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This paper will offer answers or partial answers to the following three questions. How important should manufacturing be for the United Kingdom (UK)? If it is relatively important, and if the UK fails to satisfy its own expectations regarding manufacturing performance, why is this the case? And what, if anything, should be done about it?

Presents the results of qualitative research conducted in six British companies during 1991‐92; all of which are major employers of science and engineering graduates. Draws on experiences of managers of graduate recruits and presents material taken from interviews by way of illustration of the points made. Discusses the aspirations of graduate recruits to industry and the problems they encounter, working in a different environment; the requirements of training and development programmes; the need to match company and individual needs; and the necessity of nurturing graduates for the first four or five years to avoid “poaching” by other companies. Offers a number of recommendations for the effective management, training and development of graduate entrants, so as to ensure their successful transition from an academic to a work environment, and to retain graduate entrants, as a long‐term investment.

Readers will already know the broad basis of the so‐called ‘elitist’ engineering programmes, and have considered the views of the various parties on their value. In this article I propose to give some details of the Special Engineering Programme (SEP) of Brunel University in conjunction with Henley Administrative Staff College. The details will obviously differ from those of the other seven major programmes; but let me emphasise again that all eight share two important objectives: • To provide a challenging and relevant education and training for highly able and motivated students. • To help develop such students for high level and rewarding jobs in engineering and management in UK industry.

Brief extracts from some of the papers presented at the recent Institution of Mechanical Engineers' Conference on

The purpose of this paper is to explore innovation in alliance contracting in the New Zealand construction industry in terms of features (i.e. development process, risk/reward framework and leadership structure) that could influence successful project outcomes.

This study employed a qualitative research methodology. Three alliancing projects have been identified as the cases. By using interviews with the project’s owner and non-owner participants and related project documentation, the relevant features in the three examined cases were identified and compared.

The findings revealed differences in the reasoning why a particular alliance approach was implemented, how the alliance selection process was conducted and what kind of leadership structure was adopted. Interestingly, a number of unique and innovative practices to alliancing were also highlighted, notably the innovative agreements, innovative governance structure and innovative functional teams that influence the synergistically creative solutions to suit the clients’ needs.

The innovative practices identified in this study have brought the alliancing concept to a new level of practice in the industry. The findings provide a basis and a platform for discussion, both nationally and internationally, to gain greater understanding in managing different alliance contracting towards breakthrough outcomes.

This study extends the alliancing procurement literature, in particular, but also provides significant insights into innovative advancements to the collaborative procurement approaches.

THIS year marks the centenary of the publication of the most significant paper every written in the field of tribology. It is therefore timely to recall the nineteenth century developments in mechanical engineering science which prompted Osborne Reynolds to undertake his studies of fluid‐film lubrication, to consider the essence of his contribution, to review one hundred years of further progress and to comment on the current position.

Sustainability within tertiary curriculum is hard to measure and often perceived to be illusive in nature. Existing higher education sustainability assessment tools rarely focus on the curriculum. This paper aims to establish and implement a tool that can measure sustainability integration within curriculum. The Faculty of Engineering and IT (FEIT) at University of Technology Sydney (UTS) is used as a case study.

A set of seven sustainability competencies are identified by means of a systematic literature review as the current knowledge of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) competencies. ESD competency integration into the curriculum is assessed by implementing a two-tier scanning mechanism. In the first step, subject outlines (SOs) are used to identify sustainable subject learning outcomes (SLOs) and assessment learning outcomes (ALOs). Step 2 involves analysing ALOs and SLOs for constructive alignment with student experience. SPSS, a statistical software, is then used to statistically reflect the results.

An initial scan of SOs found that stated ESD outcomes made up 22.4 per cent of FEIT undergraduate courses. A more detailed investigation which involved assessing subject material and student experience for the seven ESD outcomes resulted in a 7.7 per cent sustainability integration into the FEIT undergraduate courses. SPSS produced tables showing individual competency distribution over course candidature year. Lifecycle assessment was invisible from the curriculum.

Case study outcomes are limited to UTS, and therefore, specific-study outcomes cannot be generalised. This study attempted to trace sustainability learning outcomes through the curriculum. However, a more detailed study should also assess subject pedagogy and artefacts as these may enable or inhibit sustainability competency.

Study developed several methods to establish and evaluate subject level ESD claims. Academic staff and management are able to replicate methods of this study to map ESD within their courses, schools and/or faculties triggering conversation around ESD’s actual integration within curriculum. Based on ESD distribution, specific intervention recommendations are proposed.

The integrated course of study leading to an honours degree, which generally consists of alternate periods in college and in industry totalling four years, is more than a conventional three‐year full‐time course with a period of industrial training added. The significant difference is that in the integrated course a student is educated partly in an academic and partly in an industrial environment and these environments alternate throughout the student's educational development. This arrangement, which is particularly suited to the education of professional engineers, involves collaboration between the college and industry throughout a student's education and assumes that students work at university undergraduate level both in industry and in college.

The survey which I shall describe was first discussed early in 1964 when the DSIR Information Committee turned its attention to the problem of the training and recruitment of information staff. To this end it set up a working party under the chairmanship of Dr C. J. Smithells to examine the problem in detail. The working party came to the conclusion that the first thing that was needed was a lot more factual information about the present position. So it decided to launch a national survey of staff employed in information work by means of two questionnaires which it drafted, one to be answered by management and the other by individuals. (Perhaps this is a convenient point to mention that the working party defined information work as ‘… all the normal activities of information departments and special libraries engaged in science and technology, but excluding clerical and typing duties, public relations, advertising and sales’; this is the definition of ‘information work’ used throughout this paper). A pilot survey was then carried out in order to test the questionnaires; participating in this were an information department of a nationalized industry, a research association together with some of its member firms, a DSIR Branch Office which included some firms in the private sector of industry within its area, a DSIR Research Station and the DSIR Headquarters Library. This allowed us to finalize the questionnaires to be used. I should like to thank all those who helped us with the exercise—the chairman and members of the working party and all those who assisted in the pilot survey.

‘The determination of priorities in technical education and their relevance to possible forms of Commonwealth co‐operation’. This was the title of Sir Willis's address to the third Commonwealth Education Conference held in Ottawa, which we reproduce here in full