DMEM is one of the initial three UK engineering courses successful in attracting Royal Academy of Engineering funding to sponsor a Visiting Professor in Innovation and a Visiting Teaching Fellow in Innovation for a period of up to five years.
Visiting Professors in Innovation
This initiative has been prepared in response to the finding of the Cox Report and to the RAEng's own papers;
As 'innovation', like 'creativity' and 'design' are open to wide interpretation, we enclose the definitions developed in the Cox Report and adopted by the Royal Academy of Engineering.
- 'Innovation': 'the successful exploitation of new ideas, the process that carries them through to new products, new services, new ways of running a business or even new ways of doing business'.
- 'Creativity': 'the generation of new ideas-either new ways of looking at existing problems, or of seeing new opportunities, perhaps by exploiting emerging technologies or changes in markets'.
- 'Design': 'that which links creativity and innovation. Design shapes ideas to become practical and attractive propositions for users or customers- creativity deployed to a specific end'.
The strategic aims of the initiative are to improve the innovation content of undergraduate engineering courses, to develop beneficial cross-departmental collaboration in project and trans-disciplinary developments, and to propel greater student awareness and contacts with industry and business project contexts.
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The successful bid from DMEM effectively centered around 4 strategies aimed at developing project acumen and ambition, placing it in increasingly business-related contexts and- crucially- in demonstrating these skills both within the Department and the Faculty. As achievement develops, we will engage with bodies outwith the University to showcase our student achievements in ever-wider contexts.
All students undertaking Year 4 and Year 5 individual development projects are allocated a personal project supervisor for the duration of the project; this supportive mechanism delivers consistent advice, encouragement and supplementary project management throughout each extended individual project development. The aim of the "Drop-in Surgery" sessions is not to duplicate or disrupt this well tried relationship, but to deliver extra insight, fresh perspectives, material and expertise network contacts to students who are really taking ownership of the possibilities opening up through the project experience. The early sessions are manned by the Visiting Professor and the Visiting Teaching Fellow, but these skills will be enlarged and/or substituted by inclusion of invited experts as projects progress within the second semester.
This programme will bring young and successful product designers who are 'out there, and doing it'- to come in for anything up to 2 days to show our students what they are doing. We intend running 4 two-day Innovation Champion sessions each academic year; 2 before the Christmas break and 2 between Christmas and Easter.
Our parameters for involvement are relatively open: we are looking for relatively recent graduates- perhaps up to 10 years out from graduation- who are engaged in the 'innovation process' and developing creative products, services and new business models. Communicating not just what they have achieved- but the types of challenges they have faced and skill sets they have developed in managing the development process from recognition of opportunity through to product disposal.
Each visit will contain an open presentation to the student body- perhaps up to 200 students, as well as participation in a half-day project surgery with final year students. Time permitting, each Innovation Champion may wish to create a short seminar/ studio workshop for a smaller group of undergraduates on a topic of your own choice.
Currently the department exhibits the student work on the walls of the design studio. We shall be working to increase the exposure by creating a dedicated rolling exhibition of student work on the walls of the DMEM department.
The annual degree show is currently the only venue where the students can show their work to a greater audience. We shall be working to increase the exposure by expanding this to other locations, eg. A more public site on the University campus or a dedicated area in The Lighthouse.
We shall initiate an annual event showcasing young engineering design talent drawn from the graduating years of engineering design courses in Glasgow. This could take three formats: a live presentation to an invited audience of 50-80 guests from government, business, manufacturing and the creative industries. Secondly- a supporting didactic exhibition for the public showing (and explaining) the innovative engineering projects. Both could be maximised for all participators through publicity, web presence etc.