**6. Fusion skills and engineering degrees of the future**

Working for Accenture – a global consultancy company – Daugherty and Wilson explore the reimagining of work processes through the introduction of fusion skills by presenting case studies of organisational change. We employ a slightly different strategy to reimagine engineering programmes. We draw on the scenario tradition, that is, combinations and permutations of the current state of affairs and anticipated social and technological change [3, 4]. Our scenarios are plausible, in the sense that they draw on current philosophy and design of engineering degrees, and they include significant developments – fusion skills – that exist in some small form in the present day and are anticipated to escalate in importance and significance over the next few years. The two scenarios we present both include features that are both possible and uncomfortable, for example, they highlight that although integrated/interdisciplinary degrees are positioned more favourably to engage with the challenge posed by fusion skills compared with single subject degrees, the development will have implications for the way in which members of those departments of engineering work with one another in future.

We present our scenarios to help departments of engineering identify different starting points for engaging with the challenge posed by fusion skills and to identify the way in which they might initiate discussions among academics about how to reduce those challenges, rather than to imply one scenario is inevitably better than the other.

We formulate our scenarios by drawing on the distinction Hoskin and Anderton Gough [57] made when looking at the development of interdisciplinary knowledge and skill in accountancy programmes. They distinguished between – "collection" and "integrated" approaches to programme and module design. The former refers to traditional discipline-specific programmes where the essential aim is to transmit blocks of knowledge in distinct specialist packages. In contrast, the latter promote and enable the integration of disciplinary knowledges, through breaking the old classifications and enabling learners to see knowledge in what we may call a more contextual way, through having a more integrated or interdisciplinary structure based around the use of projects, problems etc. These approaches are analytical distinctions, in other words, it is possible to characterise a degree in ideal typical terms as either consistent with the definition of collection, integrated or a combination of both approaches.

We use the distinction between collection or traditional single subject and integrated and interdisciplinary degrees to present our two scenarios of the engineering degree of the future. We do so to acknowledge that, despite the array of innovations in the design and delivery of engineering programmes, many departments of engineering remain firmly attached to the former type of degree. Our argument is that a homology exists between integrated/interdisciplinary degrees and fusion skills, which positions the former to embed fusions skills more comprehensively into programmes of study than would be the case with single subject degrees. Integrated/interdisciplinary degrees and fusion skills are both predicated on *contextualisation*: the former seeks to contextualise knowledge in relation to way in which an engineer, irrespective of their specialism may work with and relate to other engineers and their knowledge, once they are in the field of practice; the latter seeks to contextualise fusion skills in relation to future work practice. These are slightly different conceptions of contextualisation – curriculum contextualisation and work contextualisation. They are nonetheless complimentary because they are both concerned with relationships: relationships between engineers and relationships between humans and machines. It is this shared relational perspective that provides the basis for identifying how to embed fusion skills into integrated/interdisciplinary engineering degrees. In contrast, single subject degrees are far less contextual. They tend to prioritise offering engineering students depth of knowledge in their chosen specialism, rather than opportunities to explore the contextual basis of both the specialist knowledge being studied and its future relationship to engineering work practice. One way such degrees do sometimes mitigate the concern for depth is by offering students work placements.

We can see, at a glance, the significant difference between the way in which fusion skills could become part of single subject and integrated/interdisciplinary degrees in **Table 1**. below. The starting question is similar for both types of degree – to follow Daugherty and Wilson and identify ways in which AI might enable staff & students to secure an improved work-life balance by rehumanising time. We see swiftly, however, significant divergence when we consider the way in which the different degrees are positioned to respond to the challenge of agreeing philosophy, pedagogy & assessment to incorporate AI into their extant designs. The difference is encapsulated in the terms – embed or include.

If we take one of the fusions skills, 'judgement-integration', we can see that to fully appreciate the complexity of the judgements that will be necessary in the design of, for example, autonomous vehicles, we see that the range of expertise necessary extended well beyond any single discipline. Fleetwood [58] frames the issues related to ethics judgements in the design of autonomous systems in term of public health and captures the range of competing considerations that are required of students. While we would never suggest that any single engineering student could


#### **Table 1.**

*Engineering degrees of the future: 2 fusion skill scenarios.*

reasonably be expected to be expert on all of the areas necessary, from the AI to the sociology, psychology and fundamentals of human-computer interaction, it is undoubtably the case the opportunities to engage students in a nuanced and diverse exploration of the issues at hand is limited in a single discipline. In an integrated curriculum model, these no longer become the preserve of the just computer scientist. This argument apes some of the original discussions that led to the integrated forms of degrees that we see today. If we take the design thinking framing of Brown [59] and IDEO we see engineering design and decision making consisting of potentially competing evaluations of feasibility, desirability and viability. Inherent this

calls for a broad palette of skills and deemphasises the validity of single disciplinary view-point in decision making. If we continue to compare and contrast activities typical of a single subject degree with those possible in an integrated and interdisciplinary context, we see further evidence of the support these broader contextual framings provide for fusion skills.

There are, however, some areas where the contrast is not so stark which highlights a second key aspect that we argue is necessary in future skills development but that might also be viewed under the heading of integration. That is Industry-Academia integration. For many, a linear model of professional formation still pervades, a degree in the academy followed by profession experience in the workplace. Although, placements and year in industry programmes are not uncommon, reductions in student funding, and competition for industry support, for examples in the UK from apprenticeships and T-Level qualifications, show that while not necessarily at risk, this model is unlikely to expand significantly as currently formulated. Additional, while undoubted positive for the student, it is hard to argue that the majority are truly integrated – where training and experience in the workplace and education in the academy combine to make a learning experience that is greater than the sum of its parts. There are successful examples. Some of the best degree apprenticeships achieve this, as do models such as Charles Sturt discussed above. However, we would argue that a complete reimagining of industry-academia interaction in the formation of professional engineers is required to address the necessity of fusion skills in the future workforce.

Whilst we have shown that an integrated degree offers the best opportunity to elicit the environment for students to explore fusion skills within a university programme, the level of authenticity possible is always constrained by the bounds of the academic environment. The later skills discussed in **Table 1**, ideally call for authenticity that may best be provided by industry partners. *Relentless Reimagining* calls for 'creating new processes and business models from scratch' and while this can be developed at a distance from industry, it is undoubted challenging to replicate the full and nuanced range of competing design requirements that interplay in the conception of a successful business process. The danger is that without access to the realities of the workplace, even the projects delivered with an integrated degree regress to the 'toy' problems that drove educators away from single discipline projects in the first place.

A model where workplace learning integrated into the engineering curriculum and the formation of a professional engineering is necessary development. Two considerations will have to be borne in mind: the role of AI and the insights that can be accrued from short placements/internships. In the case of the former, it will be important to commission research on models of reciprocal apprenticeship in university research teams and companies who are either introducing or developing fusion skills in their teams, to identify their new hybrid learning processes. In the case of work placements/internships it will be important to identify best learning practices. Both sources of intelligence can then be used to ensure workplace learning is connected to both university- and company-based learning, with explicit interrelationships drawn. This is likely to be especially relevant in the short-term for companies as they reimagining their development processes and formulate new procedures for user-engagement and product/process design, and for departments of engineering as they consider the implications of our two scenarios.

### **7. The post-Covid challenge for universities and departments of engineering**

Having identified the type of challenges associated with the embedding of fusion skills into engineering degrees, we now locate that challenge in the post-Covid context. We paved the way for this discussion earlier when we referred to Schwab's argument that responding to Covid will involve a *great reset*: governments working together to orientate the market toward fairer outcomes, targeting investments, especially in AI, to advance shared goals, such as equality and sustainability, and harnessing the innovations of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to support the public good, especially by addressing health and social challenges. Clearly, the fusion -kill reimagining of engineering and engineering education outlined above is central to all of these reset goals. To demonstrate why and how, we conclude by drawing on Crawley and colleagues' [55] argument that universities perform best as engines of economic and social development when they systematically exchange knowledge with their partners in industry and government.

For too long, this "exchange" has operated, according to Crawley and colleagues [55] like a one-way street, with universities sending graduates and research out into the world without considering how they can best contribute to the goals of accelerated innovation, economic growth, and now recovery in the face of the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic. To combat this tendency Crawley and colleagues put forward some practical suggestions to assist universities to reimagine in their educational and research activities as well as catalysing innovation to strengthen knowledge exchange — the flow of people, ideas, and technologies — between universities and their partners in a way that is more aligned with the great reset.

Our argument above about the fusion skills clearly presupposes knowledge exchange between universities and employers, with explicit intention of improving the social outcomes of engineering. We propose therefore that the development of fusion skills requires a reimagining of *the design and delivery of engineering degrees*. And, we have identified two scenarios to assist universities to address this challenge.

In advancing this argument, we also recognise with Crawley and colleagues that, research needs to be reimagined. The development and implementation of fusion skills will require collaborative research within and across scientific disciplines or even rejecting the idea of a discipline as an organising principle for university research – and assemble teams of 21st-century thinker and doers" to conduct research that is problem-oriented, and not disciplinary, and involving industrial partners and collaborators since they are, as we have indicated above, essential to the development and implementation of fusion skills. This suggestion, in turn, implies *reimaging of the field of engineering education so that it acquires a reputation for reporting these developments to academic and industrial audiences.*

The engineering degrees and research of the future also calls for a catalysing of innovation, in other words, universities moving beyond research to create technologies, business models, health-care systems, and other products.

We recognise that responding to this agenda requires changes to universities' faculty development, facilities, governance, and outreach to external partners, and that there may well be some tension about departments of engineering discarding some of their, and universities, historic roles and values. In accordance with the spirit of the great reset, we suggest this debate should be held and given serious attention.

### **8. Conclusion**

The core argument running through this chapter about the implications of Society 5.0/Industry 5.0 for engineering education is that they presuppose new, rather than, additional skills which we have defined as *fusion* skills. We have, however, given an additional twist to the source of inspiration for our chapter and this edited collection by locating our argument in relation to the challenges

associated with the great reset. We have therefore argued that what initially might have appeared to be only an issue of *technique* [60] is also an issue of *vision* about the type of society and life that imaginative, talented and environmentally responsible departments of engineering and the engineers of the future they produce can help to bring to fruition.
