EGA Strategy Gathers Momentum

Over the past month the EGA Board have been debating the elements of the new Strategy 2013 under 4 broad headings - Education, Membership, Finance and Marketing. Board Subcommittees were set up for the 4 areas under the Chairs of Peter Brabazon, Michael Loughnane, Tony O'Brien and Karina O'Neill respectively.

UCD EGA Strategy

Each member of the Board had a role on at least one Subcommittee. This worked quite well. I am very grateful to the entire Board for the time, energy, innovation and enthusiasm that each member brought to the reports of the Subcommittees.

An integrated Draft Strategy based on these 4 elements will be brought to the May Board Meeting for consideration and adoption. The most radical change to the EGA approach is the focus on the quality of Education in the broadest sense. This will be our primary future role to assist the UCD College of Engineering to realise its place as one of the leading Engineering Schools in Europe.

Driving this ambition is the new 5 year Masters of Engineering (ME) in Biosystems, Chemical, Civil, Electrical, Electronic and Mechanical Engineering in accordance with the Bologna European Agreement which will confirm our graduates as among the best in Europe.

To support this ambitious role a new Membership and Funding Plan will introduced on a phased basis over the next year to hopefully give us many new members backed up by a new Marketing Plan to help realise the new approach.

At the April meeting we also elected a new Board Member to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Past President Simon Kelly. We thank Simon for his active Presidency over two terms and wish him good health and success in the years ahead.

Cormac Mannion

The new Board Member is Cormac Mannion who is Energy Efficiency Manager with Energia. Cormac graduated in Mechanical Engineering in 1997 and was awarded an MEngSc in 2000. For the past 5 years he has been working with Energia with overall responsibility for their Energy Services Division. Prior to joining Energia, Cormac worked in Intel and at Littelfuse in Dundalk.

At our April meeting we also finalised arrangements for the Annual Lecture in Belfield on May 8th next at 7pm and the Annual Lunch and presentation of the 2013 Distinguished Graduate Award at the National Concert Hall on June 13th.

We also settled on 'Ceili na hInnealtoiri' as our Gathering Event in late August. We hope to attract home for a week or even a weekend the many engineers who departed our shores over the past five years or more to seek employment in UK, Australia, Canada, US and mainland Europe. We appointed a Subcommittee of Robyn Kelly, Tony O'Brien, Karina O'Neill and Chaired by Angela Treanor. They will meet shortly to select a date and venue for the Ceili event. Already the soundings from graduates I've spoken to on this totally social event are excellent. So we have a busy year ahead.

Water Regulator for England and Wales to give UCD EGA Annual Lecture

The 2013 Annual Lecture of the UCD Engineering Graduates Association will be given on May 8th next in the Engineering Building Belfield by Regina Finn who is Water Regulator for England and Wales.

Regina Finn, Chief Executive of OFWAT - Water Regulator for England and Wales

With the imminent setting up of the new Irish Water utility by Bord Gais a large and representative attendance is expected to attend including Irish Water/Bord Gais, NewEra,  Government Departments, Regulators, Local Authorities, Consultants, Contractors, Media and the General Public.

Regina Finn is the Chief Executive of OFWAT - Water Regulation Authority for England and Wales. She has extensive previous experience regulating electricity and gas sectors in Ireland in the Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) followed by a period in  telecommmunications, post and electricity services as Regulator in Guernsey and as Communications Regulator in Ireland. Regina is also a Non Executive Director of Mutual Energy Holdings.

Greatest interest in the lecture will focus on the evolution and current status and compliance of domestic water charging and metering schemes for water supplies in England and Wales together with the asset management and business plans of the UK water authorities and companies. There will also be interest in the UK water leakage levels compared to the Irish situation and the various investment programmes to reduce leakage linked to new source development, security of supply and water quality standards.

Since her appointment to the post of Water Regulator, Regina has faced and overcome considerable challenges to balance the competing issues of customer service with the charging regime to cover capital, operating and whole life costs within social and environmental concerns. I have seen her on BBC News defending her position as independent Regulator and she is quite formidable under media questioning.

I confidently expect a big attendance at this year's lecture largely due to the quality of the Speaker but also because the subject of Water Regulation is currently so alive in political and media circles. I will have the pleasure of chairing the Annual Lecture 2013 which commences at 7pm followed by a Question and Answer session in the UCD Engineering Building on May 8th next.

Two new Graduates elected to UCD EGA Board

At the first EGA Board meeting of the year last Monday we confirmed the election of recent graduates Robyn Kelly and Angela Treanor to the UCD Engineering Graduates Association Board to fill two vacancies by co-option.

Robyn is a 2008 Biosystems Graduate of UCD who works in Bulmers food and beverages as a Financial Coordinator and prior to that she was an Environment Management intern in London. Robyn also has a Masters in Environmental Management from Kingston University London and has done charity work in Brazil.

Angela is a 2011 Civil Graduate of UCD who works in the Waste Energy and Environment section of RPS Consultants in Dun Laoghaire. She is currently Project Coordinator for the EU Commission Green Capital City award across the 27 Member States.

Robyn Kelly

Angela Treanor

We also appointed a number of Subcommittees to work on component parts of a new EGA Strategy to be finalised in March of this year. The EGA Constitution will then be updated to reflect any changes from the Strategy.

Four Subcommittees will work on Education, Membership, Finance and Marketing for discussion at the next Board Meeting in February and hopefully then finalisation of the Strategy in the following month.

The overall objective is to grow the EGA in a stronger body to assist the Schools of Engineering with their Development Plan and to raise the profile of UCD Engineering nationally and internationally.

We also discussed preparations for the Annual Lecture in April 2013 and the Distinguished Graduate Award in May. We gratefully acknowledged the financial support of Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council towards the planned Gathering Event in September.

I am very grateful for the support of the entire Board who attended the meeting. There was tremendous enthusiasm and interaction between all the Board Members both recent and long serving who are now truly representative of the profession in Ireland. It was an excellent start to an exciting and challenging year for the EGA.

UCD EGA Debate Pictures

Christmas Greetings to EGA Members

I wish all of our members at home and abroad and your families a happy and peaceful Christmas. 

We had our 2012 AGM in November which was followed by what was a record attendance for an EGA Meeting at the subsequent Panel Discussion chaired by Pat Kenny on ‘Can we shape Ireland's recovery on the German model?’. Led by the German Ambassador to Ireland, our five Speakers were outstanding on the current EU fiscal crisis – so much so that Pat Kenny devoted an hour-long slot to relive the debate on Today with Pat Kenny last Tuesday morning. A link to the Pat Kenny programme and a summary of the original full debate are both available on the EGA website (www.ucd.ie/eacollege/enggrad).

We are planning a very full programme of work in 2013 commencing with formulation of a new EGA Strategy for the next few years which will be aimed at projecting UCD as an Engineering College of truly international reputation.

We hope to support the newly integrated College to climb even greater heights in the years ahead. All of our Members will be invited to take a view on the new Strategy to broaden our remit and profile within UCD nationally and internationally as a centre for Learning, Research, Innovation, and Enterprise. In this regard the current links between Engineering and Business will be greatly strengthened.

I take the view that the Engineering profession and our entire industry are already central to our national recovery when you see that our significant national growth is in manufacturing exports (Pharma, ICT, Biomedical). That is not always acknowledged by media and others to be the case. Our exports and job creation in these areas are often fully ascribed to the ‘Life Sciences’ with no mention of ‘Engineering’, which is not an accurate representation.

We need to be more articulate on our key contribution to society and more holistic in considering our crucial future role in rebuilding the national economy including our physical and social infrastructure. We need to do more than engineer the future; we also need to inspire the future generations of engineers in our schools.

If we do not take this opportunity to shape events now in our recovery, then surely they will shape us as unfortunately has happened over the past decade in the Irish economy.

In addition to the Annual Lecture, Presentation of Final Year Gold Medals and Lunch/Distinguished Graduate Award this year, we are hoping to have an extra event to encourage a visit home to a planned Engineering conference in September by our many graduates abroad as part of The Gathering 2013, a tourism initiative promoted and supported by Government.

Nollag Shona agus Athbhliain faoi mhaise daoibh go léir.

Welcome to my new blog

My name is P J Rudden and I have the honour to have been elected President of the UCD Engineering Graduates Association last month. I want to pay tribute to and thank the outgoing President Michael Loughnane for his work as President over two terms in the past 4 years. It was a difficult 4 years for Ireland and for Europe and indeed especially for people in the engineering profession many of whom had to emigrate.

Outgoing and Incoming Presidents of the UCD Engineering Graduates Association,
Michael Loughnane and P.J. Rudden

We have to look forward though with optimism and hope that the initial signs of recovery we are seeing will continue and grow in 2013 and 2014. As a profession we have a duty to assist that recovery in any way we can and in that way raise our profile within UCD and the general community.

This blog is intended to raise the profile of the UCD Engineering Graduates Association. Our purpose is to assist and promote UCD as a leading College of Engineering internationally in terms of Innovation Manufacturing Enterprise and Job Creation. We are examining our remit and our structures to deliver better on this purpose.

Pictured at the UCD EGA Debate were L-R:

P.J. Rudden President of UCD EGA,

Dr. Bridgid Laffan Professor of European Politics UCD,

Dr. Eckhard Lübkemeier German Ambassador,

Professor Gerry Byrne Dean UCD Engineering, Dr. Brian Sweeney,

 Stephen Donnelly TD and Debate Chair Pat Kenny.

UCD is a unique Engineering College in Ireland in having Civil, Environmental, Chemical, Mechanical, Electrical, Energy,  Electronic and Biosystems Engineering integrated in the one College on the same campus

In March 2013 the EGA  will publish our 5 Year Strategy Plan 2013 - 2018 to assist UCD in a new Development Plan for Engineering Innovation. We want all of our Members and Graduates to bé part of this new Vision for Engineering in UCD and will therefore consult widely on how best to achieve our aims.

Engineering is already the engine of growth in the Irish economy with our Pharma, ICT and Biomedical maunfacturing sectors leading our exports from FDI and indigenous companies. Our Engineers and Scientists from UCD and other third level colleges are leading this export drive towards recovery.

Newly Elected President of UCD Engineering Graduates Association

with graduates who attended AGM and Panel Discussion.

Front L-R: Elaine Johnson, Ashley O'Toole, Katie O'Neill and Angela Treanor

Back L-R: Warren Phelan, Roisin Bradford, Conor Delaney and John Finegan.

This blog will keep you informed as we chart our progress to meet the EU 2020 Strategy of a 'smart innovative and sustainable Europe'. Ireland's Presidency of the European Union in the first 6 months of 2013 will put us centre stage in the driving seat of growth and recovery.

Join us in this voyage of discovery and bé part of the growth of UCD Engineering into a powerhouse of Innovation and Enterprise in the European sphere. Be a 'Follower' of this blog and - better still -  join the Engineering Graduates Association and be a real part of the exciting journey with us.

The views expressed on this blog are my own personal views and do not necessarily represent the views of either the UCD Engineering Graduates Association or of UCD.