Engaging engineers in science and technology policy development

To engineers the democratic political process is emotional, irrational, and offers only superficial adherence to systems approaches. Yet, the political process is profoundly affecting our livelihoods, future prospects for technology advances, and nations' ability to maintain economic growth in an increasingly complex global environment. The engineering approach to problem-solving can be useful in the political process, but it requires the engagement of engineers in that process. In leaving policy development to lawyers, engineers are implicitly permitting rational problem-solving approaches to be avoided because vigorous advocacy in their behalf has been absent. There are numerous ways for IEEE to use its resources to engage engineers in policy development.