It’s often said that engineering is “the application of science”. This definition, however, illustrates the key problem for engineering and engineers: it – and they – are sublimated beneath “science” and not considered to constitute a discipline in their own right. For whereas science is concerned with discovery, engineering is concerned with the innovation necessary to make those discoveries manifest. And therefore everything we see, hear, touch, or otherwise encounter outside the natural world only exists because of engineering and engineers.

Professor Guy Littlefair will reveal how his journey through education, experience, industrial practice, and the academy led to him reimagining tertiary engineering education and, through a $ 55 million Australian commonwealth investment, resulted in establishing the Centre for Advanced Design in Engineering Training.