New Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) president David Porter has used his opening address to tell professionals that decision-makers and clients need help from engineers, both in terms of solutions and information.
Speaking on his first day as president, Porter said: “One of ICE’s roles is to have opinions, but we need to be very careful as an institution that we don’t just say easy things.”
Porter explained that while the profession talks in terms of “intelligent clients”, he prefers the term “informed clients” because what really matters is that decision-makers have.
“I think it’s better to be an informed client,” he said. “An informed client is one that really understands the consequences of its decisions, how its current system actually works, how it is constrained by either the financial impact or the environmental constraints or legislation. So, I think informed clients really understand how systems are working today.
“But most importantly, an informed client understands where infrastructure needs to go. And that’s particularly important in terms of how we are going to develop our engineering assets and our networks.”
Porter was clear about the ICE’s role in this – and particularly that of its members. He said keeping the ICE relevant meant ensuring the profession “continued to serve society” as was set out at its founding in 1818. But, to do that, he said that all engineers needed to think about their role as communicators.
Drawing on his experience within the Northern Ireland civil service, Porter talked about his experience of being on the news. “I’ve done media occasionally; normally, when there’s something disastrous has happened or is being done,” he said.
“One example was whenever we were going to close the road between Londonderry and Belfast before Christmas. I went onto a programme and I could have said about the work being done and the details of the project, but I wasn’t sure that was quite right. And so, what I did in that particular case was to try and explain the depth of the hole involved – and not in terms of centimetres and meters. I said ‘I’m the height of an average man, and the hole is three times as deep as me.’
“The presenter straight away replies, ‘that’s big. I understand why you can’t have a hole that big, three times a size of a man, in the road, and still have a traffic on it’. That’s the understanding we needed to achieve.”
Porter made clear this was not just about communicating problems. He recalled attending a council meeting early in his career to talk about a bridge being built. He told the audience of hundreds of ICE members in attendance and thousands more watching live online that he went there planning to extoll all the engineering virtues of the bridge, but found himself talking about something else entirely.
“I wanted to explain why we would close a road in order to replace a bridge,” he said. “But at the council meeting they wanted to talk about how a lady up the street couldn’t get to play bridge during the week because the local roads were going to be closed.
“So I wanted to talk about all these technicalities – and it’s important that what we actually have that deep understanding of the technicalities, understand the structural form, understand how things are constructed. But in our communication, it’s more important to focus in on the service that infrastructure provides and the impact of us changing it or closing it.”
Technology and evolving careers
Looking to the future for engineers themselves, Porter was asked about artificial intelligence (AI) and what the implications are for its growing prevalence in the sector. He warned that “you won’t lose your job to AI, but you might lose your job to an engineer who can use AI”.
That said, Porter noted the ethical concerns around AI and what it means for who makes decisions and how they make them. “One of the big things this Institution can do is establish codes of practice on how to use tools while safeguarding safety and AI is something that we need to work out,” he said.
“There will be upskilling and new opportunities. We’ll see people who can actually programme and that will be a new opportunity for now in our sector. But we need to control that, we need to make sure we do it in the right way. We need to tackle the ethics of that, who’s acting and who is the controlling mind.”
In this regard, Porter believes that the diversity of careers in civil engineering will continue to grow and he is particularly pleased that ICE has already taken action to reflect that across its membership. He pointed to the new Chartered Infrastructure Engineer membership as an example of that – and didn’t stop there.
“It used to be that you had to have studied civil engineering [to be a member of the ICE], but there’s lots of pathways into these careers now,” he said. “That’s been my experience, and as an institution we need to continue to make sure that we have the routes to accommodate those people so that they can come.
“If I was sitting here 10 or 15 years ago, I would be talking about the importance of Chartered Civil Engineer status, whereas now, it’s Chartered status, Incorporated status and Technician status. There’s a whole range of recognition and we need to make sure that whatever is appropriate for an individual is there for them.”
Like what you’ve read? To receive New Civil Engineer’s daily and weekly newsletters click here.
