessible, and it gets even more challenging when you get to A level and things like partial differential equations. The very words strike fear into students’ faces. But I’ve taught partial differentials at university level and if you show people what they actually are – what phenomena they describe, what they mean, and how they’re used – people change their attitudes.’

Part of this could be down to role models. ‘Teachers themselves are the most important role models. We need more teachers who are actually scientists, engineers and maybe mathematicians themselves, who understand how the disciplines work and how they are applied in the real world, to enthuse and encourage people about these careers.’

Could the introduction of engineering at an earlier stage play a role here, as a way to relate science and maths to the real world? Snowden has two sons in their early teens, who have told him theat the only exposure to engineering they’ve had is through him – it’s never been mentioned at school. ‘It’s experiential when you’re young. At the moment, most of the government thinking about getting young people into engineering and technology is focused on what happens at A level, but that’s far too late. Young people will have made up their minds about what type of subjects they’re comfortable with long before then. Engineering is perceived as hard – and maybe that’s right, it’s certainly challenging – but it’s also a very creative discipline. You make things, and that’s hugely rewarding. That never comes across, does it?’