The workshop will bring together senior policy-makers, engineers and science manager/advisors in government in Defra and beyond to discuss and explore:

• the existing and potential role of engineering in sustainable development policy, research and delivery;
• the advantages a greater input from engineering and engineers might bring to these areas;
• specific policy agendas of relevance to sustainable development in which engineering has or could add value and potentially redirect policy;
• the actions that could be taken by government, the research community and engineering profession to better capture these benefits.

This event is being held as part of SDRN’s Research into Practice workstream.

Catalysed by the meeting a number of other possibilities are being explored, including engineering placements within Defra to ensure that engineering expertise is brought to bear on policy formulation and implementation. For further information, please contact Ben Watson at PSI.

For further information on this work please contact either Ben Shaw at PSI or the lead organisations for each workstream.

Engineers have so far not been sufficiently involved in multi-disciplinary research on sustainable development, although engineering institutions have been developing their own approaches. This workstream will work with the Royal Academy of Engineering Academy and the professional engineering institutions to explore how to integrate these approaches with the understanding developed by natural and social scientists, in order to put sustainable development into practice.

The Engineering and Sustainable Development workstream is being led by the Centre for Environmental Strategy (CES) at the University of Surrey and will run until December 2009.