GLOBAL: An MSc to stop building collapse?

Redundancies among engineers in recession-ravaged countries have been on the rise as major infrastructure projects have been put on hold, even though many related to practical ways and means to reduce the impacts of climate change.

But a fight back is happening as national governments and technical universities across the world are seeking to improve student numbers in degree courses in the fields of environmental, energy, electronics, transport and construction engineering with all its many facets.

Tunnelling projects to carry passenger and goods trains, water and other sinews of modern cities are increasing as part of recession-busting schemes. New metro systems are being planned and constructed in Singapore, Dubai, Delhi, Taipei and São Paulo. In Europe, a metro boom has taken off with cities such as Athens, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Dublin and Warsaw, along with Cologne and Frankfurt in Germany, seeking to outsmart each other while knowing London is the doyen of them all.

Tunnelling is a dangerous business and needs different skills and expert knowledge of substrata and of specific geological ground conditions. Experienced operators are sought for the huge tunnel boring machines that need to be used with great skill so that city buildings don't disappear into great holes - as happened in Amsterdam where a new metro tunnel application washed away the deep sand and gravel bed of an old seaway and houses gave way as the wooden piles were denied support.

Aware of this, care had to be taken to ensure Copenhagen's old houses built on timber piles were secure from any water damage. Other areas of specialist knowledge require professional consultants with architectural, civil and other engineering degrees.

Last March in Cologne, the city's six-storey archive building along with adjacent residential properties collapsed killing two people. The building had not been underpinned so old foundation earth slid into a tunnel of a new underground light railway.

With all this geological construction taking place there has been a concern that projects world-wide could suffer from a dearth of geotechnical professionals. The international technical journal Ground Engineering undertook a global survey of masters courses related to geotechnical studies and found that British students were the strongest contenders.

At six of the major UK universities in the new intake for MSc degrees in geo-technical engineering 505 students were British and 29 were from overseas. Evidence, yet to be collated, does indicate that overseas students are seeking placements in the US and Australia Geotechnical professionals have been quick to realise that postgraduate qualifications make them more attractive and indispensable to employer and that tunnelling is among some of the well-paid jobs in infrastructure engineering.

Tim Chapman, Director of consultant Arup, London's Geotechnical and Tunnelling group, says: "We prefer people with an MSc because they understand the reasoning behind the various design rules and have a more focused appreciation of the wide subject and ways of developing themselves."

Arup is the specialist tunnelling consultant for London's EUR18.2 billion (US$25 billion), 42 kilometre new underground Crossrail project, now given the green-light by a cash-strapped UK government. Up to 30 metres below ground level, tunnels will run east-west through London from Maidenhead to Abbey Wood while linking with Heathrow Airport as well as the mainline railway stations of Paddington, Liverpool Street and the Olympic Site, and a new national-north-south terminal of Stratford East.

The essential work is for the opening of London's 2012 Olympics to create a radical link with all aspects of air and rail travel from across the nation and the world. The final stages will then be completed by 2017.

Crossrail is the biggest tunnelling infrastructure project ever undertaken in Britain, employing 14,000 site workers and involves new 'state-of-the-art' ground investigation work including non-intrusive acoustic reflection monitoring devices to seek out London's hidden world of power-lines, medieval sewers as well as old and partly forgotten hydraulic delivery power systems.

This project alone will need at least 10 specialist framework designers and the people who can operate giant boring machines. Many more are needed for the additional 14 kilometres of tunnelling needed for extensions to the Heathrow Express and Piccadilly tube's along with road, passenger and baggage systems needed for the possible new third runway.

Geotechnical engineering is a field that requires people with a critical sense of flexibility to fit in with other disciplines. They need to be able to speak and understand the language of building services engineers and energy engineers, telecommunication specialists, structural engineers and landscape architects.

Last year, Imperial College London's MSc courses director Clark Fenton expressed doubts about course numbers with the escalation of a global economic downturn. But Fenton now agrees that the future is brighter with intakes rising, especially for the engineering geology course.

Student numbers are up for other geo-technical related courses provided at the universities of Leeds's Cardiff, Exeter and Birmingham. The added knowledge that a metro building revolution is taking place in Paris, Copenhagen, Athens, Dublin and Amsterdam, with potential for other world city underground systems, gives science students seeking a masters degree an added incentive to succeed.

Professor John Coggan head of the school of geography, archaeology and earth sources at Exeter University, says, "The ideal person for an MSc is someone with a good first degree but who has worked in industry. They are able to contribute more in important site and design discussions through their hands-on experience. This experience also helps to understand how geotechnics fit in with other disciplines, something that some universities are trying to recreate once more in the classroom."

According to Professor Jane Rickson, senior lecturer at Bedfordshire's Cranfield University, funding is still a big problem because the UK government is gradually decreasing the amount universities receive to offer bursaries to their MSc students.

Reported in the 9 February issue of the UK journal Ground Engineering, Rickson said, "The majority of masters degree students are already self-funded so this loss means many hoping to improve their skills will lose out because they cannot afford to take a year off work without support."

Engineers worldwide are paying close attention to what is taking place in Europe and especially London. Anxious for similar developments in their own countries, there is now a rising demand for professional degrees from universities nearer home.

This creates a new demand for teachers with hands-on experience. The Glenigan Index, produced by the construction market intelligence firm Glenigan, records more positive trends in the second half of 2009 for all construction projects - including the energy sector and waste and water transfer - as nations seek to bust the global recession by major public works.

* Bill Holdsworth is an environmental and energy engineer, writer, author, lecturer and journalist.

Comment:
Interestingly, reacting on redundancies among Dutch engineers an initiative was this week implemented to re-educate engineers as (municipal) building control officials. For years there has been a shortage of high educated BCOs in the Netherlands - and
for years there have been worries about the quality of public building control. The current world crisis provides a chance to change this.

Jeroen van der Heijden