A series of interviews with members of the School of Engineering’s new Advisory Board. In this edition, we interview Engineer Fernando de Almeida Santos, President of the Portuguese Engineers’ Order.
The Advisory Board of the School of Engineering at the University of Minho (EEUM) acts as an advisory body to the School’s governing bodies on matters of strategic planning. Comprising nine external figures of recognised merit in their respective fields, its mission is to provide guidance on matters relating to teaching, research and engagement with society.
1. How did you receive the invitation to join the Advisory Board of the School of Engineering at the University of Minho, and what significance do you attach to this role, as President of the Portuguese Engineers’ Association?
I was very proud to receive the invitation to join the Advisory Board of the School of Engineering at the University of Minho, because it has a very special significance for me, having been a student at the University of Minho on the Civil Engineering course between 1986 and 1991. It is not so much the pride of being President of the Order of Engineers that motivated my acceptance, but rather my time at the University of Minho.
2. In your opinion, what value can the presence of the Portuguese Engineers’ Association on the Advisory Board bring to the School of Engineering, given its mission and public responsibility?
Given that the University of Minho is currently one of the leading higher education institutions in the country, particularly in engineering, the fact that there is a link with the Portuguese Engineers’ Association (OEng) — and in this particular case, with a University alumnus serving as President of the Association — is extremely important in terms of the OEng’s social engagement with engineering schools in Portugal. In the specific case of the University of Minho, there is a dual responsibility stemming from the President’s sense of belonging. I believe that the fact that the President has a special connection to the University of Minho strengthens the University’s ties with the OEng, and, in the many activities that the OEng has promoted in support of Portuguese engineering, the University of Minho’s involvement is both essential and facilitated.
3. How do you think the Advisory Board can strengthen the link between academic education, professional qualifications and the practical challenges of practising engineering in Portugal?
It is clear that academic qualifications are not the same as professional qualifications. Academic qualifications are the responsibility of higher education engineering schools, whilst professional qualifications fall under the remit of the respective Public Professional Associations, in this case OEng as the leading Public Professional Association. In this sense, the coordination of the professional engineer’s lifelong continuing professional development can be centred on the university-business partnership, where OEng plays a fundamental role. As in other professions, continuing professional development involves the lifelong acquisition of knowledge that academic institutions alone cannot guarantee in terms of practical, on-the-ground knowledge, unless they are involved with the business community. Thus, the Advisory Board becomes a key element of the Schools — and, in this particular case, of the School of Engineering at the University of Minho — for interacting with the market and with companies in order to continually assess the needs and interactions that the industry must have with everything that is externalised in the academic world, with continuing professional development being one aspect, but not the only one.
4. As President of the Ordem, what kind of contribution would you like to make to the School of Engineering through your participation in this advisory body?
As President, speaking publicly, I believe that the University of Minho has grown exponentially over the last few decades, and the President’s participation on the Advisory Board enables a range of initiatives that go beyond academic content, namely an approach that considers the social and territorial context of the University of Minho within the local, regional and national communities. And this latter aspect is extremely important in order to realise that the scope of the University of Minho cannot be viewed as regional, but rather as national. The regional impact felt through the University of Minho must be extended to the wider territory and the cities that comprise it; indeed, given that this is the third most important urban area in Portugal, this territorial context inevitably means that any intervention must, by definition, be national in scope.
5. Given the challenges facing the profession today, how do you think the Order of Engineers can work with the School of Engineering to better prepare students for the responsible, skilled and socially relevant practice of engineering?
The Order of Engineers believes that one of the main social obligations of Portuguese universities is to explain to their students their future importance as professionals for their country. Portugal cannot afford to lose talent due to the continued – and in some cases erratic – tendency of Engineering Schools to encourage young Portuguese talent to move to other countries. I therefore believe that one of the main social obligations of engineering schools today, in coordination with the State and in the national interest, is the preservation and retention of talent in Portugal so that the contribution to the Portuguese economy is a reality through a strategic national resource known as ‘engineers’.
6. Over the next three years, in which areas do you consider it most important to bring the School of Engineering closer to the Institute of Engineers: enhancing the profession’s standing, ethics and professional conduct, soft skills, qualifications, or the transition into the labour market?
Undoubtedly, the primary role of a School is the training it provides to its future engineers to help them transition into the labour market. They do not arrive 100% prepared. There is a process of adaptation and professional development that is complemented by actual professional practice in the workplace, but the promotion of the profession, combined with ethics and professional conduct, ensures that, subsequently, transferable skills are added to the technical skills acquired, whether through formal education or throughout one’s life. From this perspective, OEng has developed the Strategic Plan for the Engineering Profession (PEPE), which combines the transition from academic and school life with disciplinary principles of ethics and professional conduct, ensuring that engineers are supported and valued whilst remaining true to their academic foundations. Hence, the interaction between university and business, university and society, or university and the profession is crucial to the future performance of those involved. I would point out that not all university graduates will go on to become leaders and, therefore, the issue of soft skills is of paramount importance for the future engineer’s personal development, a quality that is innate to the individual rather than acquired.
7. What role can the Order play in supporting the School of Engineering to reinforce, among students, the perception of engineering as a profession with significant social, technical and strategic impact for the country?
The OEng plays an essential role in liaising with engineering schools, and one of its main initiatives was the updating of an institutional agreement with those schools; the University of Minho was one of the first to receive this recognition and sign the agreement, as the perception of engineering as a profession with a high social impact is becoming increasingly evident and strategic for the country. Society’s knowledge and continuous development are driven by a force known as ‘engineering’, often in a hidden or non-explicit way, yet implicit in everything that constitutes society’s technological development, for example.
8. If you had to identify two or three priority initiatives for collaboration between the School of Engineering and the Order of Engineers over the next three years, which ones would you highlight and why?
There are three major priority initiatives worth highlighting. Firstly, the EURACE Seal. As we know, there is an accreditation system for higher education engineering courses (A3ES) and, based on this accreditation system, professionals graduating from these accredited courses must be accepted by the OEng when they apply for membership. As these accreditations are granted at the point of the courses’ creation and not throughout their development — at least initially — , the OEng has created a system for recognising the quality of courses which tends to constitute a sort of ‘fast track’, an open highway, for the admission of members from these institutions, since the recognition of the quality of courses and their content by the Order of Engineers — essentially a ‘quality seal’ — is extremely important for distinguishing certain types of degrees from others. This is, in fact, a starting point for linking academic qualifications with professional qualifications.
Furthermore, recognising the shortage of engineers in Portugal, the Portuguese Engineers’ Association established the Engineering Talent Linkage Forum, involving various organisations, including educational institutions, and the University of Minho was among the first to be invited to join this Forum. This collaboration has three main objectives: attracting young people to engineering; retaining talent; and bringing talent back.
Finally, an engineer’s professional development throughout their career can take various forms. One of the most important is continuous professional development, but another could be innovation in research, everything to do with start-ups, the application of innovative ideas, and ongoing studies, amongst many others. I would like to emphasise that the Portuguese Engineers’ Association has established a Specialisation in Engineering Education; therefore, the more specialists in engineering education there are in Portugal, the more credible that education will be, and we would like the University of Minho to view this as a duty, because teaching engineering is an act of engineering.
