From EngD towards CEng

(1 May 2012) - It has been agreed that an accredited EngD, when combined with an accredited Bachelors degree with honours in engineering and technology, will provide the full exemplifying academic qualification for CEng (Chartered Engineer) registration.

During the past two years, the Engineering Council has been examining how to create a more explicit link between the EngD and the title CEng, and the treatment of EngD holders for the purposes of registration with the Council as a Chartered Engineer.

EPSRC Industrial Advocates professors Chris France, Patrick Godfrey and William Powrie have been involved in these discussions, and earlier in 2012, IDCs were invited to contribute to two Engineering Council  surveys about the extent of their EngDs' alignment with accreditation criteria and with the CEng standard of competence. These revealed apparent close alignment.

The Engineering Council has recently approved a change to the Regulations for Registration so that an accredited EngD when combined with an accredited Bachelors degree with honours in engineering and technology will provide the full exemplifying academic qualification for CEng registration. This was announced in the Engineering Council’s HE bulletin issued in March 2012.

Additionally, the IET and IMechE recently re-accredited the EngD Centre in Engineering for Manufacture and the EngD Centre in Nuclear Engineering at the University of Manchester as accredited Initial Professional Development (IPD) providers. Other IDCs are interested in exploring this opportunity.

These developments create a good basis to explore a further step, ie: an integrated approach, to accredit or approve integrated development schemes (IDSs) which combine educational programmes (EngD) with Initial Professional Development (IPD).

The IDC in Systems (Universities of Bristol and Bath) has offered to pilot a system for accrediting the EngD programme as an integrated learning and development scheme. The Engineering Council and the three main professional engineering institutions (IET, IMechE and ICE) recently met to explore this possibility, and the pilot process should be completed by the end of 2012.

The Association of EngDs (AEngD) is taking an interest in this - in line with its mission to be a guardian of the quality of the EngD.