Rethinking Accreditation Criteria to focus on Design

Accreditation criteria in most countries imply that mathematics and science are the key elements of engineering. This tends to support traditional engineering curricula that emphasise lecture-driven topics in engineering science, such as statics, dynamics, materials, circuits, control, and so on, giving students in four year programs little time to really develop engineering problem solving skills for a world of sustainability and complexity. There is a pressing need to redesign engineering curricula around design and problem solving if new engineers are to grapple with complex challenges such as climate change and the need for continuous and relentless innovation. This paper proposes that a good place to start is to reimagine the accreditation criteria for engineering programs.