ISLe Learning Hub on Transforming Engineering Education: Charting future career paths

The Transforming Engineering Education Learning Hub is part of the Infrastructure Sustainability Learning (ISLe) Initiative, designed to accelerate knowledge sharing and collaboration across the global engineering community. The series creates a space for academics, practitioners, and industry leaders to explore how engineering education can adapt to the urgent challenges of our time.

As engineering roles continue to evolve, the sixth session of the Transforming Engineering Education ISLe Learning Hub examined emerging career pathways aligned with the demands of sustainable development. Speakers highlighted opportunities across sectors and the critical role of education in preparing graduates for careers that combine technical expertise with social, environmental, and ethical awareness. It also explored how to equip students for careers that may span multiple sectors or that require working in complex and uncertain contexts, with a focus on the types of learning experiences needed to support this shift.

In her opening remarks, Savina Carluccio, Executive Director of ICSI, set the tone for the session by emphasising the urgent need to rethink engineering education and professional pathways in light of global sustainability challenges. She referenced findings from the Engineering Change: Consultation Report, published in 2023 by ICSI in partnership with the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO) Young Engineers/Future Leaders Working Group on Climate Action (YE/FL SDG13). The report draws on a global survey of 232 respondents, primarily young engineers (78%) and senior managers (22%), capturing their perceptions and experiences of applying sustainable-development practices within the engineering profession. According to the survey results, young engineers overwhelmingly value sustainability in their work and report a significant boost in job satisfaction and sense of purpose when they are able to work on sustainability-oriented projects, even if such opportunities do not always lead to higher pay or faster promotion. Nonetheless, the report also highlights substantial and persistent barriers: limited funding and time for upskilling, few opportunities to apply sustainable approaches in real-world projects, and minimal institutional backing for sustainability-focused career paths.

Sectoral perspectives 

In her presentation, Dr Nidhi Nagabhatla, Senior Research Fellow at the United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies, offered a forward-looking perspective on how engineering education and careers must evolve to meet today’s complex sustainability challenges. Drawing on her experience across academia, policy, and practice, she highlighted how emerging engineering roles are becoming increasingly dynamic and cross-sectoral, extending far beyond traditional infrastructure to include nature-based solutions, sustainability policy, and science-policy interfaces. 

She argued that while engineers already possess a strong, solution-oriented mindset, education systems must better integrate sustainability principles, social impact thinking, and experiential learning to prepare graduates for uncertain, real-world contexts. Using examples from her own teaching, she emphasised the value of community-based projects, interdisciplinary learning, and cross-sector partnerships in closing the skills gap between universities and industry. She also encouraged students and early-career professionals to move beyond linear career paths by engaging in fellowships, cross-disciplinary courses, mentoring, and policy dialogue, stressing that future engineers must not only solve technical problems but also communicate effectively, influence decision-making, and contribute to more inclusive and sustainable development pathways.

Building on these themes, Dr Jason Blackstock, Founder and CEO of How to Change the World and former head of department at UCL, argued that the future of learning is experiential and social, driven by a convergence of societal and business needs, rapid technology and knowledge shifts, and a deeper understanding of how humans learn. Drawing on Gallup data, he showed that students who have chances to apply classroom knowledge to ‘messy’ real-world problems through internships, projects or extracurricular activities report far higher long-term wellbeing and workplace engagement, yet fewer than a third currently access even one such experience. Jason’s case study showed how UCL’s How to Change the World course grew from a small experiment into a core capstone taken by around 1,500 engineering, business and computer science students each year. It is now delivered through large online bootcamps that are more inclusive, accessible, lower-cost and lower-carbon than traditional in-person formats. In these programmes, students from dozens of countries work in mixed teams on real sustainability challenges with community and industry partners, using human-centred design and systems thinking while developing communication and collaboration skills across disciplines. Jason highlighted evidence that this exposure reshapes career trajectories, particularly for women in engineering, by revealing roles for engineers in domains such as policy and social innovation, and he noted growing demand from employers who now want similar experiential approaches for their own workforces, not just for students.

Reflections on how to transform engineering education

The breakout discussions centred on practical steps for translating the session’s ideas into action. Participants discussed concrete mechanisms for change.

• Strengthen industry–academia collaboration by creating regular forums where practitioners and researchers can interact, exchange insights, and co-develop solutions. Promote professor of practice roles to bring real-world experience directly into the classroom.
• Expand experiential learning through open-ended, interdisciplinary projects; industry-led final-year assignments; and internships embedded within degree programmes. Industry should not only signal the skills needed in the job market but also provide real-world problems to integrate into engineering education.
• Scale up micro-credentials and continuous upskilling so that students and professionals at all career stages can acquire emerging competencies in a flexible and timely way.
• Break down academic silos by incentivising cross-disciplinary teamwork, project-based learning, and active learning approaches that mirror real engineering practice.
• Strengthen soft skills development, including critical thinking, systems thinking, collaboration, and cross-sector communication—competencies increasingly essential for delivering sustainable, resilient infrastructure.
• Improve incentives and institutional support for careers in sustainability and public-sector engineering, including better training and mentoring for managers of early-career engineers.

Watch a recording below:

The previous session was a special COP30-timed event, held virtually on the opening day of the conference. It featured a panel discussion with speakers from academia, non-profit organisations, and the private engineering services sector. Panellists reflected on insights from earlier sessions and connected them to COP30’s six thematic axes, with a particular focus on how engineers can support the implementation of solutions across these priority areas. The panel discussion recording is available here.

The final session, on 11 December, will synthesise insights from the series. It will focus on actionable recommendations for institutions seeking to build future-ready, sustainability-oriented engineering programmes. The session will explore what a future-facing engineering curriculum might include, how it can balance technical depth while addressing sustainable development needs, and what institutional changes are required to support it.

Read more:  ISLe Learning Hub