Tuesday 19 March 2013

AEngD bloggers and Tweeters

EngD research engineers are often keen to share their ideas online, so we have started to collate a list of blogs that relate to all aspects of EngD research.

Some blogs have been created by industrial doctorate centres (the Technologies for Sustainable Built Environments centre at University of Reading, for example), while others have been created by REs. For instance, the TSBE blog links to two further examples created by Reading REs involved in research into renewables:
  • Marek Kubik writes about his research and, in his own words "frequently ventures into territories such as engineering, economics and politics. The occasional escapade off topic into things that interest me might also find its way in here."
  • Peter Burgess's Set in Etch-a-Sketch covers his "views on all things renewable and sustainable energy."
Twitter also provides some useful links to EngD bloggers. @The_AEngD currently follows several REs who resort to 140 characters, some of whom write substantially more on their blogs. For example...
Ben Betts blog
  • Maria Felice is a mechanical engineering-focused research engineer at the Systems IDC at University of Bristol.
  • Laura Daniels' Energy Assortment is a recently re-started blog by another RE at TSBE in Reading
  • Mesut Pala is researching construction supply chains at Loughborough's CICE (though it appears his blog has been neglected of late, and has no RSS feed)
  • Ben Betts is Stoatly Different, and is a RE at Warwick's International Digital Lab.
Please let us know if you have an EngD-related blog that you'd like to be added to our AEngD blog-roll.

Monday 11 March 2013

Welcome to the AEngD blog

Welcome to the blog of the Association of Engineering Doctorates (the AEngD). As our profile says, the AEngD is a community engaged in research in engineering and related disciplines. It encourages high calibre research engineers (REs) to undertake EngD programmes at university-based Industrial Doctorate Centres (IDCs), funded by EPSRC with backing from UK industry sponsors, many of them companies at the leading edge of innovative thinking and practice.

AEngD members include almost all of the UK's university-based centres offering the EngD qualification. In total, we currently have some 25 centres covering more than 40 universities, as some centres involve two more universities in their specialist research. Across these centres, we have a growing community of (to date) almost 300 individual members, including current RE's, alumni, sponsor staff and academics and other university staff.

Officially launched on 1 November 2012 at the Royal Academy of Engineering, the AEngD is funded by its member institutions, but has no full-time staff. It therefore relies on the time and effort volunteered by people from across its network. It is managed by a steering committee, and is supported by an external communications consultant (Paul Wilkinson).

This blog augments the main news feed on the AEngD website (and complements our places on Facebook and Twitter), and is intended to be a place where we share news and views, and - hopefully - get feedback about our activities. It will also be a place where we will link to blogs run by some of the IDCs and others written by individual members.