Research Interns @ Strathclyde

Summer Internship 2022-23 (Awarded to Charlotte Eastwood)

The project is on the topic of ‘managing future engineers in a world of AI and industry 5’. The purpose of this project is to investigate the research challenges arising and the role researchers and educators play in solving this problem.

The proposed project is part of a broader interdisciplinary collaboration between the Business School, Department of Work, Employment, Organisation, the Law School, and NMIS. In an explorative UKRI/AHRC funded project on ‘Can AI ethics be implemented in the innovation lifecycle in industry 4’ we started engaging with questions about the role of humans in digital manufacturing.

Our approach reflects the current debates on how the ‘humans in the loop’ and ‘human-centric, sustainable, and ethical’ approaches can be translated into ongoing technological transformations. In debates on what is now even called Industry 5, interdisciplinary is deemed to add value to make sure the human factor is not just seen as a cost, but as an investment.

Our suggested project is part of our capacity building in this field, specifically with regard to interdisciplinarity as reflected in our research team. For this research internship project, we wish to focus on current approaches to managing engineers. What are the challenges for human-centric approaches on the organisational level? How would a more interdisciplinary approach help develop beyond ‘industrial human needs’? How should future engineering education reflect on digital transformation? To answer these questions, this project will be a cross-faculty collaboration with the Department of Design, Manufacturing and Engineering Management, Faculty of Engineering.

Questions arising are: How is a successful engineering project understood, what are the measures of this, what is the focus or extent of an engineering project say, does the project take into account various actors or is it viewed as a mechanical task, what happens in the next stages of engineering work, e.g. take-up. These questions would build on some of the data from our previous project on AI ethics and workplace cultures where we attempted to capture issues across the lifecycle and throughout the stack.

The aims of the internship are
• Build an understanding of the ways in which management of engineers addresses the human factors
• Support human centric management approaches in engineering education
• Foster interdisciplinary debates on the relations between digitally driven innovation in design and manufacturing, and human centric management.

The objectives for the project are as follows:
• Conduct a systematic literature review on how the ‘human factor’ is addressed and defined in Engineering Design Management based on a previously established methods (to be published in a Special Issue for the journal ‘Sensors’)
• Design a focus group guide targeting engineering students
• Conduct 4 focus groups with different cohorts of students (year 1 & 4)
• Disseminate results
• Contribute to learning enhancement with potential innovative teaching approach