Support the Engineering Leadership Programme
The Engineering Leadership Programme
Established in the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in 2012 to develop effective engineering leaders ready to face the challenges of industry and business. The School and industry have collaborated in the development of this programme, ensuring that the content and delivery of the programme will develop engineers capable of integrating seamlessly into a company, and who will be capable of leading complex projects early in their engineering careers.
Company Information
The aim of the Engineering Leadership Programme (ELP) is to develop effective engineering leaders ready to face the challenges of industry and business today. In order to become future engineering leaders our graduates must have an awareness and experience of issues in much greater detail than is available through an engineering degree. Example topics include:
- Communications and people skills
- Influencing and motivating skills
- Interdisciplinary decision and teamwork capability
- Financial management
- Market and customer focus
- “Big picture” engineering
- Leadership abilities and organizational social awareness
- Enterprise understanding
- Management tools and processes
- Competitiveness
- Taking responsibility to prevent failure
We have worked closely with industry in the development of this programme, thus ensuring that the content and delivery of the programme is that which is required to develop engineers who are capable of integrating seamlessly into a company and who will be capable of leading complex projects early in their careers.
The Programme
The best engineering students from across our degree programmes (Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Product Design Engineering) will be selected at the end of their first year of the degree to participate in the programme which will be structured as shown below.
|
Year of ELP |
Year of degree programme |
Activity |
|
1 |
2 |
Students will attend a training session per week (approx. 3 hours) for 2 semesters. In addition to this they will complete a 1 day workshop between semester 1 and semester 2. |
|
2 |
Year out |
Guaranteed 1 year paid placement with sponsoring company |
|
3 |
3 |
Students will attend a training session per week (approx. 3 hours) for 2 semesters. |
|
Summer Year 3 |
Summer Year 3 |
Leadership training activities |
Class room based training and workshops will be supplemented with industrial visits, attendance at QUB master classes delivered by visiting experts and online training.
The role of the partner company
As a partner company on the ELP you will provide a one year paid placement at the end of the second year of the degree programme. It is expected that the students will have the ability and opportunity to apply the skills and knowledge gained from their training to challenging problems in a technical/business context within their placements. Partner companies are also asked to provide the student with a mentor. The mentoring element of the ELP will provide the student with direct, personal contact with a practicing senior engineer in order to enhance their intellectual, social and professional development.
How to become a partner company on the ELP
If you believe that your company can provide a demanding yet supportive environment in which our future engineering leaders will have the opportunity to demonstrate their capabilities then please complete this form.
Click Here to express your interest in joining the Engineering Leadership Programme
The leadership programme helped me see my potential and improved the skills I need to work in industry. I feel more ready to face the challenges of industry today and am looking forward to being an engineering leader of the future. Rebecca Wray
MEng Product Design Engineering
Mentoring on the Engineering Leadership Programme
The mentoring element of the ELP provides the student with direct, personal contact with a practicing senior engineer in order to enhance their intellectual, social and professional development. As one of the mentors in the ELP you will be a role model for one or two of our brightest and most promising engineers helping them develop into future engineering leaders. Through this direct and repeated contact, a one-to-one mentoring relationship is established.
As a mentor you will:
- Act as a role model.
- Introduce the student to the engineering profession
- Provide informal advice on career direction and personal development.
- Provide networking opportunities for the student.
- Act as a sounding board for the student’s ideas/proposals for projects in which they are involved.
- Expand the student’s horizons beyond the purely technical aspects of engineering
Regular contact should occur between the mentor and student in order for the mentoring relationship to be successful. As a minimum, the student and mentor should be in contact at least once a month during the placement year and summer placement.
The mentoring relationship is not one-sided where the mentor does all the giving and the student all the receiving. The mentor can also benefit greatly from the experience:
- The mentor gains insight into the world of the student and his/her expectations of engineering.
- Mentoring is a chance to give something back.
- Mentoring is a chance to share past experiences.
- Mentoring helps the professional engineer stay in touch with the educational system.
- Mentoring enables the professional engineer to gain a better understanding of how future engineers view the engineering profession.