Spotlight: UK Engineering Council Focus on Ethics

A new report, "Engineering Ethics: maintaining society’s trust in the engineering profession," seeks to ensure that ethical culture and practice become embedded in the engineering profession in the same way as health and safety considerations. The report was produced by the joint Engineering Ethics Reference Group, established in 2019 by the Royal Academy of Engineering and the UK's engineering accreditation body, the Engineering Council, and includes a roadmap of short-, medium- and long-term actions to embed ethical best practice. At the heart of the report is the need to retain public confidence in the ethical behavior of engineers.

As one of the actions from this report, to support educational programs, 12 initial case studies have been produced for undergraduate teaching. These were produced by the Engineering Professors’ Council for the Royal Academy of Engineering.